[smeggy]

Given my tight budget and that I basically want a turnkey music system I was thinking of an older Mac Mini (1.25, 256Mb, 40Gb HDD) and a USB dac. I can get a mini for less than 400 clams and a Firestone USB DAC for about 150.

Is the mini (just as a music player) useable with 256 meg? I already have plenty of external storage so the drive size isn't an issue. Also, what is there that's decent in the way of media players (I dislike iTunes) that play a wide variety of formats? Lastly, is this a workable or good foundation of a PC-based music setup?

I don't really care about Mac's it's just the smallest and simplest setup that might fit the bill, but if you know of good alternatives that won't break the piggy bank....

 

[jwramp]

sorry, but what i've heard is that Mac OS X is close to inoperable (like it's way-slow) w/ 256mb, and that 512mb is highly recommended... i also recommend a bigger HD than 40gig, especially if you're gonna have lot's of music, and even more so if it's gonna be saved at high bitrates.
my two-cents
-jw

 

[Anilan]

Realistically, if all your are going to use the Mac Mini for is playing music, using 256MB of RAM is fine. Don't mind those other computer junkies

. As for alternate players, I can't recommend any that can offer an interface like iTunes. It's all I have really used on my iMac. I think I'll leave the suggestions to someone with more experience.

By the way, when I first got my iMac G4, it came with 256 MB of RAM. Honest from the bottom of my heart, running the web browser, playing from iTunes, and just the regular tasks, 256 MB can be enough.

 

[L01]

I also thought about a mac-mini with an external hd for some time.... but I kept my well-equiped pc with RME etc....

A better player "could" be the mplayer, which offers good quality with linux at least http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/dload.html

maybe vlc-player is also an option?

 

[Oliver :)]

If you're not doing anything else other than having it play music you could be fine with 256MB. It won't be zippy though. The mini is a pretty elegant solution for the purpose, especially since you can stack up visually matching external HDDs. I already have such a HDD, I just lack the mini

I guess I might pick up a used one with the next revision.