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I spent some time listening to the Mac Mini with Rosetta and DCS, versus the Hackintosh with Rosetta and DCS yesterday with a customer. I don't think I had done this specific comparison before. I had previously compared them with the Empirical, or not side by side.

 

Unlike with the Empirical, the bass with the Mac Mini was articulate deep and had good slam.

 

The Mac Mini sounded hard, grainy and flat. At first it sounded OK, but as the listening went on the glare factor became more annoying. With the Hackintosh the sound was smoother, the glare and grain were gone and the images became solid with excellent depth perspectives.

 

It makes me wonder whether the guys on computeraudiophile have a clue what DACs like the Weiss DAC 202 really sound like as they are using standard Macs and (often) customised PCs.

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You might have posted this before sorry, but how is the mac mini configured?

OS on a solid state disk, music on an external drive?

 

And if so what is the external drive - USB or firewire?

 

Thanks

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Antipodes;126250 wrote:
The Mac Mini is totally standard with music on USB but has Amarra Mini. An SSD would improve it for sure. I will give a firewire hub a try so that I can connect the Rosetta and the music via firewire. I will also try loading a song onto RAM Disk and see how that goes.

 

on the EA forum someone was reporting a significant improvement running their mini in 64 bit mode?

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nixon76;126269 wrote:
Do you use a hub for your hackintosh too? or straight from a PCI/e card (which one do you use?)

 

With the Hackintosh I use a very good PCIe card for firewire, and external disks are on eSata - since that gives the best result.

 

With the standard Mini I can connect the Rosetta to it but the only ports left for the disks are USB.

 

So far, those are the comparisons and they are like comparing a $10k transport with a $1k transport.

 

I will probably try the firewire hub soon to see if that helps the Mini, but anything more intrusive and you might as well do it properly and make a hackintosh, rather than shoe-horn an SSD into the Mini. The only other thing I might try is a better external power supply, as I suspect it is not nearly as stiffly regulated as the ones I use in the hackintoshes.

 

With 8GB available on the new Mini, that might be a bit better - going from 4GB to 8GB on the Hackintosh was a big step. But the power supply inside is likely to be a retrograde step.

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Tigi;126270 wrote:
on the EA forum someone was reporting a significant improvement running their mini in 64 bit mode?

 

Yes, I like 64 bit too. Unfortunately it means things like using the iphone as a remote can't happen as I haven't found a wifi card for the hackintosh that works in 64 bit - but that isn't a concern for me.

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The mini power supply isn't a straight forward one - it supplies multiple voltages. There is info/products on the net from the put-a-mac-mini-in-a-car crew.

 

No need to have a wireless card in the Hack - as long as it hooked up to a network (wired) and that has wireless somewhere you're okay for the Remote app. Not sure if this applies to you, or if you even have your Hack 'on-net'.

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Antipodes;126250 wrote:
The Mac Mini is totally standard with music on USB but has Amarra Mini. An SSD would improve it for sure. I will give a firewire hub a try so that I can connect the Rosetta and the music via firewire. I will also try loading a song onto RAM Disk and see how that goes.

 

I've just had a thought - is the Mac Mini slaved to the apogee clock, or can you only do that with the hack?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Tone Audio #30 is out with a review of the Perfect Wave transport and dac. It's not a technically perfect review by any means, but a couple of parts grabbed my attention.

 

The reviewer thought that a high res 24/96 download played over USB sounded better than a flac file from the original CD played in the same way, but the original CD via the transport was better than either.

 

The reviewer doesn't detail what the USB cable was, or what the PC+player were. Looks like some of the magic has gone missing in the USB and/or PC setup.

 

The other interesting point has that he preferred high def media on the Perfect Wave transport+dac to ordinary CDs on an Esoteric stack (US$42k)

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kaka;126885 wrote:
is out with a review of the Perfect Wave transport and dac. It's not a technically perfect review by any means, but a couple of parts grabbed my attention.

 

 

 

The reviewer thought that a high res 24/96 download played over USB sounded better than a flac file from the original CD played in the same way, but the original CD via the transport was better than either.

 

 

 

The reviewer doesn't detail what the USB cable was, or what the PC+player were. Looks like some of the magic has gone missing in the USB and/or PC setup.

 

 

 

The other interesting point has that he preferred high def media on the Perfect Wave transport+dac to ordinary CDs on an Esoteric stack (US$42k)

 

Hmm, so a 24/96/HiRes setup sounds better than a 16/44 Esoteric stack? It would have been embarrassing for the industry otherwise methinks :rolleyes: Should Esoteric/dCS etc add the ability to play data discs (HRx/Chesky etc) will the computer audio camp have to start the sound battle all over again?

