Digital Source Advice

[ianlenco]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned an Innuos Zen. There are various models but a new Zen mini would just about fit in your budget. It rips CD's, has internal storage and can be controlled via your iPad. Sound quality is very good indeed and would give you a simple solution.

[dave2010]

No, I haven’t considered anything yet as I am completely in the dark. I will have a look at the Mac, though.
Thanks.

The new M1 Mac Mini is really good - apparently - though you might not need that for running your system. If it's only going to be used for the audio, then you can pick up second hand ones of previous models quite cheaply, and indeed some of the older ones do also have an optical drive so can be used for ripping CDs etc., whereas the new one would need a separate drive if you don't have any other way of ripping the discs. It's been a few years since those have had the inbuilt CD drive.

As a computer - which can run audio and video tools - the M1 based Mac Mini is reported to be excellent - though don't get the lowest spec one.

[Filterlab]

If you get a 2014 model with 16GB of RAM it will do you for many years. The internal drive can be upgraded on that year model too. If you go 2018 then the storage is fixed but the RAM can be upgraded very easily (well, certainly for a Mac tech). External storage is cheap, compact and easy to integrate.

No DVD drive on either, but a USB DVD will work perfectly and cost is only a few quid - and can be removed when not importing of course. The 2010 model was the last with an internal DVD drive.

My Mac mini is actually a 2010 which I upgraded to SSD and 16GB of RAM. I patched the OS to Mojave 10.14.6 which is still current, I may patch it to Catalina or Big Sur, but frankly I only stream from an internal library using Fidelia - so whether the OS is up to date or not is irrelevant. All simple stuff to do though, I can do it with my eyes shut so PM me if you want to go that way.

[Holte Ender]

PM sent to Simon at BultyBoy.