Stereophile Editor Chooses Mac Mini as Music Server

Interestingly enough, on the day my Mini was delivered, I received the Stereophile newsletter from Stereophile editor John Atkinson, detailing his choice of a Mac Mini. I make up my own mind on gear, but over the past 20 years, I have noticed JA liking many of the same gear I have (Celestion SL-600 si's, Technics DVD A10). Here's an interesting quote from JA:

"I chose a Mac Mini as the base unit because of its tiny size and its silent running. This cost $550 with an 80GB drive and a Wi-Fi card, plus another $100 for a Bluetooth remote keyboard and mouse. (The monitor was free, as I used an old LCD panel retrieved from the closet.) With the Mini sitting in my test lab running iTunes 5.0, it could drive my listening-room system via the Airport Express. With iTunes in Shuffle mode, this setup was fine for CD-quality background music but clunky for choosing specific tracks to play...I moved the Mini into the listening room and used an M-Audio Transit USB external soundcard ($79) to provide an S/PDIF optical datalink to the Levinson DAC. This was much more convenient."

I'll have more discussion on choice of S/PDIF interfaces, but it was reassuring to know JA found the Mini a good choice.