[Gopher]

I currently have a DAC that is said to sound best when used with a computer handling up-sampling to 88.2khz and am additionally contemplating a DAC for the future which is USB only, which leads me to consider selling my beloved Bolder Cable modified Squeezebox Touch setup in favor of a Macmini based music server.

I already have Pure Music which is great, but doesn't seem to play nicely with most of my FLACs.  Is there a particularly easy way to batch convert my entire library to apple lossless without screwing up all my id3 tags.

I also want to be able to control it with my macbook pro, ipad and android tablet as needed--is setting it up as a slave to the macbook pro difficult?

I would want to mostly optimize it for audio playback by pure music, but want netflix, mog and some of the slick apple tv type stuff in the mix.

Is this a sound move?  I'd eventually modify the mini to use an outboard psu, but would initially just use a voodoo adapter and power cable I have on hand for it.

[roscoeiii]

Hey Fred,

I love my headless Mac Mini (well not entirely headless, I do have video running to my TV). But it works great thru Screen Sharing to my MacBook and iPhone. Once the Mini is on your internet network, it'll appear in the Finder screen of the MacBook and you just need to click "Share Screen." Very simple (with maybe a permissions tweak here or there).

I believe that Max will allow the conversion to Apple Lossless.

For me, I went with Fidelia for music playback. Doesn't run thru iTunes and no problems at all with FLACs. When I was looking into playback software, I found Computer Audiophile forums to generally be the most helpful.

Not sure if you are going new or used on the Mac Mini, but I would get one that has an Intel chip, and 4GB of RAM at least. The Mac Minis prior to the aluminum unibody models all have an external power supply already, which might save you some money down the road. Not sure how unibody vs. non-unibody models compare for audio otherwise.

[Gopher]

Thanks Roscoe,

I have an older macbook pro and don't have the newest version of mac os--the one before it.   Will that still appear in my finder?

I was about to use amex points to purchase an i5 w/ 4gbs of ram in a unibody.  I plan to upgrade the ram to 8gb almost immediately. 

I never liked itunes, but enjoy the Genius feature.  Is Fidelia a free application?  Will it do the computer based upsampling to 88.2khz?