Thumb5's system

[thumb5]

Some changes afoot as I'm adding a dedicated Mac Mini to stream music from instead of my MacBook Pro.

The main aims here are:

• to avoid having to sit in front of a computer to choose and play music
  
• to allow for a better-optimised and more stable software environment for playing music
  
• to support things like software room correction in future
  

The Mac Mini will run "headless" with a remote control application for streaming music, and Apple Screen Sharing when I need to do admin-type things.  It's going to sit in the hi-fi rack and will be connected to the system like this:



My music library is stored on an Apple Time Capsule (NAS) which is the main wireless access point, extended by the Airport Express.

I already have the top part set up: in particular, the 440 Pro has a wired Ethernet connection to the Airport Express via the integrated switch in the ZP90.  This seems to be working reliably both with respect to AIR via Ethernet and operation of the Sonos mesh network, including streaming music from my library to the ZP90.  The ZP90 has its wireless interface permanently disabled because it doesn't play nicely with the Airport Express (for reasons unknown).

The new part is adding the Mac Mini with a USB interface to the Devialet, of course.

This configuration gives me plenty of flexibility:

• I can use AIR via Ethernet to the Devialet from either the Mac Mini or (still) my laptop
  
• I can use a direct USB connection from the Mac Mini to the Devialet
  
• There’s a strong wi-fi signal to the Devialet courtesy of the Airport Express, if I want to use AIR via wi-fi
  

The Mac Mini is going to stream music from a local SSD, which will contain a shadow copy of my main music library stored on the Time Capsule NAS.  I'll schedule Destek Folder Sync to do a one-way sync from the NAS to the local SSD every day at some suitably quiet time (like 3:00 am), so for all practical purposes the local SSD will always have the same content as the NAS.

The Mac Mini will be backed up to Amazon S3/Glacier using Haystack Software's Arq.

That configuration has several advantages:

• there's no wireless traffic (other than control) during music streaming
  
• programs (Roon, Audirvana+, iTunes, ...) that "watch" for changes in folder contents generally work better with local file systems
  
• I get "free" local and geographically-redundant back-ups of the music from my NAS
  

At the moment my plan is first of all to make sure AIR over Ethernet works well, since I'm pretty used to how it sounds currently.  Then I can experiment with USB and/or AIR over wi-fi to see whether there are any differences in sound quality and/or reliability.

Not shown on that diagram is that the power to the 440 Pro is from a Vertex AQ Taga, whereas all the rest of the gear is run straight from the mains socket.  There may be some opportunities to improve sound quality (TBD) by keeping all the interfaces to the 440 Pro isolated from the sources.  For example:

• If the Ethernet connection to the ZP90 proves to affect sound quality, there are two options:
  • disconnect the Devialet's Ethernet interface and use AIR over wi-fi instead
    
  • insert a back-to-back pair of Ethernet media converters with an optical link
    
• The direct USB connection from the Mac Mini to the Devialet could be replaced by a USB-to-AES converter, for example the much-lauded Mutec MC-3+ USB or a Berkeley Alpha USB (more expensive, though arguably prettier)
  

One thing I haven't yet decided is what software I'm going to use on the Mac Mini.  I'll need something with a remote control application that will run on an iPhone or iPad.

The obvious choices include:

• iTunes, with iTunes Remote
  
• Audirvana+, with A+ Remote
  
• Roon Server, with Roon Remote
  

Audirvana+ has the advantage of integrated support for Qobuz, which could be quite handy.  Having tried it for a couple of weeks, it sounds fine but I have quite a few nit-picks with its usability (and the developer hasn't been overly responsive or helpful when I asked about them).

Roon is next on the list to try, but I'm holding out until 1.3 is released before starting a trial.  Hopefully not long now...