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The Mac mini really is almost a perfect media center box

Not if you want:

• HDTV (not enough CPU for 1080i)
• Multiple tuners
• An big easy-to-use interface with a remote that controls TV, PVR, DVD, photos, music, CD/DVD burning, portable mp3 player synching, etc
• TV-out (S-video, component, composite)
• Big hard drive, tv-tuner, surround sound, and memory card reader in one or two small boxes.

Once you add up the price and combined size of a Mac mini plus Elgato EyeTV 200, M-Audio surround sound USB card, and 256MB of memory ($75), then a pre-built Shuttle XPC with Windows Media Center Edition looks like a much better solution for a "media center box."

Of course if you don't need tv and surround sound, then the Mac mini is freakin' sweet. I'd hardly call it a "media center box," though.

The case for the mini looks good enough for a home entertainment PC. I'm not going to put an ugly black or beige box next to the TV

That depends on your definition of a "home entertainment PC." I agree that the case looks good enough for a HTPC, but the Mac mini is not powerful enough for high def and needs more external accessories to be a "decent" HTPC, IMO.

To be a decent HTPC, I think the mini might need:

1. M-Audio Sonica Theater for surround sound and digital out (4.8" x 3.1" x 1.2")
2. Elgato EyeTV 200 for TV tuner/PVR (8.3" x 6.1" x 1.4")
3. An external hard drive might be needed, since SDTV eats about 2 GB per hour. On the other hand, video can also be burned onto DVD.

All together, that doesn't seem that bad to me. The Mac mini is so darned tiny and the Sonica Theater can probably be stacked on top of the EyeTV. But the Mac mini will (probably) never be able to do HDTV and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD.

I priced an equivalent Shuttle for that purpose and arrived at about the same price as a Mini. That's not including the effort required to put the Shuttle parts together and install the OS. The Mini comes with everything ready to go...

Shuttle also sells complete systems with all the parts already together and OS already installed. They even sell Media Player XPCs with surround sound, digital output, TV tuner/PVR, and memory card reader inside the box. These Media Player XPCs run MS Windows Media Center Edition 2005 and include a remote. The cheapest one starts at $950 and includes a 3Ghz Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, 80GB HD, DVD/CD-RW combo drive (Dual layer DVD burner for $32 more), keyboard/mouse, and all that other "media center" shit I mentioned before (surround, digital, DVR, remote, etc).

(1) add a RAM stick BTO - cheapo
(2) add bluetooth BTO - cheapo
(3) add Wifi card BTO - cheapo
(4) sit unobtrusively to my way-cool existing TV and hook up A/V - nothin'
(5) hook to already existing wifi ADSL-powered network - nothin'
(6) bring in my already existing Sony-Ericsson Z600 - nothin'

Don't forget to upgrade the hard drive BTO to 80GB (the max size for cheap 1.25GHz model). 40GB is not enough for a DVR. You might also need a cheapo TV tuner with hardware MPEG-2 encode like the EyeTV 200 ($329 at Apple Store). You might need a sound upgrade that provides surround and digital outputs like the M-Audio Sonica Theater ($120).

The total cheapo price for your "Media Center" Mac mini with upgraded RAM, bluetooth, Airport, hard drive, TV tuner/encoder, and sound: $1202.

For that price, a much better "Media Center" machine would be a Shuttle Media Center XPC. Sure, it's not quite as tiny as a Mac mini, but you wouldn't need an external TV Tuner/encoder and external sound card. A K 6200m can be configured with internal TV tuner, digital audio out, Wi-Fi, remote control, etc for less than $1000.

There's no point getting good speakers if the audio being played on them is of poor quality.

I agree with this to a point. You don't go buy $10k speakers and run them off a Soundblaster 16. But, really, you don't run them off an Extigy either. The only things the Extigy has going for it is marketing and being external. It actually has nasty DA and AD converters, constantly dithers to various frequencies and bit rates, and generally mucks up the sound something awful. Not actually worth the money.

