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In Reply to: Fanless headless mini-iTX music server with Juli@ - chipset/driver issues with VIA? posted by Dave in gva on April 10, 2007 at 03:38:51:
Dave,First the Via boards are pretty cheap, slow and are not the quietest of units. What I mean is that even though you cannot hear it, it is the one of the most nasty in the way it delivers power thoughout the unit. The number of DCDC supplies are killers to the sound. ESPECIALLY if you use an internal card. Man it killed the Lynx l22 to the point I thought the thing was bad.
I have 8 computers here now and my suggestion would be a Mac Mini also put a 250-350gb fire wire pedastal drive underneath. The mac over all the pc's either linux, XP or even Vista always sound better. Also it takes such less hassle getting there and keeping it running.
Thanks
Gordon
J. Gordon Rankin
Follow Ups:
Thanks for your comments Gord.I will admit the Lacie/Mac Mini stack looks sexy.
Still, I can configure a fanless mini-ITX system for less money and that includes the Juli@ soundcard.
What I take from your post is that the VIA chipset/boards in particular appear to create a large amount of electrical noise within the computer enclosure. However, my plan is to output to my DAC from the optical out on the Juli@.
Surely this makes any potential EMI in the PC a moot point doesn't it?
I mean, there are well documented configs for getting bit perfect audiostream throughput with the Juli@. If I tap into this via optical why would I care what kind of electrical noise is getting generated in the PC box?
Hoping I'm not overlooking something,
Dave,The critical part is the Juli will be subjected to massive crap. Therefore the SPDIF will suffer. Not to mention the fact that Toslink sucks as it is.
I would suggest getting a card that has a BNC SPDIF if that is what you want. Also make sure your dac has a transformer coupled input.
Thanks Gord,Another issue is I'm deep into PC-based software. This includes a great ripping program dBpoweramp Reference, a super cool configuration with Foobar2000 plus my entire catalog of other softs.
I have heard/read somewhere that Macs had made some serious efforts to allow people to run PC softs on a Mac platform but am not sure what the status is on that. I do seem to recall many years ago they also provided some kind of PC emulation mode but it seemed quite anemic from what I recall hearing. Have things really changed or is there still a noticeable performance hit?
Best,
Dave,A MAC will always work better than a PC. 99% of all recording studio's use MAC's. Why because they work and work really well. They come with everything and don't give you fits all day long.
Most PC software sucks. I know I use to write the damn stuff.
I have a ton of customers who used PC's. Then they got a mac and were shocked at how much better it sounded and worked.
Well, it's true that many studios usa a Mac, but the reason for this is that the most popular professional suite is ProTools which has long been subsidized by Apple and they only make a Mac version.I talked to a Protools developer last year who told me they were making a PC version of the product, but Apple gave them a bunch of money to stop development.
It's not that the pro world are such fanboys for Macs, it's that they don't have an option when using Protools.
With Macs running Intel chips now, there is no difference in the quality of software between Mac and PC. They are both subject to the eccentricities of the architecture.
Gordon, show me proof of this that 99 percent of recording studios use Macs. You make very bold statements that need to be backed up by fact, not because you say so. Most PC software sucks? In what arena are we talking about here, video, music, games, ETC..... Seems to me that most pro software is written for PC not MAC's. ( Im speaking on music ) By the way, what softwares did you write for PC's, music by chance?
Given that the MAC Mini are now based on Intel Core 2 Duo processors, couldn't you boot WinDoze on it and run PC applications natively?Spike
Currently, Mac OSX is codenamed "Tiger" and is 10.4.9. Boot Camp is a free download and it's in Beta 2 form. It now runs Vista. In a month or two Mac will release "Leopard" which is OSX 10.5 and it will have the official release of Boot Camp included.With boot camp you can run XP or Vista and you select the OS at boot up. Also, you can buy a program called "Parallels" that runs on the Mac and runs Windows in a virtual machine so you can switch between the two without rebooting. They have a new version that actually runs Windows programs on the Mac desktop without have to switch to a Windows desktop.
However, the Mac has some good programs to rip CDs and play FLAC files, but most Mac users rip in iTunes to ALAC and use it to playback as well. There's nothing wrong with iTunes and there is a rumor that FLAC support will be added soon. If you use an Mini and iTunes for your music server you can use the included remote control to control iTunes too.
I've never used a Mac before getting the Mini, but it's easy to use and works great. There is a 500 Gig version of the external drive that fits under the Mini too.
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