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Computer for my HI-FI system: advice needed

Gary,

If we did just hardware upgrades I would agree, but we do extensive software mods. Should the R&D, and time to put those on the machine be free? Our software mods take hours to run. One mod of the software mods by itself, takes over an hour.

At the RMAF show in Denver we ran against a modified MacMini. While it had pretty much the same hardware mods, our setup sounded much better. As a result we ended in two rooms at the show. http://www.avguide.com/blog/tas-rmaf-steven-stone-digital-and-new-technologies

Darrell
Mach2 Music
 
Then your next project for R&D should be to discover how to image a drive and restore an image to another hard drive.

There is no reason why you'd "apply software mods" to each machine you ship.
 
dmccombs said:
Gary,

If we did just hardware upgrades I would agree, but we do extensive software mods. Should the R&D, and time to put those on the machine be free? Our software mods take hours to run. One mod of the software mods by itself, takes over an hour.

At the RMAF show in Denver we ran against a modified MacMini. While it had pretty much the same hardware mods, our setup sounded much better. As a result we ended in two rooms at the show. http://www.avguide.com/blog/tas-rmaf-steven-stone-digital-and-new-technologies

Darrell
Mach2 Music
Click to expand...
What hardware mods were done to the macmini? Short of increasing memory and hard disk size, I wouldn't have thought there was much you could do, given the space.
 
avole said:
What hardware mods were done to the macmini? Short of increasing memory and hard disk size, I wouldn't have thought there was much you could do, given the space.
Click to expand...

You are correct. We swap our the SSD (which most customers don't want to tackle themselves), upgrade the memory (easy), and set people up with great sounding hard drives and accessories. Some of our customers prefer to do these themselves and then send the MacMini to us for the software upgrades. That's fine.

The great value in our service is the software mods. People could spend 100s of hours doing research, tweaking, testing, and get ~75% of what we do. Or they can get our service and save lot of time and get a more comprehensive set of mods.

If people enjoy researching and tweaking, that's great. They can get very good results. We help the folks who want to save lots of time and get top notch results.

Darrell
Mach2 Music
 
I'm wondering if any of those mods make any improvements beyond bumping up your audio player's priority in the scheduler.
 
deltaunit said:
I'm wondering why a genuine service doesn't state what it actually changes.
Click to expand...

???
We have an ordering page that shows ALL our prices.

Anyway, I just popped in to answer a few questions. If people want further info, feel free to checkout the website or e-mail us.

Darrell
Mach2 Music
 
ummaya said:
I have decided to go the way of computer audio instead of buying an expensive high quality CD player.

My present system consists of : a preamplifier + an amplifier + a pair of speakers + a DVD player + a 42 inch LCD TV. I will buy and add a DAC and a computer dedicated only to my 'music center' (on which I will have a software like J.River MC or Foobar installed)
A month ago I purchased a brand new computer to replace my 5 years old rig which is now in my living room; I thought to use the old computer as the dedicated computer for my music center but it is too much noisy. Loud Rock and Roll music or symphonic music may cover the noise of the computer but I cannot imagine myself listening to any quiet music, specially not piano sonatas or any solo instrumental music with the computer's noise in the background.

One of my friend suggested a ASRock Ion 330HT as a quiet computer but in several forums I have read many posts of people complaining about the noise level of the 330HT. I need your advice to help me choose a computer as quiet as possible (my budget more or less $450)
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ummaya

Using a PC instead of a CD player will give you convenience at the expense of sound quality.

I heard a MacBook Pro linked to a pair of ADM9s whilst out in Spain a few weeks ago. The system was neat, looked good, had WAF and was easy to use.

The sound was OK but it was well below the sound of decent Hifi.

You may be better off going for something such as a Naim Uniti which is purpose made for the job.


Regards

Mick
 
You'll have to factor in the cost of a decent sound card for the PC , otherwise it wont sound very good , the sound card makes or break it... A MAC mini is the route to go , heard one , souds great , easy to use ..job done for less than £1K
 
Mick Parry said:
ummaya

Using a PC instead of a CD player will give you convenience at the expense of sound quality.

I heard a MacBook Pro linked to a pair of ADM9s whilst out in Spain a few weeks ago. The system was neat, looked good, had WAF and was easy to use.

The sound was OK but it was well below the sound of decent Hifi.

You may be better off going for something such as a Naim Uniti which is purpose made for the job.


Regards

Mick
Click to expand...

Nothing to do with the PC/Mac Mick, it's just providing the same files as a CD transport does, the poor quality you heard was either the DAC or the speakers.

There's no need to go for Naim's overpriced gubbins-in-a-box, unless you're minted of course and then it doesn't matter I suppose.
 
It seems to me this makes the most sense for the money: Vortexbox. The software is open source and thoroughly tested by many programmers and users. Install the free software on a middling PC (or even a Mac), or buy a ready-to-play box here: buy a preconfigured box. I would install the server software on an Atom processor-based silent PC.

I am not a shill or a vendor, and I work with PCs, Macs and Unix every working day. It just seems absurd to me that anyone would choose to spend so much on a music server these days, when something like a Vortexbox can work well for a few hundred dollars/quid. And it's even more absurd to spend a lot, when faced with the rapid changes in music server technologies. Right now you can buy a server that consumes a fraction of a "normal" PC's power, uses free software with industrial-strength protection against attacks and viruses, and is relatively easy to use, especially after it's set up.
 
prowla said:
A used (dual-core) Mac Mini with iTunes would suffice - you don't need the latest model for music (and video - it could replace your DVD player too).
A decent DAC would come in handy too.
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AVI said:
Absolutely and they sound so good from the analogue output, you have a reference against which to judge an add-on DAC you may buy.

