[El Bishop]

So I have been using a Macbook Pro --> Time Capsule --> Airport express combo for wireless delivery of AAC music to the airport express and then to the DAC in my Esoteric DAC/Amp. I have been relatively happy with the convenience of this setup (not discussing the sound or jitter here) but have been experiencing more dropouts lately. I live in an apartment and the Time Capsule is not very far from teh airport express but the dropouts come in waves and are very frustrating. I belive the Time Capsule is running on teh N protocol so thought dropouts wouldn't be as big of a problem as they are. Anyone else having this problem?

So as a solution, I am thinking of using a "headless" mac mini with external hard drive as my music server. I could still send music over my wireless network to the mini but wouldn't rely on the wireless trasnfer to actually play music. I have no problem with iTunes but would be willing to swtich to something else comprably priced to teh mac mini or to a different software if one is truly better.

And lastly, Is there any reason I need to have more than the basic configuration of teh mac mini? i.e., 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory vs. 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB memory. I suppose if I thought I might want to connect the computer to the TV and have one in teh living room too, might be worth the extra processor and RAM.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks,

EB

 

[kamcma]

Is your AirPort Express the newer N one or the older G one? Because if it's G, you're not getting the benefit of your N Time Capsule; it's reverting to G. G theoretically has plenty of bandwidth to stream music, but upgrading to N would have the benefit of more range and robustness.

I know that doesn't really answer your question about the Mini, but just a thought that could present a cheaper solution.

 

[cferneyh]

I actually did the exact same thing a couple of months ago. Originally I was streaming my music from my iMac to an AE. The AE then connected to my DacMagic which then connected to the speakers in our living room. While I loved the setup (I did this for about three years), the dropouts were highly, highly, annoying. It's not like they were all that frequent - maybe once every couple of hours - but it would drive me nuts. When I bought the Time Capsule I thought it would get better, but it didn't - so I decided to end my wireless streaming efforts.

I ultimately bought a bare bones Mac Mini (headless), put all of my music on an external hard drive and now the Mac Mini is my music server. I can control my music library using the Apple Remote app on my iPod touch, or I can share the Mac Mini's "screen" on my iMac (which is in a different room). Furthermore, I can stream the music from my Mac Mini to my iMac (which is what I do when listening to tunes with my headphones). Other than setting everything up the first time, I haven't had to connect a monitor to the Mac Mini again.

I'm confident there are less expensive solutions - and for a little while I was considering getting a netbook - but I just felt more comfortable going with the Mac Mini as I figured there would be better synergy with the iMac and I didn't want to deal with the hassle of different operating systems, etc.

Hope this helps you with your decision!

 

[Deadorphishing]

How did you set up the headless mini? I've seen a lot of pictures of headless minis in the various "post your rig pictures" threads, but not sure how people set them up initially.  Did you hook it up briefly to a monitor/keyboard, or is there a way to set it up without those things?
 
And, what happens if it goes down? If you restart it, does it require a monitor to get it synced up again to your iPod Touch or does it restart in "headless mode?"
 
Thanks!