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In Reply to: RE: Looking for opinion on spec for a new 2011 Mac mini. posted by Steve Jones on September 15, 2011 at 12:35:26
..I've the top of the line version w/ the built in CD reader. I only have the stock 2 GB of RAM, will get more soon, but after the music has been playing for a while I start getting drop outs. If I restart the thing it goes back to working fine. I'm feeding the signal thru a VLink and out to DAC via coax. So I'm not sure if it's jitter causing this but it seems to me if it was it would happen all the time. Sooo..I'm thinking more RAM is needed and I would certainly think a faster processor would be a boon too. But, again, I'm no expert on this.
Follow Ups:
Although more RAM can be beneficial overall, I don't think more memory or a faster processor will solve your "drop out" problem.
I have an older 2007 era Mac Mini 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 duo and 1GB RAM. It works perfectly with no dropouts. I did eventually upgrade it to 4GB.
I also have the mid 2010 Mac Mini 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 duo and 4GB RAM. This is the model that still has the DVD drive just prior to the most current design. It works perfectly too and I hear no difference between this one and my older 2007 model.
...and I use the USB port for my backup disk. ;-)
But still, DAVID's drop-out problem is unrelated to the speed of his CPU or the amount of memory he has. It's either an issue with his chosen USB port, the device attached to it, or his cable.
..is causing it? It only does it after it's been playing for quite a while. It doesn't matter if it's hi-rez or whether or not the upsampling is being used w/ Pure Music.
David,
Not all USB ports are created equal. Use the system profiler found in the utilities folder to find the USB port that is most direct and is not shared with other devices. Remember there are a ton of other devices inside.
Apple Icon-> About this Mac-> More Info will bring it up.
Select USB from the hardware list and it will show your device.
You can hit refresh ounce you have swapped the port.
More memory is advised and pretty cheap and easy to install.
Thanks
Gordon
J. Gordon Rankin
.
I'm new to Apple. That was a tip I needed. I 'see' the 2 usb ports on my macbook; one is fairly booked up on the buss with trackpad, bluetooth, keyboard and maybe other necessary stuff. The other just has an IR receiver on the buss, which I disabled (no use). So the usb dac will be going in the latter now by itself. I knew that was there somewhere, but hadn't figured out how to find it. U da man!
Hi Gordon,
Any opinions on clock speed or processor options on the 2011 Mac mini?
For audio use it doesn't matter. I use a 2006 core duo, NOT core 2 duo, iMac for music and it keeps up just fine. Don't get caught up on the speed of the processor or the ram. For that matter I only have 1gb of RAM in mine. I connect via wifi using Twonky media server to my Oppo 93. While it is being the server I can still do other things on my mac without impacting the sound.
The bitrate of CD audio is so low that it just doesn't matter. Hi-res is a little more demanding, but it JUST DOESN"T MATTER!!! You're talking Ghz processors handling Mhz sound. 16X44100x2 = 1.411mhz. 24x96 = 4.6mhz. They handle more than that while you type.
IF you are doing video processing or 3d rendering maybe you need the speed, but not for audio.
..two USB ports and two USB high speed ports. I'll switch to one of the high speed ones tonight after work and see if that works better. Thanks for the tip!
Thanks David.
I was thinking faster + better too. Wonder if the change from Intel i5 to i7 processor makes a difference?
I'm going to bump up the supplied 4GB memory to OWC or Crucial 8GB, and swap the 60GB OWC SSD from my existing mini.
I'll replace the original HD in my old mini and sell it.
...and put the drive I pulled from my Mini into it. It has the little card and powers off the USB.
My intention is to keep the internal SSD cloned onto this, and all the music files I have on an external drive cloned onto another 2TB drive I just bought.
This duplicates everything this music server has in memory, period (even though I think the chance of the internal SSD failing is remote, for $15, why not?).
Just a thought...Steve
Just my two cents as a avid computer user.
If you're just doing audio playback, the system shouldn't have much of an impact. Just the connections to the system, your drivers, and your operating systems bloat. ( The stuff enabled that you don't really need. )
You should only really care about the Processor speed and Ram if you're going to be doing extensive audio, video, or 3d editing.
Using Ableton on an old computer, when having many streams of sound playing, can bog the system down a bit, ergo having the fastest processor and ram would help for that sort of thing. But you can playback audio, as someone else mentioned, on systems that are 10-15 years old with zero issues, as long as all the connections are fine. ( Some machines that old wouldn't have the supporting Usb ect, but would still have the power required. )
Personally when I'm dropping over a thousand dollars, I prefer to be better safe then sorry. My Laptop has a core i7 in it and it's very nice. Also Macs cost a lot of money for the hardware that you get, so if you're already spending so much to get an i5, the upgrade imo would be worthwhile.
If you know for a fact that the system will be used only for audio playback, I would honestly look for a second hand model that's a few years old, as the usb port thing seems to be a valid issue that would far outweigh the benefits of the newest processors and ram.
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