New Aluminum Mac MIni as audio source anyone?

I like the look of it but the price point is too close to the imac. Starting price of the mini server is 999 and you still need the accessories and an ipod/ipad/monitor for display. You can get an imac for 1100 and it uses an 3.5 drive allowing you to put in a 2g hard drive for 300 bucks. They almost cost the same and you get more storage and a nice screen with the imac.

The new Mac mini is a crafty bit of engineering, but its not enough to make me replace my current model. I wish they could have found a way to cram an i5 in there, even if it meant retaining a taller case. I'd also welcome eSATA. I love my mini, but it's still CPU and HD limited. I'm booting from a FW800 drive now. As quality SSDs get cheaper, I plan to replace the internal drive with one, using it for boot and scratch, while using the external drive for storage. 

It says mac mini starts at 699?

I dont like that the power supply is internal I like to run my macbook pro and mac mini with linear power supplies

Quote:

Originally Posted by KingStyles 

I like the look of it but the price point is too close to the imac. Starting price of the mini server is 999 and you still need the accessories and an ipod/ipad/monitor for display. You can get an imac for 1100 and it uses an 3.5 drive allowing you to put in a 2g hard drive for 300 bucks. They almost cost the same and you get more storage and a nice screen with the imac.

Well, that includes Snow Leopard Server, which is normally $500 just for the OS. It drops the optical drive to fit a second hard drive which can be a soft RAID-0 or RAID-1. It's meant as a server for a small workgroup. That makes the $999 Mac mini a different product entirely. 

It is different. For me that is the only configuration that can support the hard drive space that I would want. With two drives you can put in two 1tb 2.5 drives in it to get 2tb of space. That would raise the price even more. The 699 version has a max capacity with todays technology of 1tb. I prefer the extra tb for future expansion. In the end it comes down to how much space you want. If you need 2tb than an imac will be cheaper, but if you are fine with 1tb and lower than the imac is a good fit for the cost.

Why?
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kawai_man 

It says mac mini starts at 699?

 

I dont like that the power supply is internal I like to run my macbook pro and mac mini with linear power supplies

It really depends. My trusty iMac G5 died on me (popped caps) the other week after years of perfect service and I had to replace it ASAP. I had planned on getting a mini before since I wasn't exactly happy with the all-in-one solution after a couple of years - so I was glad to see Apple upgrade the mini and got it straigth away. It is significantly more expensive than the previous model, so you really have to see on whether being able to bring your own display is worth it to you over the superior power of the iMac or the versatility of a Macbook Pro (we like our FireWire here).

In terms of audio - well sure! This mac is extremely compact and virtually silent. The room it sits in is quite hot and humid right now and almost silent. I can hear a slight whizz sitting about foot away from the mac. Likely the HDD or the fan or both. Compared to the iMac this thing doesn't exist, noise-emission-wise. I can eastily hear the backlight of my screen hum over if. I did not manage to trick OS X 10.6 into not putting the inactive audio hardware to sleep after a while (any hints? I don't know if KeepSoundAwake works with 10.6) so I currently have it hooked the AQVOX via USB. You get an HDMI->DVI adaptor along with the mini, so you can hook it up to whatever you wish. Just be sure to get yourself a proper FireWire 800->400 adaptor (i.e. one with a cable, not the junky "plug style" ones) if you have FW400 devices.

I'm looking into building an HTPC which will essentially be a front-end, connected to some sort of NAS with all my music in lossless and via HDMI to the TV for iTunes and watching hi-def YouTube (I'm not interested in ripping DVDs and BluRay as I have a dedicated player) and I keep going back to this since it was announced, even though it would cost a fair bit more than SFF PC. 

The fact I wouldn't have to faff-about to get bit perfect, it's quiet, it's small(!), it'll connect to my TV via HDMI and looks way better than all the mini ITX cases is moving the scales in it's favour. Argh. When you add a DAC, amp and speakers.. £££..... but I can always get it bit by bit!