I've had one for four years now and have a 320 Gig HD in it and 2 Gig of ram, it's a 1.6 Gig dual core intel model. It's connected to the TV and mostly controlled by Rowmote in the iphone 4, but I have a wireless keyboard and mouse as well.

I use it to store Movies, Photos and Music and to stream as well for my second system in the sitting room.

Ash
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Prowla / AVI, May I know which older Mac Mini do you recommend? There are several versions of Mac Mini.

The earlier Mac Minis G4 launched in 2005 have a 1.25GHz-1.33GHz processor and an ATI Radeon 9200 graphics processor.

The current Mac Minis introduced in 2006 have a 1.5GHz-1.83GHz Intel Core Duo processor while those introduced from 2007 onwards have a 2.0GHz-2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with NVidia Geforce 9400M graphics processor.

Which version do you own?

Thanks in advance.
 
I diy'ed my own, ASUS P6T WS PRO Motherboard , ati all in wonder video card for bluray playback, pioneer bluray read/write drive, i7 quad core processor, M audio 1010lt soundcard, 2TB internal harddrive, all in a thermaltake housing.
OS is windows xp, plan on going W7, easier for the home network.
The unit is as a server hooked up via wireless network to other computers in the house.
For bluray playback I use windvd 10, all audi playback via foobar.

For safety I back up on an exterior hd.
I am planning to use the machine also for real time sound processing with something like
"juice audio lens". I had the behringer 2496 deq before, but I like the concept of having everything in a compact box.

For ripping Lp's I am using "play it again", and convert to flac.
I do not clean up the LP sound, the snap crackle pop is only audible on lead in/out tracks.

The spdif out from the machine is directly routed to hypex AS 2.100 class D amps.
The amps are build into the backs of kef 104 2, one acting as master amp feeding the slave via spdif and a diy subwoofer in compound loading analog into a bash amp.

For that set up I sold all my bryston amps (multi amped system, bryston preamp etc,)and I do not suffer withdrawal symptoms.
I find the sound quality as good as before, with the exception when I play very loud, over 100 db at the listening position, the amps will go into thermal shutdown. After all, they only have about 200W output combined instead of the previous 600 or so.

I have ripped all my cd's - about 2k, and will over the next year transfer all of my Lp's - so far I have managed only about sixty or so.

The cd's will go into storage, just in case.
As soon denser flash storage or other non electro mechanical storage comes available - that will be used instead hard drives.
 
ryder said:
Prowla / AVI, May I know which older Mac Mini do you recommend? There are several versions of Mac Mini.

The earlier Mac Minis G4 launched in 2005 have a 1.25GHz-1.33GHz processor and an ATI Radeon 9200 graphics processor.

The current Mac Minis introduced in 2006 have a 1.5GHz-1.83GHz Intel Core Duo processor while those introduced from 2007 onwards have a 2.0GHz-2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with NVidia Geforce 9400M graphics processor.

Which version do you own?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Hi.
I don't recall which particular model mine is, but it is an Intel one (I mentioned dual core in my suggestion), and the audio output jack socket doubles up as an optical digital output (there is a digital plug that is physically similar to a mini-jack, but is plastic and has a hole in the middle for the light).
From my perspective, the audio out wasn't that great, but I run the digital to a Meridian AV controller and it is acceptable.
I use my Mac for movies more than music, and my kids also have a MIDI keyboard they use with Garage Band.
 
ryder said:
Prowla / AVI, May I know which older Mac Mini do you recommend? There are several versions of Mac Mini.

The earlier Mac Minis G4 launched in 2005 have a 1.25GHz-1.33GHz processor and an ATI Radeon 9200 graphics processor.

The current Mac Minis introduced in 2006 have a 1.5GHz-1.83GHz Intel Core Duo processor while those introduced from 2007 onwards have a 2.0GHz-2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with NVidia Geforce 9400M graphics processor.

Which version do you own?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Mine must be 2006 because it's an Intel dual core 1.6 Gig and I'd recommend this as the earliest to go for, because it'll run Snow leopard and can be kept up to date. Apple keep improving things, but not for the previous ones as I understand it.

Ash
 
Apples with PPC processors (G4, G5) will run OS X 10.4 (tiger) now superseded but still on support. (about 5 years old approx)

Apples with Intel cpu's will run OS X 10.5 (leopard) and 10.6 (snow-leopard) as well. It's worth running 10.5 at least imo, for the useful additional features and sound handling facilities.

The next version of OS X , 10.7 - Lion, is due for release in 2011, and there is integration with iOS ('phones, iPads, and iPods) to consider as well.

As usual it's best to run the latest version of the OS that is possible because it generally makes tasks easier to achieve.

Although Windows XP has its followers, particularly with older and low power computers, it's an awful kludge compared to current OS.

For the best and easiest results go for OS X on an Intel Apple, or Windows 7 on non Apple kit. Both have excellent sound quality and good facilities.

Don't take too much notice of Mick Parry, - he dis-approves of AVI loudspeakers and Ashley, and it makes his ears go funny as his blood pressure rises. ;)

JC.
 
Greg said:
is there anything wrong with commerce? Why should a commercial operation detail its IP? A customer can choose to buy or not buy.
Click to expand...

Customers can't make an honest choice without information and scams operate by providing dishonest information and a lack of details. I think you would agree scamming is wrong.
 
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