I’ve got a left-behind Mini – late 2012 vintage. i7, 4Gb, 1Tb spinner.
Did a drive erase and has a fresh Catalina OS installed. Gee that took a long time…
I’m not a Mac person. I do like that it is completely silent. And so tiny.
No accounts setup as of now.
I’m thinking it might be a good candidate for a media server. For photos and music only.
I assume the Apple Gods will let me play mp3s, flac, as well as aflac format. ?
Is iTunes a requirement for playing media?
Anyhow – am I barking up the wrong PC -as it were?
Any other suggestions would be most welcome.
Since this is an Intel Mac it would make for an excellent Linux machine.
If you are new to Linux I’d recommend https://www.linuxmint.com/ with Cinnamon desktop, it just works and anyone who ever used Windows will feel pretty much right at home.
Unless your electricity is basically free, I wouldn’t consider and ancient hardware platform for 24/7 operation - a Intel N100 based NUC (or, since Intel discontinued NUC line, a comparable product by another company) is hugely more efficient, and has lower power draw at higher performance.
Hell, even a raspberry would probably be faster at lower power draw (and those are really not known for their efficiency).
It’s a fun machine to put some Linux on (network card may cause trouble) or even better, some BSD (I keep forgetting if openBSD or freeBSD is the one better for home use), as BSD is way closer related to Darwin, and you should actually get reliable wifi card drivers for it.
IIRC you were a Linux user - if you are used to Linux, but haven’t used BSD before, this might be a good opportunity to give it a shot.
I’ve not used BSD. But have used TrueNAS. It’s running a headless 6 bay SuperMicro Xeon sitting in the garage. Now that sucks power.
I’ve used Mint on and off for several years.
The Xfce version I often put on older hardware for Windows users.
I haven’t put a meter on it, but I suspect, when sitting idle, with the display off and the HD spun down, that it doesn’t pull much power.
The thing is free to me, and I have lots of other hardware, so I am not looking to spend any money.
I may end up with a Linux distro of some sort. But for now I want to play with the Mac OS for a while. Since it is new to me.
What I really need is an easy way to RIP many hundreds of CDs. I don’t want to think of the stacks of records and miles of RtR tape.
I may start a new thread about this.
Thanks,
All the Best,
Jeff
I used CDex extensively for ripping to .wavs then compressing to .mp3s.
For whatever reason, using “stock” options correctly puts in ID3 tags, but when I have different options (just in how to name the files) it doesn’t. Nfi what’s its trauma, but if you use it, beware of that issue.
Yeah, tried both versions of ID3 tags, beginning of file and end of file, etc., but no joy.
Other than that, it rips quite nicely, even scratchy ceedees that give other players/rippers fits.
I use MediaMonkey for ripping to .wav and building a library. I also convert to .mp3’s with Switchfoot Sound converter. Both are available for free but I upgraded to the paid versions since I was happy with the products.
Once in a while I run into a cd not in the database and have to manually enter the filenames, but I’m almost at 60,000 tracks so I have some pretty obscure stuff. 99.9% of the time it is insert/rip.
I should have started ripping years ago. Now the vast pile of disks is awfully daunting.
I wish some of the auto disk loaders were cheaper. A little over 600 bucks is just too much at this point.
I have 300 disks in one of the old Sony players. Sure wish there was a way to put that to use. Replaced the belts in it and it still runs like a champ.
What I really hate is all the analog media laying fallow.
Somehow I got old along the way and never took the time to get this moving.
Thanks for the info,
All the Best,
Jeff
Exact Audio Copy is freeware. It takes a bit of setup, but it works great and is fast. It has a DB of songs out there and can compare your rip with the DB to verify it is perfect. Called “AccurateRip”. You can chose DBs online for it to search in to name all of the tracks automatically. I found that to work very well except for a handful of pretty obscure CDs
It is my ripper of choice. Really easy to use after the initial setup.
Another good one is DBPoweramp. Pretty much the same features as the above, but easier to get going. Some like the interface better. It is prettier. Claims to use all of the CPU cores, so maybe slightly faster. But last I looked it was about $40 for the license.
BTW, they both have batch converters. So if you rip to wave, you can easily convert to FLAC/MP3/AAC/ALAC if you need to save space on, or have compatibility issues for certain portable devices. Incidentally, I just use FLAC for most all of my ripping. Saves a bit of space and is lossless. I did use WAV for a few of the better recordings. Like stuff from Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. But WAV files are huge…
I faced the same thing you are a while back. I had about 2000 CDs to rip. I just bit the bullet and started the process. I would grab 10 to 20 disks and rip them while doing other things on the PC. Rips are pretty fast at up to 24X, so each one only takes 3 to 5 minutes. It took a few (several) months to get them all done. But they did all get done… eventually
Doing the vinyl is another story. I got the setup that I need. A dedicated phono pre-amp with digital output. I even bough a new cartridge. But at 1000 plus albums and strictly real time ripping… pausing recording while flipping albums, plus cleaning each album before doing it… well I haven’t gotten very far.
Thanks all for the different ripper options.
Mandrake, I’ve got a bunch of MoFi disks and the master tape flavors.
Most played exactly twice. Once to check for defects and to set the volume.
The second to record onto an AKAI 747 10.5" tape. That thing had 120db s/n ratio.
Darn things sell for like 4 times what I paid for it. It’s a cult item now.
I have two turntables, but yards of records and the loss of hand usage will sink that ship.
Thanks again
All the Best,
Jeff
