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Bonobos posted:How much are they? I can't seem to find them on the website. http://www.microcenter.com/product/416236/airport-extreme-base-station-80211ac They're still selling them at full retail price unfortunately kitten smoothie posted:When I need warranty service done I try to go with one of the indie places that is authorized to bill AppleCare for the work. There's a lot of places here in the NYC metro area that are doing this.. http://mikeyshookup.com http://www.doctormac.com http://www.drbrendan.com Mikey's is in trendy hipster nabe in Willamsburg, Brooklyn, DoctorMac is out in a sleepy suburb town where pretty much every other person has a Mac, Dr. Brendan is in the East Village area where people who pay horrifyingly high rents for broom closets dont even blink twice at paying for liquid spill repairs. Binary Badger fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Aug 12, 2018 |
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Aug 12, 2018 18:57
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I upgraded to mesh so I’m sitting on a pile of AEBS and a AETC. PM me an offer.
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Aug 12, 2018 22:15
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Randomly trying to remember here but I've finally started to notice my mid-2012 hitting that point of random slowdowns, longer boot times, etc. It's on High Sierra and I completely overlooked the fact that this machine is probably only going to have 1 or 2 more OS upgrades in it. (I still think we're safe for Mojave iirc) Am I remembering this fact correctly or do I still have a bit to go before we hit that plateau? I also ask because I may be getting a family member into the Apple ecosystem (whose luck with PCs has bordered on absolutely terrible) and I had been planning to get them one of the mid-2012s that I had tracked down. However, if they're just going to be unable to upgrade the OS here soon, it might be a better idea to get them an Air or something of the like that'll be supported for much longer down the road. (My own thoughts were going to be if we didn't see a refresh here soon and I'm out of luck on my own mid-2012, I was probably going to start looking at the Air myself, due to the ports, etc) I appreciate any support as always, that you all provide. Shaocaholica posted:I upgraded to mesh so I’m sitting on a pile of AEBS and a AETC. PM me an offer. Expect a PM shortly, btw. I've definitely got an interest there.
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Aug 12, 2018 22:26
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Binary Badger posted:One thing I've noticed is that MicroCenter is still a good place to find EOL'ed Apple accessories like the Fifth Generation AEBS. Plus it makes wiring a bunch of stereos up with Airport Expresses and putting them on your network super easy. God I seriously hope Apple comes up with a replacement AirPlay solution that isn’t just “Use an Apple TV” for people with actual stereos that aren’t just a loving Bluetooth boombox and/or have working vintage gear. My 1978 receiver/1980 speakers setup is my loving baby and I love being able to AirPlay to it. I don’t want to be all “If Steve were here” but apparently he still listened to his vinyl collection up until the end and was the main reason why Apple devices consistently prioritized hi-fi connectivity/compatibility (combi-optical ports on all Mac headphone outs/Airport Express, higher end built-in DACs, etc). I’m pretty sure that Tim has no such compunction on that front since the ATV lost its optical out and I’m fairly certain the new MacBooks don’t have one either (and it’s a matter of time before Macs end up being Bluetooth only anyway).
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Aug 13, 2018 01:38
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HiFi nerds are probably better off with Linux just to be even more different.
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Aug 13, 2018 02:31
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Shaocaholica posted:HiFi nerds are probably better off with Linux just to be even more different. gently caress off, hifi nerds are fancy folk who appreciate aesthetics and fineries (or gaudy-rear end poo poo as expensive as it is ugly). We have no time for your open source home-built mickey mouse bullshit. Also, I hate that “understanding that music sounds better played through actual woofers and speakers with a diameter bigger than 2” and cabinets and by spatially separating your channels” has somehow become a weird contrarian position in our era of soundbars and music mastered for laptop speakers. I appreciate compact and portable Bluetooth dealies and tiny one-piece wireless stereos as much as the next guy but they have their place. I’ve been in middle class homes where the best sound system in the house had literally worse sound quality than the bedroom boombox my elementary school-age rear end had in the 90’s “but it’s the future.”
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Aug 13, 2018 03:21
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Ugh. That just reminds me I was going to try and snag an old Express to hook up to my stereo so I don't have to leave the Mini on all the time.
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Aug 13, 2018 15:34
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Chris Knight posted:Ugh. That just reminds me I was going to try and snag an old Express to hook up to my stereo so I don't have to leave the Mini on all the time. I got mine on the Apple Refurb store for I believe $50, they occasionally show up (but you gotta be quick!). Other places sell their own refurbs/preowned but I can’t personally vouch for them.
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Aug 13, 2018 16:10
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So that's why they haven't bothered to upgrade the mini.
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Aug 13, 2018 16:29
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Is that turbonerd audiophilia or something?
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Aug 13, 2018 16:44
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Oh my god loving “resonance control”.
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Aug 13, 2018 16:56
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Theophany posted:Is that turbonerd audiophilia or something? This is nothing but science! Just lol if you don't have a dampening plinth for your digital music server to stop the bits from jittering.
