Monitor Failure Fiasco
Maybe 'll get bonus points for making you all laugh.
Thursday evening I was working on something in LR. My monitor flashed , went POOF and was stone dead. It was a nice 27" Dell, about a $250 monitor nothing fancy, but looked pretty nice I liked it.
To make a long story short, I hooked up two different older monitors to my Late 2012 Mac Mini via a VGA - HDMI adapter and got no signal. I disconnected the HDMI and connected to 3 other non- Mac computers and they all worked. So I made the assumption that something in the computer fried.
I bought this I5 2.5 ghz Mac Mini in 2014 as a refurb from OWC. I installed 16gb of RAM and a 1TB 7200 rpm drive. it's been the most reliable thing I own since. Seriously it's never froze up or crashed in that time, not even once. So it was pretty sad that she died. But I figured it was pretty old and some hardware failure was imminent. Honestly though it wasn't super fast but everything i do is in LR and it was fine. I was even able to do the Super Resolution thing.
So I ordered a new 2018 i3 ghz, 16 gb RAM 256 SSD (in Space Grey woooo) from the same folks. I get it home hook it up and the same issue. After talking with the OWC guys we figured the only thing to do was hook up a monitor with a non-VGA cord. Stupid me- these monitors both had VGI ports. I went to Menards bought a cheap VGI to HDMI cable. Boom! we are in business. Yes of course my old Mac Mini works just fine. I logged in and picked up exactly where left of when everything went to hell in a handbasket.
So. Here is the final take away, a mac mini will not support VGA- HDMI, but the internet says it will support VGA to Thunderbolt.
LOL had I just used the other port in the first place or better yet gone out and bought a new monitor- which i am going to do anyway, I would be $700 richer.
On the other hand the new mac I got is pretty cool. Now I have two good computers.
That's a positive way to think about it. Kind of annoying to go through all that just to find out the issue was more simple, but that's life for ya.
I had my own computer stuff this week. Upgraded my graphics card on my old PC to support faster processing in Davinci Resolve. I hadn't needed a better GPU because all my other editors rely almost solely on the CPU which mine is decent, but Resolve almost exclusively pushes the GPU. Sold my old one on eBay and bought a new (used) one on eBay a few minutes later for not too much more. Working awesome so far.
Here is my new system coming along I use it for photo editing in Lightroom, listening to music and general; surfing (like Snappiness videos on YT 🙂
Mac Mini described above. Under it is a Satech USB- C hub which is really cool. One bad thing about a mac- mini is all the connections are on the back.
I've met a lot of photogs who are into good sound also- if so....
the audio part is:
A Schiit stack- No really that's the name of the company
Schiit Audio: Audio Products Designed and Built in California
American made and affordable- imagine that. Owned by two guys who worked for high end audio companies.
I have the headphone headphone amp/ preamp - Magni Heresy and the DAC digital to analog converter model- modi. The DAC as one reviewer put "walks all over" the one in the computer. There is no comparison. I also used it with a Denon DVD player I paid $8 for in a thrift store as a cd player on my "big stereo" . I mean...it is just incredible.
My headphones are Grado SR80 e- Made in Brooklyn NY- very old company. they make some big dollar stuff.
Look cheap sound amazing. on the bright side. Replaced by the X model.
Grado Labs - Brooklyn Headphones and Cartridges Since 1953
The speakers are cheap Presonus studio monitors. They sound okay, but I've heard better. These will be the first to be replaced to go to a secondary system.
Each component is about $100. I just use Apple music with the "Bit Perfect" app. Only about 10 bucks. I rip CDs to WAV or Apple lossless.
I think the system sounds pretty great. especially with the headphones.
I need to clean up all these freaking wires.
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Last year I was going to invest in some studio monitors and... I don't know why it confused me so much. I guess I don't know anything about audio, but man. So I gave up and bought some cheap Logitechs 😆 I do have some entry level audiotechnica headphones that are more like a monitor when I want to really hear the audio in editing without any fancy additions going on to it.
Man I keep thinking about selling my PC and going with a Mac mini. I love how small that thing is, even with the necessary (really) additional port accessory. I use to build PCs and I'm a much simpler man now. I just want something that works and I don't have to mess with. I don't have to mess with my PC much I guess. Just go in and dust it. The size and sound advantage would be cool though.
Nice setup.
The difference between studio monitors and loudspeaker is that studio monitors are not supposed to color the sound. These Presonus have bass and treble on the back so you can tweak them if you want.
If you want to blow your mind, push your monitor back as far as you can and your speakers pull forward. Create a soundstage. You may get imaging- where the speakers disappear.
Mac mini is probably not a great choice for video editing. Something to do with the GPU. I got the mac mini only for economic reasons othewise I would have got a really nice iMac. Buddy of mine has a beautiful 5K 27" one and his only complaint is that his photos never look as good anywhere else as they do on that screen The mini is the cheapest way to go mac.
This one has 4 thunderbolt ports on the back so i think you can run an external GPU. There are videos on YT about it.
