I bought a MacBook Pro. My Bacch4Mac setup was always headless. The MacBook Pro doesn’t need any special settings to completely control the Mini as if you were sitiing at the computer. It’s easy and it’s fun. You can get a MacBook Pro for $500 on Woot any time you feel like it. Highly recommended.
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Thanks @msimanyi - I had considered the exercise of flipping the cable, and will do that when I have more time. It does require shutting down and re-starting the Mac mini. I have a tiny monitor attached to the HDMI output and would need to insert a keyboard to enter the login password when it re-started, which was a bit of a pain. I already have the auto-launch for Roon and BACCH. Your setup is much superior, though!! Unfortunately, the HDMI wireless emulator seems to be a US/Canada supply only, but I’ll do a bit of further research. Thanks for the tips!
@aangen - I control my BACCH4Mac Mac mini via any of the computers in my house, but what happens if you have to re-start the Mac mini? I can’t screen share until after the Mac mini has re-logged in, which requires the password. Is there a work-around?
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Restart the Mini? How often is that necessary? I just walk up to mine and push the button.
You can set up the Mac Mini so that no password is required on re-start or startup. Just google “setting up Mac Mini so no password is required”.
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Thankfully, I don’t have to re-start the Mini that often. We do get power outages (I’m considering getting a battery for the house), and I did recently switch the power cable.
@ganache has just answered my question regarding the start up (no password). I think I’ll do that - thanks!
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I’ve just done that with my Mac mini M2 Pro running Sonoma.
I had to turn off FileVault, then go to ‘Users & Groups’, select the user and then ‘Automatically log in as (user)’. Hopefully that will work.
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Yep, I’d say that’s accurate. Spoke with Edgar last night to set everything up. He is just the nicest human being, and it was downright fun going through the intro / setup session.
I should have some time available this weekend to do a little listening! (Not that I didn’t stay up way too late last night doing a bit of a preview…)
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Congratulations! The Edgar call is such an important part of the process. Enjoy!
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I run a semi-headless Mac Mini M1 (connected to a TV, but no keyboard or mouse) and if you are using the built-in macOS screen sharing application, it will let you connect to it even if you are not logged in. I do have automatic login set up, but it will still lock and require a password any time I quit the screen sharing application regardless of whatever I set within the lock screen options. I just tried logging out, closing the screen sharing app, relaunching the screen sharing app, and was easily able to get back in to type in my password and log in.
Of course, this is assuming that you have a MacBook laying around that you can use to control the Mac Mini.
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In your setup, do you have FileVault activated on your Mac Mini?
Oh, I did not catch that. I don’t run FileVault on it, but mostly because it’s not going to have critical information on it and I didn’t want any potential performance hit on it due to the overhead of encryption.
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Hi! Al Angen here, long time fan.
I figured something out. Qobuz has Tin Pan Alley from Stevie Ray in 24.176.4. It used to play nice on my system. Last few tries it stammered and stuttered. I couldn’t figure out why.
At some point, for Edgar to send his gear out with the Roon Bridge software, there was a useless fee involved. So he started to substitute it for an HQP piece of software that he, and only he could modify. I have been using the HQP for quite a while now with no sadness.
Tonight, while playing this track, either streaming or the copy on my NAS, it stuttered and stammered. The lightbulb went off, try the Roon Bridge endpoint instead.
That solved it. Everything sounds plush and wonderful.
This makes me think I should mess with DSF files again using the Roon Bridge.
Anyway. Enjoying Theoretica Applied Physics products as always.
Has anyone tried altering your HOP Binaural Correlation % and enjoyed the results?
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I thought BACCH couldn’t process DSF?
It can’t. But the way it needs to be processed to PCM can. I now have found fault with the Edgar supplied HQP software. Which makes me wonder if, when using Roon Bridge, if I can process the DSD in another way.
There is just such insane goodness when I play DSD on my MU2 without Bacch. Converting it to 24.96 PCM just hurts my brain to accept. It sounds fine but could it sound finer?
I wish America would make this its number one focus.
Or not.
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Downscaling from DSD is easiest on the hardware when it is to a PCM sample rate that is a multiple of 44kHz… like normal non-48k DSD itself. Downscaling takes a lot more computation than upscaling. So I usually downscale my DSD256 to 176k, not to 192k and not to 96k. I need a graphics card in my server to do this glitch-free. And then in my BACCH4Mac, I make sure that the BACCH is NOT trying to run at the 96K that I normally use. I use 176k or 88k. Unless you spec’d hardware to do this kind of downscaling, normally only downscaling from SACD DSD64 is doable.
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I went to a live performance of Jesus Christ Superstar last night. Fantastic night and the singer who played Jesus (Michael Paynter) had an other-worldly, breathtaking, insanely good voice. The audience did a standing ovation toward the end of his solo in Garden of Gethsemane (including me).
But in some other parts, I had to subtly block my ears to protect them from the sound pressure levels. This hobby needs me to protect my ears and I’m sure you all feel the same. That we can hear the difference in sample rates says something about how exquisite hearing can be.
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Absolutely! Hearing protection at live events is crucial to long term hearing acuity. I wish I had heeded that advise in my youth. Nonetheless, I found a product that effectively attenuates the SPL while maintaining musical fidelity: Earasers
Instead of blocking the sound like many ear plugs, with these it’s more like turning down the volume.
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Hi everyone, been away for a while, just read thru all the recent posts. Only one thing to contribute - shunyata have an adapter for the Mac mini. You can plug in any AC cable to it and it plugs in to MM. depending on the main power cable, it can make a nice diff.
Anyone going to Munich.
Best regards
Aubrey
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Hi,
Can you give a model number for the MM adapter?
Thanks