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Aug 13, 2018 17:40
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Seiyal posted:Mid-2012 I’m running one right now too. Apple has announced the end of support for them starting at the end of the year so expect no hardware repairs starting next year even if you are willing to pay for them and expect OS updates to end next year or the year after most likely. It’s a little frustrating since it still feels fast enough for a lot of what I do when working mobile, but it has been working super well for six years so I feel like I’ve gotten my monies worth. I guess it depends on the price and condition if you’re setting someone up on one.
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Aug 13, 2018 18:58
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A "audiophile grade" Mac Mini that can be configured up to $7500 that sits on top of a piece of lucite riddled with holes that are filled with lead shot. Incredible
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Aug 13, 2018 19:35
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I don't even hate the idea of an external power supply mod, but you could do it yourself for like $20. Who the gently caress buys these things?!
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Aug 13, 2018 19:42
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pzy posted:I don't even hate the idea of an external power supply mod, but you could do it yourself for like $20. Who the gently caress buys these things?! The same people who think that $1000+ speaker wire makes an audible difference in their stereos.
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Aug 13, 2018 19:48
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Well there is that $100 HDMI cable that does make games look better. From what I've seen its not like an amazing difference but it does work. It has some processor in it or something which does some AA or whatever.
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Aug 13, 2018 19:51
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pzy posted:I don't even hate the idea of an external power supply mod, but you could do it yourself for like $20. Who the gently caress buys these things?! I hate it. Guarantee you that the original mini PSU is better in every way than whatever audiophile bullshit they came up with, and even more so than whatever you can hobby bash together for $20. The people who buy these things are firmly convinced that you can improve audio quality with thousand dollar power cords and other such snake oil.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:01
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Yeah it's really just what I hate the least about the whole thing. I'd stick with what Apple made, and even if the original power supply broke, it's probably cheaper and easier and better in every way to get a used replacement.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:05
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BobHoward posted:I hate it. Guarantee you that the original mini PSU is better in every way than whatever audiophile bullshit they came up with, and even more so than whatever you can hobby bash together for $20. I worked on a custom 'audio pc' which was built out of a EVGA dual socket xeon mobo. The smarties decided shoving metal plates into the (garbage quality) Corsair PSU would cut down on bad audio juju or whatever.. well those plates ended up shorting out the PSU when it was shipped somewhere. It also had 'custom' sleeved and shielded power cables going to various useless things. The pinnacle of the whole thing was a pro-level audio card that had a breakout rack mount box with all the sensitive electronics connected by.. optical SPDIF (or whatever the pro version of that is called). Win all around.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:18
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redeyes posted:optical SPDIF (or whatever the pro version of that is called). That’ll be ADAT Lightpipe from memory. I’m sure just using that terminology on the box meant a 200% markup despite being the same cable.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:26
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MarcusSA posted:Well there is that $100 HDMI cable that does make games look better. From what I've seen its not like an amazing difference but it does work. Apparently yes. Huh. AlternateAccount fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Aug 13, 2018 |
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Aug 13, 2018 20:31
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Yes, actually. https://www.tomsguide.com/us/marseille-mcable-gaming-edition,review-5461.html It's essentially a signal processor that handles upscaling and some post-processing. I wouldn't buy one, but if you must connect a 720p source to a 4K display that has a crappy / laggy scaler, you could do worse.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:44
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Pivo posted:Yes, actually. Well that's kind of a giant shocker, I'm a dummy. Limited use case, yeah, but at least it appears to do SOMETHING.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:46
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BobHoward posted:I hate it. Guarantee you that the original mini PSU is better in every way than whatever audiophile bullshit they came up with, and even more so than whatever you can hobby bash together for $20. Mini PSU is internal. That power supply is just 'filtering' AC power. Not that there's anything wrong with filtering AC power if you're not doing it with magic.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:48
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AlternateAccount posted:
Yeah I know I thought the same thing when I first heard about it. I was kinda shocked that it actually did something and wasn't like the old $100 gold plated Monster HDMI cables. Mac Content: I have a late 2017 15 MBP that I use at work now I don't really want to janitor the battery but I would like to have it last as long as possible. That being said what is the best way to make that happen? Leave it plugged in all the time or unplugged and let the battery run down and charge it as needed? I would assume that leaving it plugged in all day is the right call since the charging tech has come quite a long way and it won't damage the battery like it used to.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:57
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MarcusSA posted:Yeah I know I thought the same thing when I first heard about it. I was kinda shocked that it actually did something and wasn't like the old $100 gold plated Monster HDMI cables. It's an active device, that's the difference and probably why people are confused. It wouldn't be so confusing if the form factor was instead a box with an HDMI input, a power input, an HDMI output and a power button but it's a waste of space. Miniaturization means we will see more active cables masquerading as passive ones. Thunderbolt is an active cable, the 3.5mm Lightning dongle embeds a DAC, etc.