There are good external sound cards, but they don't come cheap. Try M-Audio (now with a consumer line!) or Echo or Aardvark or even Digidesign if you want "audiophile" sound cards for a PC. These are all "Pro Audio" companies (aka music production), but you can use the stuff for Quake just as easy as creating break beats.

There's no point getting good speakers if the audio being played on them is of poor quality.

The counter to this is that there's no point in using a good amp/soundcard/cables/etc to produce good audio if the speakers it is playing on is poor quality. And there are no "computer speakers" that are not poor quality from an Audiophile perspective. Nor can you even buy any Audiophile speakers at Best Buy or Circuit City. Supposedly SoundTrack carries them, but the one near me does not. I can only find them in local shops; the shops that turn up thier noses if you ask if they carry anything by Bose.

For perspactive, there's audiophile and Audiophile. The former is like the guy who says he's into performace cars and slaps a "Type-R" sticker on his Civic. The latter is the guy who says he's into performace cars and labors over whether to buy a Ferrari or Lambroghini. (If these are misspelled, or are actually not the "nice" cars anymore, please forgive me. I drive a "paid for" Storm and a Grand Prix and don't pretend to care about cars.) My wife and I are 2/3 of the way from audiophile to Audiophile. She won't buy a speaker unless she can instantly tell whether Itzhak Perlman is pushing or pulling the bow across the strings. I want to hear what brand of compressors were used in the drum overheads. But we have a WIDE variety of systems we play music on, from MB Quarts (nice) to Altec Lansing PC speakers (functional for the beeps Windows makes) to 1964 Magnavox peice-of-furniture stereo (inacurate, but warm and perfect for Billie Holiday.)

So... If your husband is an Audiophile, spare him the agony of pretending to like what you get him Christmas morning and get him something else. If he's an audiophile, get him whatever is on the shelf for $200.

Sysiphus

There's no point getting good speakers if the audio being played on them is of poor quality.

I agree with this to a point. You don't go buy $10k speakers and run them off a Soundblaster 16. But, really, you don't run them off an Extigy either. The only things the Extigy has going for it is marketing and being external. It actually has nasty DA and AD converters, constantly dithers to various frequencies and bit rates, and generally mucks up the sound something awful. Not actually worth the money.

There are good external sound cards, but they don't come cheap. Try M-Audio (now with a consumer line!) or Echo or Aardvark or even Digidesign if you want "audiophile" sound cards for a PC. These are all "Pro Audio" companies (aka music production), but you can use the stuff for Quake just as easy as creating break beats.

There's no point getting good speakers if the audio being played on them is of poor quality.

The counter to this is that there's no point in using a good amp/soundcard/cables/etc to produce good audio if the speakers it is playing on is poor quality. And there are no "computer speakers" that are not poor quality from an Audiophile perspective. Nor can you even buy any Audiophile speakers at Best Buy or Circuit City. Supposedly SoundTrack carries them, but the one near me does not. I can only find them in local shops; the shops that turn up thier noses if you ask if they carry anything by Bose.

For perspactive, there's audiophile and Audiophile. The former is like the guy who says he's into performace cars and slaps a "Type-R" sticker on his Civic. The latter is the guy who says he's into performace cars and labors over whether to buy a Ferrari or Lambroghini. (If these are misspelled, or are actually not the "nice" cars anymore, please forgive me. I drive a "paid for" Storm and a Grand Prix and don't pretend to care about cars.) My wife and I are 2/3 of the way from audiophile to Audiophile. She won't buy a speaker unless she can instantly tell whether Itzhak Perlman is pushing or pulling the bow across the strings. I want to hear what brand of compressors were used in the drum overheads. But we have a WIDE variety of systems we play music on, from MB Quarts (nice) to Altec Lansing PC speakers (functional for the beeps Windows makes) to 1964 Magnavox peice-of-furniture stereo (inacurate, but warm and perfect for Billie Holiday.)

So... If your husband is an Audiophile, spare him the agony of pretending to like what you get him Christmas morning and get him something else. If he's an audiophile, get him whatever is on the shelf for $200.

Sysiphus