[StereoNut]

I am a longtime Mac user from the print industry and an audiophile, but I've never have attempted to put together a Apple front-end for a 2-channel system. Before I contemplate it or even more important, throw $$$ at it, I want to know if/how I can possibly re-purpose any of my old Mac stuff.

Here's what I have laying around:

1) Very Old 21" iMac
2) Very Old Mac Mini
3) Ancient silver cheese-grater Mac tower
4) 3TB backup drive
5) 2 TB backup drive
6) Assorted keyboards, mice, etc...

It's OK to tell me that it's a useless pile of junk... just be KIND about it! 

Thanks,
SN

[Doublej]

It's probably not a useless pile of junk.

Define very old. What year are they from? A friend just gave me a late 2010 imac that is working great! So is the first gen magic mouse and Bluetooth keyboard. For me it's an upgrade from a mid-2008 imac.

I now have a full 1080p screen. Only downside is the DVD drive doesn't work. Spins up a few times when I insert a disc and then spits it out.

[avta]

Should be quite possible. What is your budget for the audio part? Do you want an all in one unit ? ( amp, preamp, dac ) or seperate pieces? 

[jaywills]

First question you might want to ask about your old Macs is what is the most recent OS will it/they run?  I run a Mac front end and have a bunch of old Macs, too.  If you’re thinking about running any playback software besides iTunes (I use Audirvana-no affiliation), that will be a limiting factor.  I use a large i7 iMac on my main rig and an i7 Mac Mini downstairs. Good luck!

[Doublej]

First question you might want to ask about your old Macs is what is the most recent OS will it/they run?  I run a Mac front end and have a bunch of old Macs, too.  If you’re thinking about running any playback software besides iTunes (I use Audirvana-no affiliation), that will be a limiting factor.  I use a large i7 iMac on my main rig and an i7 Mac Mini downstairs. Good luck!

You may be pleasantly surprised at the answer. Google "dosdude1".

[dB Cooper]

I have similar questions to Doublej as to what "very old" means. It would help to have some specifics. If it's 'PowerPC'-old, maybe even older Intel mac, you may want to run a suitable Linux on it rather than an older MacOS that is unsupported for security updates etc,. I'd also be leery of an original HD on a very old machine. Even though your data is external, you might want to consider a preemptive HD replacement to avoid later problems (they're cheap). Since you dont need a lot of internal storage, maybe even a small-capacity SSD.

You should be able to put together a great music delivery system this way. I'd probably opt for the Mac Mini. It will be the most unobtrusive. You don't need all that much computing power (by today's standards) for what you want to do and you can run it 'headless' (no display) and control everything from a smartphone or tablet.

[avta]

What version of Mac OS is on the Mac Mini and iMac?

[StereoNut]

My bad!    In my haste to get some feedback, I posted this thread without doing my homework. I will try to check software versions on each machine when I have some time.

Thanks & sorry!

SN