How many times have you tackled what would seem to be an easy project, only to find it's anything but that? Best laid plans and all.
Because I travel to shows and clubs demonstrating our products, in particular DirectStream as of late, I just carry a bunch of discs with me, hoping the venue has an adequate player to connect up with. Inevitably this means only CDs, as there are very few disc spinners that output DSD or convert to DoP on the fly. What one needs is a computer.
So over the weekend I decided to fix that problem and build a small music server from a Mac Mini. This ultra quiet, tiny computer is a mere $599 out the door, has plenty of storage for what I want and can be operated without a router and controlled from nothing more than an iPad or my phone. Sounds perfect.
So on Sunday off to the Apple store I went, purchased the device and figured I'd have it up and running in a matter of hours. So simple would this project be that I would then start a series of daily posts describing to you step-by-step how to make your own so you too can share in the fun. It really is a perfect situation if you are planning on having only one DAC and storage setup. If you wanted a network solution, then of course the Network Bridge would be the obvious choice. But traveling I don't need a network, I don't need to connect to the internet, heck, all I need is a good USB cable, DirectStream and this box.
Were it only so simple. Well, stubborn as I am, it's going to be simple and hopefully the pain I am currently suffering to get this working will be to your benefit when I share with you the easy steps to make it work.
Wish me luck.
