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Of course these will be generalizations, but with that disclaimer in place I will try to explain the Mac Mini thing.
Mac: I think there are several reasons a lot of folks prefer Macs. One is that the quality and output of the parts are chosen for efficient synergy...no corners cut. This ensures an optimized machine without having to mess around. It also points to the value of support Apple places on its computing experience. If the quality is good and uniform, support is less needed, and simpler. Good parts synergistically integrated for the optimal computing experience is different than trying to make a computer as cheap as possible while appearing to be powerful as possible. Of course this is not always the case with stock Windows based machines, but very often it is.
Also, a lot of artists have long ago adopted the Mac platform. A foundation of the Mac that artists tend to be able to relate to is in how the computer and applications tend to be designed. With the Apple design protocol, for the system and applications, process is set up to be intuitively graspable by using our natural problem solving methods as integral priorities in software development. So traditionally there have been less frustrations in using a Mac, and this in turn makes artists like the tool, making it easier to be creative in an unimpeded natural way. So a lot of musicians and music lovers use Macs and therefore develop nice intuitive software and hardware tweaks in the platform. Also the System is easy to play with making optimization easy and user friendly.
Not that this does not happen with Windows gear and users, or that the same objectives can't be met with Windows gear. Just that it is a bit more of a given with Macs.
The most interesting thing I run into when helping friends who have shifted over to Mac is solving their deeply ingrained fear of computers. It usually takes a long while to get over the "you have performed an illegal exception causing a fatal error," or "you opened the wrong file and now your computer is way sick" psychology, and replace it with..."wow, I can figure this out and fix it myself, and this is sort of fun"...the creative interactive attitude as opposed to the oppositional/need to learn it or hire someone habit.
Mini: I doubt it was designed as a great music server, though this may have been considered. More likely, it was designed to be very small, quiet, powerful, and cool looking. In this small/powerful equation, efficiency is very important for small powerful parts. Using them throughout produces less heat, while tending to be inherently quieter.
Also, for the pleasurable use experience, the distraction of fan noise is not good. So the unit needs to cool passively for the most part and if there is a fan, it needs to be subtle, and therefore quiet. The solid aluminum body is the passive cooler that takes care of things for the most part, but this mass also makes it a very stable vibration-wise, and as we all know, vibration and sensitive electronic gear designed for great music are not compatible. Also there is the electronic noise shielding from this solid aluminum body. And finally, differentiating it from a well made laptop, it has no monitor or keyboard on board, further simplifying the unit and reducing electronic noise.
Long story, but I think the Mini just happened to turn out to be a great server based upon all of the above! Interestingly, they wouldn't have done much better had they designed it with this in mind.
But the Windows music guys are out there as you have found with Foobar. Have you looked around over at computeraudiophile.com lately for the latest Windows user input. I have no idea how Foobar and Pure Music compare, but all the good player software sounds different on the Mini, so it is possible that there is a player that you would prefer over Foobar, or that there are recent optimization discoveries.
Feet an Weight: We have found that computer output is clearly not all 1's and 0's, that analog information/noise comes across the wires too. And the 1 and 0 information can be truncated inside the computer in various ways if not given the correct processing of clean, uncompressed files. And vibration effects sensitive electronics making it just as likely to have an effect on a computer as another piece of audio gear.
I have tried several different vibration damping feet under the Mini and can definitely hear the difference. This proves to me that vibration is solvable with the Mini, and that vibration control is a way to refine the sound to tastes. Weight on top made a difference too, I suppose by drawing off heat and vibration, but also by how it causes the feet to function. At any rate, the weight makes the sound more solid and focused in my setting.
RAM: I can't answer your question on RAM except to say that even with an optimized computer, the system burns a lot of RAM, and the more free RAM there is the better the music. One would think that 500MB would be plenty of allocated RAM being nearly a CD in 44.1K/16 bit data. Do you have a program that can log how much virtual memory is used while playing music, virtual memory being the computer using hard disk for memory needs? This is what we want to avoid. Eric at dBaudiolbs (Tranquility) has done loads of double blind testing with optimized Mac Minis, and he says 4GB RAM is the least we want on a Mini and that you can hear subtle changes with 8GB. I am assuming that greater RAM takes care of all processing that is going on more efficiently, minimizing Hard Drive activity.
64 bit seems logical if your computer utilizes it. Eric Hider recommended it as a Mini optimization. He does the blind thing, and everything he has told me that I have tested I could hear too. And since it is easy to turn on in the Mini, I just did it without testing. If you can turn it on during startup, why not test it yourself and see if it helps.
EQ Conceptually, I think quality digital EQ, cleanly implemented in the software player is entirely different than having it mid signal once in the analog realm. The work is done before the analog conversion as an integral part of the digital file just like when mastering. But it can be done in the analog realm very well, it just costs loads to do it. I get the purist aversion, but like usual, the test is in how the music effects the listener! I listen hard, and for my setting, surgical EQ has assisted in a more easily achieved world class sound. Not to have used it for conceptual reasons would have been foolish. I suspect this could be the case for many computer audio heads, even some with perfect rooms, allowing fine tuning of gear synergy and tastes.
External Drive: I don't know how memory play in Foobar is configured. Unless it can pull in a whole playlist or album at once, you will be accessing the tunes from the hard drive, and this activity will be interactive with the system and player software action increasing hard drive work. Also remember that the fuller the drive is, the more it has to work to hunt the files and relay them to the player/RAM. So a drive that is very simple due to bare essential data makes sense toward our optimized goal. The really serious guys use Solid State drives for the system and software and external drives for music files.
Moving the music files to an external drive for me was an audible improvement. But i also am able to use the firewire buss, so it is not interactive with the USB buss, which has good theoretical internal noise consequences. I think a lot of these things get pretty subtle though if your computer is powerful and quiet.
If nothing else, you need a good drive to back up all you files, so why not configure Foobar to use the backup drive as the library and listen. Might be good to wait until you have your new gear all broken in though as it is likely to be very revealing and a better ultimate indicator.
NOS DACs are another area I have a limited story on. They have been popular from the start and interestingly, the favored NOS chips are ancient technology (in digital time) and I think there may just be a few of them. But they have a sound that a lot of people love to work with sort of like tubes....may be that there are musical harmonics that they bring out? Then of course, it is how it is implemented that makes or breaks a DAC, the chip being only one part in the stream. So I can't say I am a NOS DAC advocate, but I love my Tranquility DAC.
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