Rotel & Mac Mini's work pretty well together

[photoman]

Finally got around to hooking up my Mac mini to the home entertainment system. I used the cable with a mini-rc to optical and connected right to an optical in on the 1068. My music is ripped via Apple's lossless compression. I used iTunes and it sounds pretty darned good for what it is... I was amazed just how quite it is... I did expect some sort of hiss, or external noise or whatever... but to my delight it was real quite. Nice thing is when setup this way, the volume controls on the Mac are disengaged, volume control works though the 1068. The nifty little remote is also good as you can skip songs and the like. Great for when your having a party or pumping music to the patio or to another room. Coupled with the other things you can do with it, I'd have to admit this little Mac is a nice addition to the home entertainment system. I keep the serial cord connected to the Mac that way I can update component firmware on the fly (you'll need a USB to DB9 connector though).

As for video, I got a DVI to HDMI cable and pump that to a DVDO VP30 right to the plasma*... nice for do a slide show or looking at spaced out visual effects from iTunes. So for a few hundred (you don't need the higher priced model) it a good thing. Even the older Mac mini's are good, as you can find them on ebay pretty cheap.

* Be sure to setup the the VP30 or other device to do a bit of under scan and you'll get the full menu. Also, on the Mac the main menu doesn't go away to be careful with screen burn in (just set the screen saver for 3 min and you'll be fine). Funny thing the Mac did see the VP30 as a video source and pretty much set it self up

[pramod]

Hi There photoman,

I have Mac PowerBook 1.67Ghz, and Rotel 1055 with one digital input on it is free and I have loads of Itunes on the exteranl HDD, can you please give some details on which is the kind of cable which will connect between the Mac and the 1055. now I'm using an ordinary anologue cable which goes on PB's external to Rotels Tape LR input.. but the problem is I have to really increase the volume on the Rotel to get a reasonable clarity...
Your Input is highly Appricated...
Thx Pramod

[photoman]

If your powerbook supports a digital audio connection you can use this cable;

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/xpress/index.php

I don't believe the older G4 supported optical out (mine doesn't ) only the new Macbook pro's do. however, here's the cable just in case your does.

[pramod]

Thx Buddy, for the link, unfortunately my PB does not have the digital out put... Imagine it is just last years, Tech is growing every day..

Thx Pramod

[Taito]

I believe you can get digital audio out via USB, but no models spring to mind. You could try searching for one of these.

Or, for the music server solution that I am running, check out www.slimdevices.com
Quite easy to set up, not too many bugs, looks slick, sounds good via analogue, has both TOSLINK and coaxial SP/DIF outputs.

-Ben

[mjb]

I believe you can get digital audio out via USB, but no models spring to mind.

M-Audios Transit does a fantastic job converting digital audio via USB to either TosLink optical or line level. (TosLink optical digital output allows AC-3 and DTS pass-through).