Mac Mini music server

Is it true that the newer Mac minis have a digital out and OS that allows for 192/24 optical output?

 

I know this is correct for new MacBook Pro, I can't confirm this for Mac Mini. I have four Macs here and they all go 96/24 over Toslink.

 

My 2010 Mini has a digital out in the audio out. I think it's 96/24.

Chad

 

I have the last model Mini with an optical drive and I can do 24/192. It isn't even new.

 

I believe the optical (toslink)/headphone output on the newest Mac Mini (October of 2012) is bottle necked at 24/96. I could never get anything higher then that resolution out without the computer down sampling the file, and adding little artifacts to the sound. There may be a work around, I never really tried to figure it out.

The USB outputs (on the newest Mac Mini - October of 2012) can do higher resolutions. I've recently played a DXD 24bit-352.8k file with the Decibel software.

For what its worth, I just saw on Mac Rumors, http://www.macrumors.com/ that a newer Mac Mini (mid 2014) has been referenced by Apple on their support pages. They say in the article... An updated Mac mini would likely offer some improvements brought to the rest of Apple's Mac lineup over the course of the last two years, including Haswell processors, faster PCI Express-based flash storage options, and 802.11ac WiFi.

 

I'm running the original 2006 Intel MacBook OS10.6.8 with just 2gigs (max) ram for iTunes/PureMusic without a hiccup. I did strip it down to the bare essentials on the OS. For storage I have a 1.5 tb external drive.

 

What did you do to make that happen?

 

Mac mini (Late 2012): External ports and connectors
The headphone/line out port accommodates digital optical audio output, analog audio output with a 24-bit, 44.1-192 kHz D/A converter, digital audio output up to 24-bit stereo and 44.1-192 kHz sampling rate and supporting encoded digital audio output (AC3 and DTS).

 

When I installed OSX 10.6 I turned off installation of foreign language items, printers, and x-code.