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Apple's new M1 Mac Mini as source (misses out on silent operation)

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mononoaware

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You should get a good 5 years or more out of it.

I recently read up that the Mac Mini model in particular got at least 6 years official support for Mac OS (2014 model, article was written in June 2020 with BigSur as latest version).
And I am aware that Apple continues just the "security updates" for many more years as well.
(At least in my experience with Airport Express & Apple TV 3)

Of course all this is assuming the hardware lasts that long.

The Mac Mini will be much more capable, polished, plug and play, and expensive :)

Yes and it is a matter of deciding if it is personally worth it. I think it is.
I can only say when "buying everything separate" and the hassle of going through the setup + return/replacement process when any of the single devices has issues.
I would rather pay extra for 1 all-in-one engineered device, and taking it back once to one place if there are any issues.
 
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tgray

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Yeah, I say you should get 5 years easy. I mean who knows if something breaks, etc., but Apple should support it for many years. At some point, even after they stop, if you just use it for playing music, it should be fine for many years. If you depend on some of the newer features that Apple builds into the OS (syncing features, etc.) you might feel more pressure to upgrade at some point, probably around 5-6 years in my experience.
 

Jhify

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I got the M1 macbook Air. warmest core rarely goes past 50 degrees celsius with intensive logic pro use. It's quite surreal. I bet the mini will never make a noise.
 
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Get an Intel NUC

I have been a Windows user since the beginning. Never used a Mac (Mac OS).
However something tells me if using the computer "headless" with the corresponding tablet Remote App, the Mac will be a smoother experience. . .
 
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I got the M1 macbook Air. warmest core rarely goes past 50 degrees celsius with intensive logic pro use. It's quite surreal. I bet the mini will never make a noise.

Yes I assume the fan is there for moments of extreme stress, and to squeeze every last drop out of the M1 Processor.

I am aware in the past a lot of Mac Mini sales were common among those using them for servers. . .
So I think this is where Apple decided to keep the fan installed in the design.
 
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Jhify

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I have been a Windows user since the beginning. Never used a Mac (Mac OS).
However something tells me if using the computer "headless" the Mac will be a smoother experience. . .

True that. Nobody talks about it, but apple pushing ARM tech will have a huge beneficial impact on the carbon print of data centers.

I'm biased but I used both daily and sometimes windows makes me want to smash my laptop into the wall. Give it a go. MacOs is quite intuitive and flawless for basic use. Plus when I go back to my 11th gen i7 everything seems laggy compare to M1.
 
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I'm biased but I used both daily and sometimes windows makes me want to smash my laptop into the wall. Give it a go.

I might if the current ancient Windows machine (with Windows 10) I am currently typing on expires.

To be frank Windows has been treating me well.
Occasionally Windows Update break's something, and the odd Driver does the same (blue-screen of death happened to me a few days ago).
But I am quick to catch on to what exactly caused the issue and fix it straight away.

Apart from that I am happy (with very basic use/function) of Windows. I even sync all my iOS devices with iTunes for Windows and it's all fine and dandy. Works exactly how I expect it would on Mac OS.

My only 2 experiences with Mac OS:

- Once a distant family member had an ancient iMac, I tried checking my email on it and got the rainbow circle of death (it froze on the rainbow wheel cursor) I was not able to check my email ha-ha-ha
- family member with Macbook tried to share their Photograph's with me, I plugged the USB drive into Windows machine, could not read the data on the USB drive. failure to share photo's ha-ha-ha
 
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Jhify

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I might if the current ancient Windows machine (with Windows 10) I am currently typing on expires.

To be frank Windows has been treating me well.
Occasionally Windows Update break's something, and the odd Driver does the same (blue-screen of death happened to me a few days ago).
But I am quick to catch on to what exactly caused the issue and fix it straight away.

Apart from that I am happy (with very basic use/function) of Windows. I even sync all my iOS devices with iTunes for Windows and it's all fine and dandy. Works exactly how I expect it would on Mac OS.

My only 2 experiences with Mac OS:

- Once a distant family member had an ancient iMac, I tried checking my email on it and got the rainbow circle of death (it froze on the rainbow wheel cursor) I was not able to check my email ha-ha-ha
- family member with Macbook tried to share their Photograph's with me, I plugged the USB drive into Windows machine, could not read the data on the USB drive. failure to share photo's ha-ha-ha

macs used to be overpriced heaters. I started my career with them because it was very easy to get all the softwares and plugins "for free" but otherwise they were not very good computers. M1 is a game changer.
NTFS can't be read on mac, APFS can't be read on PC. Only FAT can be used to transfer data from one to another. Maybe your usb stick wasn't on FAT format.
 
