My Aqua formula has an impressive set of digital inputs. Am I giving up any quality by using the USB input? It works well with Macs and does not need a driver.
Larry, you did not mention what are you playback devices and how they are connected to your Macs.
As I mentioned, M1/M2 Mac minis have their output via HDMI locked at 48kHz, that means the system will up/down convert everything to 48kHz. To overcome this, people have use BlacHole virtual audio device.
However, if you are connecting M1/M2 mac via USB to your DAC, then no problems at all.
Older Intel Macs are not locked at 48kHz via HDMI.
In my system, my 2014 Mac mini was connected via HDMI to NAD T778. I upgraded it to M1 Mac mini, and found out the 48kHz problem. Then I got a 2018 Intel Mac mini (i5 32GB RAM) and it is now running my Roon core. I repurposed the M1 mini for other duty.
By the way, NAD T778 is Roon Ready, and I can also play from Roon directly to it via network.
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I donāt have any playback devices connected to the Mac Mini, as far as I can tell. It streams Tidal and Qobuz under Roon to my DAC.
As for other devices, I have a turntable, CD player, and tuner connected to a preamp which is connected to my amp.
What playback devices do you have connected to your Mac Mini?
The Formula does USB Audio Class 2, which is the most capable all-around input format. So I wouldnāt worry about it. The other input formats are either older and less capable (S/PDIF, AES/EBU), or IMO inappropriate (external I2S).
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Well, I have connected to my Mac mini:
NAD T778 via HDMI
Cambridge Audio DACMagic 100 via USB
But, NAD T778 is also connected to the network so I mostly play directly to it.
I guess the difference is that I donāt care about home theater or multichannel playback. I have spent enough money just getting two good speakers, I donāt want any more, lol.
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Same. I lost interest in home theater a long time ago.
I have way over 150k tracks on a m1 Mac mini with 16G ram and using a thunderbolt hub that contains both a 4TB ssd and a 2TB nvme m.2. When I click play, it starts playing with no delay. I have Roon installed on the thunderbolt hub m.2 nvme storage. I bought the 16G ram with the internal 256G ssd. I store everything in the hub except the usb backup disk. I even have this Mac using wifi and still works fine. I will be moving this mac to a wired place soon for even better performance
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For this many files would the entry level M2 work or I would need to have 16GB ram?
I would never just get 8G of ram with an m1 or m2 Mac. If your computer pages/swaps out programs/data out of memory, it will go to the internal ssd and the ssd will wear out sooner.
The non-enterprise SSDās are not overprovisioned enough to handle this kind of swapping, itās the same reason I think itās foolish to use an ssd for caching in music servers. SSDās can only write to the same area so many times before that area is turned off from use, whereas hard drives donāt have this issue.
Enterprise SSDās are built to handle this type of activity. This was my job the last decade I worked, showing the largest companies in the world how to properly use solid state storage (pcie, ssd, nvme) to increase performance of their servers, and caching was 1 of the options.
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Iāve run an m1 mini with 16gb and 256ssd for a couple of years with 335k tracks and no issues.
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Considering the m2 256gb ssd is 30-50 % slower than the m1, does it make sense to get the 512gb version even though I would only run Roon server and keep music on an external SSD? Or is it overkill and the speed of the ssd is not that important with 16gb memory?
I think the Ram is the most important. Although Iām running a 2014 Mac mini entry level with a WD Black SSD with entry level ram. I have 125k tracks.
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I can only speak from my experience running only Roon Server on an M2 mini with a 256 GB drive and 16 GB RAM. No issues with speed at all.
Some have suggested the drive will not last as long due to cacheing rewrites on the SSD but I think this is a canard, the drive is nearly empty as you can see.
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Thank you, appreciate the feedback 
I should mention I use Qobuz for streaming and have 40K local tracks on a drive attached to the Mini. Iāve also used terminal to reboot the mini daily in the middle of the night.
I run the Mini headless and use Screen Sharing to access it if necessary. Once a month I run Onyx Maintenance on the M2 Mini.
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I wouldnāt worry about the driveā¦ even if it doesnāt last as long as a bigger drive. How long is long? 10 years? More? I have had 2 ssds that used to be In laptopās.
32gb drivesā¦ must be 10 years old at least and they still work recently when I decided to throw them away.
And those where like 80% full all the time.
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As I wrote, I believe that the statements about the shorter drive life is a canard - i.e. a falsehood.
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If you are caching/swapping to the ssd then you will wear out the ssd. I got an m1 Mac mini with 16g ram and the internal 256g ssd that I use for my Roon and HomeKit, I use it as a server. I use a Thunderbolt hub with many TBs of ssd and m.2 storage in the hub. I donāt swap at all.
I also have an m2 Mac mini but I got the 16g memory and the 512g ssd. Both minis are rockets, and if I ever start swapping on the m1, Iāll swap minis and run Roon on the m2