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Aug 13, 2018 21:00
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Shaocaholica posted:Mini PSU is internal. That power supply is just 'filtering' AC power. Not that there's anything wrong with filtering AC power if you're not doing it with magic. The job of the mini psu is, among other things, to isolate the innards of the mini from noise on the AC side. In other words, a form of filtering, if you will. And that’s kind of the issue I have with the way junk like this gets marketed. They will mention legitimate engineering concepts, but neglect to tell you that you have a perfectly good implementation of those concepts already and the supposed upgrade is, as likely as not, worse than the OEM part. Not that it’s impossible to improve on Apple, but they are known for high quality PSU designs, and audiophile gear is frequently designed by total incompetents who are just out to scam money from the gullible. (As a rule, once you get past a certain dollar level, audiophile gear technical performance is likely to have an inverse relationship with price.)
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Aug 13, 2018 21:03
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I don't think anyone showed this yet, but you should see the Mojo Audio guy's absurd guide to optimizing MacOS Performance: https://www.mojo-audio.com/blog/optimizing-os-x-for-audio-video/ (hint: significant slowdown is created by anything other than a solid desktop background) Every time you reboot you must: Turn off the Finder application every time you open Finder or reboot. 
Arivia fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Aug 13, 2018 |
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Aug 13, 2018 21:10
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Arivia posted:I don't think anyone showed this yet, but you should see the Mojo Audio guy's absurd guide to optimizing MacOS Performance: Untreated mental illness is really sad
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Aug 13, 2018 21:28
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Hahahaha I'm not going to lie tho. If I saw that junk in a garage sale or studio liquidation for  I would do it.
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Aug 13, 2018 21:41
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Most of those 'optimizations' are straight out of MacOS 7.6 - PowerPC land- most of that poo poo is unnecessary for any 2010+ Mac- especially 'make your desktop background a solid color.' I half expected him to include 'Don't forget to run MODE32' somewhere in there. Last Chance posted:Untreated mental illness is really sad Doesn't seem to have been treated since 1989. But yeah, I would trust a guy who makes these recommendations to know more about Mac Minis than Apple does. And create a reliable, 'quiet' power supply that's better and more noiseless than the certified electrical engineers that Apple hired to make their power supply. Yeah, sure. By the way, PSA here.. DriveDX is now only $10 if you buy it through BundleHunt. DriveDX kicks SMARTUtility's rear end hard, as it has a constantly updated SSD database, explains more about failures and errors, and can run continuously in the background to monitor your drive's health. Binary Badger fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Aug 13, 2018 |
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Aug 13, 2018 22:12
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Arivia posted:I don't think anyone showed this yet, but you should see the Mojo Audio guy's absurd guide to optimizing MacOS Performance:
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Aug 13, 2018 22:21
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Linux music player without X? Nope, still too many jitterbugs. Now here we have a single tasking OS without any scheduler jitterbugs  :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c6OKiR2cXs&t=73s
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Aug 13, 2018 22:23
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Electric Bugaloo posted:I don’t want to be all “If Steve were here” but apparently he still listened to his vinyl collection up until the end and was the main reason why Apple devices consistently prioritized hi-fi connectivity/compatibility (combi-optical ports on all Mac headphone outs/Airport Express, higher end built-in DACs, etc). I’m pretty sure that Tim has no such compunction on that front since the ATV lost its optical out and I’m fairly certain the new MacBooks don’t have one either (and it’s a matter of time before Macs end up being Bluetooth only anyway). Steve passed away on October 5th, 2011.. the last MacBook Pro to have a combined analog/optical port was the non-Retina mid 2012 MacBook Pro 13 and 15 inch. The first rMBP which came out June 2012 had only digital/analog ports, so yeah looks like an obvious case of "Lets honor Steve by removing all the poo poo he kept screaming at us to keep." Alternate but also possibly parallel theory: Tim probably got tired of sourcing the more expensive optical port hardware and probably concluded that like maybe 1-5% of MacBook Pro users were actually using the optical component of the built-in audio, gently caress 'em. Binary Badger fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Aug 13, 2018 |
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Aug 13, 2018 22:34
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Err probably way less than 1%. 1% is 1/100 and that just mentally seems high for people plugging a weird light cable into their Mac.
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Aug 13, 2018 22:39
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I used to use the optical out on my iMac, because the noise produced by the analog 3.5mm was horrific. Not in an audiophile 'the jitters are wrong man!' way, but more physical noise than actual signal sometimes. Repairable I'm sure, but I had the cable anyway.
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Aug 13, 2018 22:42
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Pivo posted:Yes, actually. Urgh, that is a poor implementation imo. Here is an example of how I think upscaling 720p to 4k ought to look: http://tanalin.com/_picz/gedosato/rayman-legends/3x/levels/10.png KingEup fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Aug 13, 2018 |
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Aug 13, 2018 23:04
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I think my tb3 dock has one of those optical ports but I have absolutely no idea what it’s even for. I’ve been confused about them since I saw one on, I think, my PS2.
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Aug 13, 2018 23:23
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Binary Badger posted:Steve passed away on October 5th, 2011.. the last MacBook Pro to have a combined analog/optical port was the non-Retina mid 2012 MacBook Pro 13 and 15 inch. The first rMBP which came out June 2012 had only digital/analog ports, so yeah looks like an obvious case of "Lets honor Steve by removing all the poo poo he kept screaming at us to keep." There's no way they redesigned the Macbook Pro to the Retina version in less than a year.
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Aug 13, 2018 23:37
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