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Only FAT can be used to transfer data from one to another. Maybe your usb stick wasn't on FAT format.

It was family members USB drive. So I guess they had it formatted to "Mac only" file system.
Maybe it was the actual image file type, it was very long time ago. . .
 
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True that. Nobody talks about it, but apple pushing ARM tech will have a huge beneficial impact on the carbon print of data centers.

I'm biased but I used both daily and sometimes windows makes me want to smash my laptop into the wall. Give it a go. MacOs is quite intuitive and flawless for basic use. Plus when I go back to my 11th gen i7 everything seems laggy compare to M1.

By "smoother experience" I mean specifically the interaction between iPad Remote App and Mac Mini and Mac Mini's OS stability & security, but I understand what you mean by carbon impact, the Apple MX chips will use less energy overall for the processing power produced.
 
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Finally, anyone who uses an Intel mini headless as a server should get one of those $10 HDMI dummy plugs for it too, because if there's nothing plugged into the HDMI port, graphics acceleration will be disabled, resulting in dog-slow performance for many tasks, including the remote screen-sharing necessary to control and administer the computer. I don't know if M1 minis have this same issue or not.

From what I discovered online, it seems the $10 HDMI dummy plug is still required with M1 Mac Mini for full GPU function.
This is particularly needed for remote screen-sharing which sends Mac display output to the iPad via WiFi etc.
If using just the iOS remote App (iTunes remote/Jemote) to control the audio player maybe it is not necessary, but I would probably still recommend it so Mac OS has full speed and functionality for background tasks.
$10 is little price to pay for that peace of mind.

Also for others thinking of using the M1 Mac Mini “headless”, the following article may be useful:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252820522
After playing around a bit, the primary limiting factor is FileVault itself.
With FileVault disabled, the headless experience seems to be as expected.
 
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Marc v E

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I used a mac mini for desktop use for quite some years and then intended to use it as a music server.
The mini was silent when reading from harddisk but loud when ripping cds.
At the time I chose a Nas over the mac mini as a music source, because using the mac as musicserver with an airport express was not possible anymore. Apple just dumped the idea in favour of itunes running locally.

Personally, I didn't see the point of running a computer all the time on my desk or as an hifi component, so I opted for a Nas. By the way: optical out sounds just as good as any cdplayer. It's just the noise of ripping/playing cds and the unused cpu power plus the extra electricity used that stopped me. Plus the mac's display output needs an adapter and works with a different screen ratio than your tv. In short: I found out it will look slightly odd/fuzzy. Then there's the keyboard and mouse which need to be wireless and don't feel that great when you're sitting on a couch. You get the idea: it was made for a desktop setup.

I am quite new to a raspberry pi but I love it.
Its the equivalent of an airport express with added security that there are always people willing to maintain the software and add extra features.
Second hand Logitech squeezebox might be an idea too: it should work fine out if the box with a nas and a control app.
 
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but loud when ripping cds.

I will not be ripping CD’s while playing music.
I have a separate Windows 10 computer for ripping/archiving/backup of audio files.
I but CD’s very slowly, so I am willing to transfer audio files to M1 Mac Mini audio player via exFAT USB drive.

I didn't see the point of running a computer all the time on my desk or as an hifi component,

I was planning on setting the Mac to auto-sleep after 15 mins of idle. Maybe I should have put “headless” in the post title.

Then there's the keyboard and mouse which need to be wireless

I will be using either iTunes remote App/JRemote App for iOS, and control just the music player from iPad.

I think how I approach the use of M1 Mac Mini is a bit different.
It will be used strictly as a source audio playback device.
I do not plan to use it as a “computer” system.
It might be overkill yes, but I am willing to pay more for minimal maintenance and added security.
Regarding power consumption I think M1 chip will help to reduce it by noticeable amount (when powered on).
 

tgray

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My non-M1 mini usually hovers around 40-50W when using (streaming, web, etc) and much less when it is just sitting there. I don't have it go to sleep, but it clearly goes into a lower power mode after a period of no use, because I see some of the USB peripherals go into standby.
 
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