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2018 Mac Mini Review

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Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#461

Post by wild_preference »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #383
wild_preference wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate it or not, Apple has to make it relatively commonplace if they want macOS apps to bother developing for it instead of ignoring it. Their short-term goal is 100% of MBP users, and surely, eventually 100% of all macOS laptop users. Keeping it optional indefinitely, then, defeats this goal.

Then is it going to come to desktop machines too, where people often use battery-powered Bluetooth keyboards, or peripherals not made by Apple? What about the tiny 12 inch Macbook? I don't see how this thing is practical across the entire Mac line.

The 12-inch Macbook has an F-key row which is what gets replaced with the touch bar.

I only estimated that they were going for 100% laptop coverage. But I can imagine a future where Apple keyboards have a touch bar option. Though not as important because Macbook touch bar penetration can drive developers to integrate with it, alone.

At which point it's not much different than gestures when it comes to answering your questions. What happens when you use a Logitech mouse on your macOS desktop instead of a Magic Trackpad?

Note that touch bar integration cannot have unique features, so it's never required. The challenge is to get developers to care about it which is the prerequisite for users to care about it.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#462

Post by Applejinx »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #417
ricardobeat wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since it’s USB, it has to be the DAC generating the hiss. No amount of electrical interference can do anything to the digital audio going Ofer USB.

The electrical interference can't do anything to to the digital audio, but interference on the USB cable can potentially be picked up by the analog amplifier circuitry in the DAC. I had a particular combination of headphone, DAC and amplifier years ago that I could hear electrical noise on when no music was playing.

Absolutely. I work as a sound engineer and have used lots of things of this type, and it's particularly easy to understand how a USB connection to the computer would wreck the sound of a cheap (sub-$1000, not professional) DAC.

Optical digital means perfect isolation from the ground plane of the computer. It's that simple. The DAC can do whatever it needs to manage its own noise levels, but you're pretty much guaranteed a huge difference from entirely decoupling the DAC from the computer's ground plane. That electrical interference can do a surprisingly enormous amount of damage to the analog circuitry of the cheap DAC, which itself is probably not very resilient at rejecting any sort of electrical interference.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#463

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr »

gnomesteel wrote: post #295
cptskippy wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a hard time watching him talk because the over dubbed audio is completely out of sync. It's really bad right around the 1 minute mark. I ended up minimizing the window and just listening. I honestly don't care for this audio, it's crystal clear and perfect for a podcast but the video is of him sitting in front of a window with a dog and the absence of any environmental noise is odd.

Agreed. It's drifting around and rarely in sync.

Watching on iOS I had no sync problems. Maybe it’s a transcoding problem caused by YouTube? At 1:25 you can clearly hear how when he turns away from the camera the audio changes as well. I’d say the audio is recorded live, not dubbed.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#464

Post by sixstringtheory »

ako wrote: post #448
phaus wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a company where most of us use Macs. Everyone that has upgraded from a 2013-2015 MBP to the touchbar model absolutely hates it, including me. There's gotta be someone around here that actually likes it, but I haven't met them yet. Its OK if you like it. I'm sure lots of people do, but you know damn well significantly more people have had issues with this laptop than normal, so I'm not sure why you're implyi…

I don't understand all the hate for the touchbar. I can never remember the functions performed by the function keys, so having icons indicating which functions are available seems really useful.

Do you have to look down to use those icons on the Touchbar? This is something I don’t have to do as a touch-typist. Repeatedly craning your neck to look down will result in RSI. I spend a little effort to learn new hotkeys every so often and the benefit far outweighs the cost: I’m much faster and keep my good ergonomics.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#465

Post by Applejinx »

saxonww wrote: post #382
ricardobeat wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since it’s USB, it has to be the DAC generating the hiss. No amount of electrical interference can do anything to the digital audio going Ofer USB.

I thought so too, but regardless, with this same device there is no hiss when connected via optical. So if I had the option, I'd be using optical vs. USB today, which was what the GP asked.

Logically, it seems like if you had a USB-optical dongle you would have no further trouble. I don't know if there is such a thing, but I do know that in that situation all the 'it's digital, so it should be perfect' talk becomes somewhat true.

You'd be converting from USB to optical, at which point you'd break the ground connection which would be where your hiss is coming from (assuming it's still noiseless when still being used with optical). Then, your concern would be jitter and whether the added conversion is adding lots of jitter to the equation. Your DAC might (or might not) be good at rejecting jitter noise. I've got a Lavry DA10 that's exceptionally good at rejecting jitter (in crystal mode), but that's mastering grade and maybe overkill for you.

It wouldn't add literal noise, but it's also possible for the USB connection to be more jittery than a different computer making the optical connection. That's partly hardware and partly software design (controlling how the data stream is buffered, and associated things that might slightly modulate the audio data clocking). So a change in computer feeding the DAC could also substantially affect the 'sound' of the DAC, as well as the noise issue you observed.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#466

Post by kayoone »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #83

People are missing the point about the integrated graphics. For me this is a feature not a bug because it has USB-C instead. That means that instead of hopelessly compromising thermals and power supply with some power hungry, yet limited GPU (because of the small form factor) you simply buy the CPU and memory that you need. It simplifies the job of keeping it cool. CPUs are evolving a lot slower these days. This one…

i like that idea, but I also need a laptop and investing in both seems overkill for my needs. But i guess with a current 6C Macbook and 32GB + eGPU, i could kind of do the same thing.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#467

Post by notJim »

thirdsun wrote: post #174
basejumping wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking to buy a 4k 27 inch external monitor for my 2018 macbook. What's the problem with it and why is it not better than a 1080p?

It's better than 1080p as it is much sharper and crisper, but 1080p at 27 inches results in rather large UI elements. An effective resolution of 2560x1440px (as seen in any iMac 27) seems like the proper resolution for a display of that size. Read more about it here: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/

I found I preferred 4k at 27" to 24", because the larger sizes help with eye strain. Would definitely recommend trying both before buying if possible.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#468

Post by aczerepinski »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #83

People are missing the point about the integrated graphics. For me this is a feature not a bug because it has USB-C instead. That means that instead of hopelessly compromising thermals and power supply with some power hungry, yet limited GPU (because of the small form factor) you simply buy the CPU and memory that you need. It simplifies the job of keeping it cool. CPUs are evolving a lot slower these days. This one…

That sounds like a horrible mess of wires and power strips to me. If only they could make a single case to fit all these various computer components in, and one chord to supply power to all of them.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#469

Post by jdboyd »

asveikau wrote: post #456
lucideer wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Unless you used optical audio, audio input, or the SD-card reader" Craftily hidden in a footnote for that paragraph.

They probably figured that people who want these are acceptably served by USB.

Yeah. For SD cards in particular, having the reader slot on the back has always made it useless for me.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#470

Post by jdboyd »

djsumdog wrote: post #431
lucideer wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Unless you used optical audio, audio input, or the SD-card reader" Craftily hidden in a footnote for that paragraph.

It also doesn't look like it has a DisplayPort. If I wanted to hook it into my KVM, I'd need a USB-C to display port dongle.

With the old one, you would probably need a mini DP to DP dongle anyway (I did for my displayport KVM on my 2012 Mini), so this isn't really worse, but it might mean you now need a different dongle.
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