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In Reply to: Z-E-R-O difference sonically. posted by mac on November 2, 2005 at 13:10:59:
Seems to me that by starting with a blank slate, you are in the perfect position to let the application/solution drive the hardware/OS. Least this is what they used to teach us to do back when the world was young...One could argue that as opposed to the RIP software, the driving application is how you will control and access the library remotely - meaning that it works with Squeezebox.
As a Mac guy I would encourage you to consider the inherent goodness of having a carefully integrated package that brings together the RIP and the software management applications into one interface - ie iTunes. As a bonus iTunes gets along with Squeezebox just fine. It also lets you load your iPod, burn CDs etc. There is something to be said for convenience
IMHO the search for the ultimate db and integration of disparate packages is great if you have the chops and the time. If you don't, chances are that great sound and ease of use will trump the possibility of the ultimate solution. My unscientific guess is that there are a few people who are active posters here who truly enjoy all the fiddling and are rewarded by superb sound. Then there are the twenty million plus iTunes users who don't bother to post because it is dead easy and they are happy as can be...
Finally, if you can I would encourage you to use SATA for your drives rather then USB or Firewire. (Not sure that you can do this with a Mini) No more money and much more robust. Regardless of OS, given current prices and your intention to use wav or aiff I would not even bother with anything smaller then 300Gb drives. As I got into this I discovered that adding a new drive meant more money in enclosures and cables so the fewer units you have to build out the better. Don't forget to plan for a back up strategy...
BTW I have a G5 (I get that you don't need this, but I do) I run my Parts Connexion modified TriVista off the G5 digital optical output. (Like you this is what I had) I also run my modded Squeezebox 2 from the same library but do not have any nifty remote beyond what is provided by SLIM. The library resides on a Seagate 400 SATA drive - it is backed up to 200Gb Hitachi firewire drives which are the remnants of the previous system.
The only thing I can imagine improving is the local Squeezebox surfing experience. That said I tend to make up playlists and then just access those. And I am making increasing use of Internet radio via Squeezebox for my non-critical listening.
And I agree with Mac - at least technically there is no inherent reason that the bits coming back from one OS should sound at all different from the bits coming back from another... that said, attention to detail at every step (which is what you are doing) is the key to superior results
Follow Ups:
Since the MAC Mini is appealing for many reasons, is the risk of USB/Firewire drives one of robustness (i.e. drive failure??) If so, I would be willing to consider a SATA drive as a backup device, and leave the MAC MINI and external drives as the "daily driver."I do listen very little, about 10 hours per week at best, and usually concentrated in 3 listening sessions, the drives would otherwise be turned off.
I would definitely not rule out the Mini because of SATA. I should have said - given a choice... for instance if you build out a Win box its pretty trivial to add a SATA card in a PCI slot - and these are available for internal (so you can add the drive inside the tower) or external use. The new Mac boxes like my G5 all have SATA innards.It is not so much a matter of drive failure (its all the same manufacturers) as it is how easily it mounts (shows up on the desktop), how finicky the cabling is etc. After all before SATA there was only Firewire (leaving SCSI out of the discussion because its not relevant.) There are millions and millions out there so don't over think it. Take a look at www.macgurus.com for more SATA info. And www.granitedigital.com for firewire enclosures, premium cables etc
The Mini has Firewire 400 and USB 2.0 So you know, USB 2.0 is a much faster format - actually a bit faster then Firewire 800. However in this application - meaning audio - it is simply not an issue - both will do the job. If you also want to do photos and or video then go the USB 2 route. Either way you can daisy chain multiple drives. So make your best deal on a quiet enclosure and move on. And yes a fan is one key to longevity - though the fanless cases are tempting...
Realistically ripping a large library takes time. Enough time that investing a few hundred dollars to back it up on another hard drive makes sense.
xmasparty, USB2 has higher burst transfer rate. However, Firewire has higher sustainable transfer rate. You are right, for WAV it does not make any difference. For video, Firewire is a weapon of choice.
Bobp is correct, Firewire is the choice for very large files such as those typically found in digital video and photography. If this was a choice between USb2 and FW800, FW would be the clear winner - and is the de facto standard at most digital studios.But in the specific case of the Mac Mini, IMHO the much higher data rates make USB2 is a better choice for large files when compared to Firewire 400 which is what the Mini offers. (I am going to make a wild leap here and guess that anyone putting some photos on a Mini is not exactly pushing 100Mb multi-layer files down the pipe...)
Plus, from a pecuniary point of view, FW400 can safely be considered a dying standard while USB2 is the king of the hill - meaning a lot more choices and a lot more aggressive discounting.
For the purpose of serving music across an Ethernet connection the usb1 spec is more than sufficient. Given this, the added bandwidth of fire wire, usb2, sata is purely academic.And like I originally said, the OS platform and its supporting hardware has zero bearing on sound quality if one is running a Slimserver/SB.
it is true - but that is not what the Mini comes with...as for SATA - I will never go back to Firewire for anything but back-up - this has nothing to do with speed (which is nice but not necessary here) and everything to do with the fact that my devices behave like they are supposed to - FILO, FOLI, hard start, hard crash, makes no never mind
noise (if it's located in the same room), and size does....Remember, - it's not the hard drive that "plays" the music or even delivers it, - but the whole computer.
Our "Server" is in the basement. It has more to do with the amount of RAM memory + processor speed.
One can connect an Ethernet cable to the file server, - or use their airport as we do, - and have 1 gig of RAM powerbook G4 and a simple little 6 gig HD on an IBook or MAC Mini.
The hard drive is just a storage bin
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