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Advice on best upgrade path for a Mac Mini setup

Hi all,

My beloved PWT transport was shipped out for service last week, so in the mean time I decided to experiment with the Mac Mini which usually resides in my 2nd system. It was no surprise that it doesn't even come close to the PWT, but it sounds OK, and now i'm curious as of what I can achieve with it without spending another $2K.

It's a stock Mac Mini about 2 years old with an SSD drive.
I'm using it to stream TIDAL Hi-Fi.
I have it hooked up to a Schiit Wyrd USB re-generator via a Pangea silver USB 2 cable, which in turn is feeding my DSD via a WireWorld Starlight 7 USB 2 cable.
My thinking was that the Mac-to-Schiit path will be less critical in terms of cables, as it gets regenerated anyway, but I'm open to listen and learn...
That "Wyrd Schiit" re-generator did make quite a noticeable positive impact when I hooked it up in my 2nd system.

My question is - what will be the best bang-for-the-buck upgrades? 

I guess the switching power supply is a weak link so I looked at Mojo Audio stuff and those prices seem unreasonable - they want more for their power supply than what I paid for my PWT (including its superb power supply).
Any other recommended power supply upgrade kits?
I'm good with DIY and can probably do the upgrade myself.

Perhaps go with much better cables? Better isolation? Better re-generator?
What did you guys try that proved to really do the "magic" for similar setups?
Perhaps it is a 'losing battle' and it will never sound nearly as good as my PWT without spending $2K in upgrades?

Thanks for your advice!

Ami

128x128ami
nmolnar
4 posts
 
You may wish to consider the Small Green Computer's SonicTransporter as a replacement for your Mac-based computer configuration scenarios. This work as a very flexible (audio) purpose build LINUX based computer for the application described. It is setup to work easily & seamlessly via web interface with the microRendu (these can be purchased as a pair from Small Green Computers). It can be configured with large amounts of solid sate storage (built-in) and USB drives can be attached to it directly to access your existing disk-based music libraries. Starting price for a smallest configuration is <$400.
I am using this configuration (SonicTransporter i5/microRendu)  with a 10 TB Synology NAS on a dedicated switched Gigabit network.
BTW, according to the Sonore website and my own experiments, an optical network does not work well with the microRendu.
randy-11
1,913 posts
 
the 2014-on mini's can output higher bit rates


whatever you do, be sure to do a blind test and if you hear no difference be sure you can return the replacement

I'd expect that there are several other areas that will make a much greater SQ improvement, likely suspects include:

speakers; room interface
better recorded source material
MQA
DEQX
DAC
sunandmusic
27 posts
 
A Mac Mini with the Uptone Audio board mod to 12V DC is worth the effort for sure. Then add SSD, more memory and power it from a decent LPS. Take out everything that is not needed, turn all software off that is not required. Turn off Bliuetooth and screen share it via a router. I use Audirvana+ latest version in Direct / Asnyc mode.
Coonect it to your DAC viua Ethernet, don’t use USB it is terrible as an audio medium. I use a Rednet 3 and it sound incredible, bears any CDP I have tried (at any price).
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