 

MSB have a data disc transport to go with their $$$ DAC - that can handle 32/384 all the way through. Wonder what that sounds like playing some 24/352 DXD music from 2L*?.

 

(I'm talking pure sound quality here, not the convenience of a pure "computer" setup, nor the cost!!)

 

* BTW for those wondering about BluRay Audio - 2L are releasing work on this format.

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Are people willing to stump up $20-30K+ for a high-end source that plays a limited range of high resolution material?

 

I'm not sure that the price of such technology will become accessible very quickly. Moores Law may not scale well here, in spite of what the wishful thinkers may hope for.

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Ernie;126893 wrote:
Are people willing to stump up $20-30K+ for a high-end source that plays a limited range of high resolution material?

 

 

Probably the same few who currently stump up for $$$ Esoteric/dCS/EMM stacks. Not many, but enough I imagine. These companies will need data disc players to stay relevant IMO.

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Ernie;126889 wrote:
The PS Audio stack is probably a quarter of the Esoteric price as well...

 

One seventh

The more interesting PS component is still to come - the ethernet bridge, and the bridge plus dac is probably cheaper than the PS transport+dac

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Ernie;126893 wrote:
Are people willing to stump up $20-30K+ for a high-end source that plays a limited range of high resolution material?

 

 

Nup, not when there are solutions for 1/2 to 1/4 that cost that deliver equally well, and maintain the ease of use that storing the data on hard drives allows for.

 

As Kaka notes, the most likely candidate from PS Audio is their Ethernet bridge. But there are, of course, other options. And I have been told by a retailer that the Sooloos system is getting a stripped down, sound quality oriented version. The "normal" Sooloos sounded pretty damn good running some new 800D's, and a range of Focal Utopia 3' when I heard it, and it compared well to a Continium analog source. Also heard a Berkley DAC with a squeezebox connected to it - that to was difficult to distinguish from the other considerably more expensive options.

 

The real world is advancing - there are people who need to accept that newer can be better, and of course, some people will hopefully accept that older technologies still hold their own set of merits.

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Until the world is painted with fibre, data disc still has some relevancy. 7gb for a DXD album is reasonably hefty download. Why let the size of available pipes dictate the resolution available? Data disc (for the short/mid term) avoids that issue. People are used to ordering discs (from overseas) anyway. Just a thought.

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kaka;126895 wrote:
One seventh

 

The more interesting PS component is still to come - the ethernet bridge, and the bridge plus dac is probably cheaper than the PS transport+dac

 

Definitely. The Bridge is a work in progress. There is a beta tester for the Bridge here in NZ, (not me unfortunately). But I'm hedging that it will be the price of a serious entry level compact disc player. Altogether, a PS Audio PWD + Bridge will be $10K. There's already about half a dozen PWD that have made it into NZ audio enthusiasts racks... So a Bridge will be the icing...

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too_tall;126896 wrote:
Nup, not when there are solutions for 1/2 to 1/4 that cost that deliver equally well, and maintain the ease of use that storing the data on hard drives allows for.

 

 

 

As Kaka notes, the most likely candidate from PS Audio is their Ethernet bridge. But there are, of course, other options. And I have been told by a retailer that the Sooloos system is getting a stripped down, sound quality oriented version. The "normal" Sooloos sounded pretty damn good running some new 800D's, and a range of Focal Utopia 3' when I heard it, and it compared well to a Continium analog source. Also heard a Berkley DAC with a squeezebox connected to it - that to was difficult to distinguish from the other considerably more expensive options.

 

 

 

The real world is advancing - there are people who need to accept that newer can be better, and of course, some people will hopefully accept that older technologies still hold their own set of merits.

 

It all boils down to whether you want to ride a hot rod or Maserati. Both kinds of options are available and everything in between.

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IMO the PWD's USP is the bridge, something that was announced just over a year ago, yet is still being tested? I smell the dreaded scope creep..... Personally I wouldn't buy a PWD until the bridge is actually shipping and has had a few trouble free months of operation in the wild.

 

It is the killer app though, so hopefully they get it out before someone else does.

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kaka;126895 wrote:
One seventh

 

The more interesting PS component is still to come - the ethernet bridge, and the bridge plus dac is probably cheaper than the PS transport+dac

 

Bridge is USD799, so yes Bridge and PWD will be cheaper than PWD+PWT.

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