I’m currently using a 2020 Mac Mini with 64GB Ram as my Roon/HQPlayer server. It works OK although it’s somewhat limited in its capabilities. My current desktop is a M1 Studio Ultra with 64GB Ram and I’m trying to decide whether to replace that with a new desktop and use it for my server or get a (much cheaper option) M4 Mac Mini with 32 GB Ram. Can someone give me an idea of which would be more capable for my server? Would getting the Mac Mini Pro change anything? To be clear though, these are the only two choices I’m considering. I’m sure either one would be a step up from what I’m using. Thanks for your help.
Well, M1 Studio Ultra would be certainly very powerful HQPlayer server.
Base level M4 Mini can do most of the usual things, but if you’d like to run both Roon and HQPlayer on the device, I’d recommend considering Pro option since Roon will also consume some CPU power. Number of performance cores is what matters the most, second is memory bandwidth.
Thanks for getting back to me. Can you tell me which computer you think would be the most capable? The Studio Ultra or Mac Mini Pro.?
Since I don’t have both to test with, I’m only estimating. But I would say likely the Studio Ultra.
But it also depends on particular HQPlayer settings. If your goal is more towards doing higher rates like DSD512, then the somewhat better single core performance of M4 gets more emphasis. While if your goal is more towards running heavier filters, digital room correction, etc, then the Ultra is likely better.
Thanks for your help with this and explaining the difference between the two. I use DSD256 but would like to try some of the other filters that I can’t use currently. I also can’t successfully enable DAC correction for my Holo Audio May KTE and perhaps the Ultra would let me do that. Thanks again for your help.
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