Mac Mini vs Innuos Mini MK ll.

[David A]

You, guys, are all right.
But ... is someone out there who, without measurements, has heard both and has an  opinion, even subjective?
Thanks.

Can an opinion be anything other than subjective? I have no idea what an objective opinion would be.

I suspect there are a few people here who have used a Mac Mini as a server (I have using my iTunes library and Devialet's AIR app for some of that time and using Roon running on the Mac Mini for some of the time) and there are also a few people here who have used an Innuos Mini Mk II but there's going to be a lot fewer who have used both, perhaps none. In any event, any opinion is going to be coloured by something you haven't mentioned and that is just how the Mac Mini is being used. Is it being used as a music server only or is it also being used as the owner's normal desktop computer. In my case my Mac Mini was, and still is, my normal desktop computer and that means it was doing a lot of things in the background while I was using it to play music, things like Time Machine backups, checking email regularly, and even heavy processing when I was doing things like processing photos while also playing music. If you swap to a dedicated server it isn't going to be doing any of those additional things and arguably those extra processing tasks running while playing music may affect sound quality.

I haven't used an Innuos server. I went from my Mac Mini to an Antipodes DS and thought it was an improvement, both in terms of sound quality and also in convenience. Ive since replaced the Antipodes with a Roon Nucleus+ which I find works better than the Antipodes (Roon is a lot more responsive given the faster processor in the Nucleus+). 

If you search you'll find posts in various threads where people have commented on their experience moving from using their computer to stream from to using a dedicated server. I can't remember seeing anyone who has made that change say anything other than that it was an improvement but the fact that it was an improvement doesn't necessarily mean that it delivered an improvemnt in sound quality though I can't remember anyone saying sound quality went backwards. Not all of those comments come from people who swapped from a Mac Mini and not all of them swapped to an Innuos of any kind but my feeling was that the universal opinion has been that using a dedicated server is better than using your deskktop computer as your server and there's some variety in the reasons for that assessment.

You may end up having to settle for the general feeling that people have about swapping from their normal computer to a dedicated server rather than for opinions about the specific swap from a Mac Mini to an Innuos Mini Mk II simply because you may not be able to find someone who has made that particular switch.