The company was really quick in getting back to me that while on the mac mini I can send itunes to the mrendu I cannot send say youtube audio. I am considering an Ayre Codex that has both toslink and USB. I suppose I could hook the toslink up for general playing, or again say the wife is on the computer so anything she plays comes out of the toslink to the Codex no fuss.
If I also had the USB of the Ayre hooked up to the mrendu, and I played something on a mrendu Mode player when I am on the mac (sometimes I just want to play something quick so the computer is on; but I might as well point it to the mrendu since I am using a player), I wonder if the mac will still try and send audio out of the toslink. I suppose if the Ayre is switched to the USB output then it doesn’t matter; but I am wondering if this is my solution and you or anyone else sees a problem with it or perhaps has a similar setup.
I have no experience of the AYRE CODEX itself, but what you say about the 'output' selector (as with other DACs) makes sense and what the Mac does would not matter in terms of output.