How is the performance of Music app on M1 Mac mini?

[vddobrev]

One more question for M1 Mac mini owners:

Can you play something in Music and open the Mini Player (command+option+m), then put the mini player in full screen, and show the lyrics. Let it play for a while - does it heat up, and what is the CPU usage?

My 2014 i5 2-core heats up to 98 degrees Celsius in this mode and the fan is blowing.

 

[pshufd]

One more question for M1 Mac mini owners:

Can you play something in Music and open the Mini Player (command+option+m), then put the mini player in full screen, and show the lyrics. Let it play for a while - does it heat up, and what is the CPU usage?

My 2014 i5 2-core heats up to 98 degrees Celsius in this mode and the fan is blowing.

I can open the Mini Player and put it in full screen. I don't see any lyrics though. Does that have to be set up?

 

[Feyl]

One more question for M1 Mac mini owners:

Can you play something in Music and open the Mini Player (command+option+m), then put the mini player in full screen, and show the lyrics. Let it play for a while - does it heat up, and what is the CPU usage?

My 2014 i5 2-core heats up to 98 degrees Celsius in this mode and the fan is blowing.

Very interesting question! I can't answer it because I didn't try this and now I no longer use Apple Music. I've been using my M1 Mac mini since February and I have to say it's always cool to touch and completely silent. I haven't heard the fan at all, yet. I'm not kidding or exaggerating. In this perspective the M1 is literally magical. So I think the situation you're describing will be ok. As I said earlier, Apple makes superb hardware now but the software is severely lacking in many aspects. And the performance is the main one I'd say.

 

[pshufd]

Very interesting question! I can't answer it because I didn't try this and now I no longer use Apple Music. I've been using my M1 Mac mini since February and I have to say it's always cool to touch and completely silent. I haven't heard the fan at all, yet. I'm not kidding or exaggerating. In this perspective the M1 is literally magical. So I think the situation you're describing will be ok. As I said earlier, Apple makes superb hardware now but the software is severely lacking in many aspects. And the performance is the main one I'd say.

I'm in the same situation. I've never heard the fan, even with transcoding a video. It's always cool to the touch as well. I am in the basement and it is cooler down here. I have run a thermal program and I think that the highest temps on this were around 34 degrees. It's a sharp contrast to my Windows desktop which will get up to 78 degrees under heavy load.

 

[Feyl]

It's a sharp contrast to my Windows desktop which will get up to 78 degrees under heavy load.

Exactly. In comparison with the M1 my gaming Windows PC is noisy and definitely not cold to touch right after I turn it on and that is a big beast with a lot of room for cooling. The M1 Mac mini is a little wonder I love it in this way and it's a great achievement from Apple. But the PC runs smoother overall I must say, even with a cheap SATA SSD. So for me it is, performance = Windows and everything else = macOS.

 

[vddobrev]

I can open the Mini Player and put it in full screen. I don't see any lyrics though. Does that have to be set up?

Not all songs have lyrics - there is a little button that resembles double quotes in a bubble, it is to the right of the play/pause prev next controls. Click on it to show lyrics if available. If not try another album.

 

[vddobrev]

Very interesting question! I can't answer it because I didn't try this and now I no longer use Apple Music. I've been using my M1 Mac mini since February and I have to say it's always cool to touch and completely silent. I haven't heard the fan at all, yet. I'm not kidding or exaggerating. In this perspective the M1 is literally magical. So I think the situation you're describing will be ok. As I said earlier, Apple makes superb hardware now but the software is severely lacking in many aspects. And the performance is the main one I'd say.

I'm in the same situation. I've never heard the fan, even with transcoding a video. It's always cool to the touch as well. I am in the basement and it is cooler down here. I have run a thermal program and I think that the highest temps on this were around 34 degrees. It's a sharp contrast to my Windows desktop which will get up to 78 degrees under heavy load.

Agreed, even my 2014 Mac mini is cool while playing music, until I invoke the Mini Player in full screen with lyrics on. And that is my common use case on the big screen...

Can you please try this particular mode.

 

[pshufd]

Not all songs have lyrics - there is a little button that resembles double quotes in a bubble, it is to the right of the play/pause prev next controls. Click on it to show lyrics if available. If not try another album.

It looks like none of my songs has lyrics. I went through about twenty of them. The songs in here are very old.

I ran the Mini Player in full-screen mode and Music is using about 7% of one core in Activity Monitor.

The overall system is at 86% idle.

 

[vddobrev]

It looks like none of my songs has lyrics. I went through about twenty of them. The songs in here are very old.

I ran the Mini Player in full-screen mode and Music is using about 7% of one core in Activity Monitor.

The overall system is at 86% idle.

Thanks! If you have Apple Music subscription you can try streaming newer songs with lyrics. But I am not sure if it is the lyrics or just the full screen - can you let it run for a while and check thermals. Usage on my 2014 is 30-45% of one core out of two, and windowserver is taking another 15-25%... so there is the reason of heating up...

 

[pshufd]

Thanks! If you have Apple Music subscription you can try streaming newer songs with lyrics. But I am not sure if it is the lyrics or just the full screen - can you let it run for a while and check thermals. Usage on my 2014 is 30-45% of one core out of two, and windowserver is taking another 15-25%... so there is the reason of heating up...

I don't have a subscription and don't plan to get one.

I did a trial download of the program that measures thermals and that was back in July or August and don't have it anymore. I could try running it on my 2014 MacBook Pro for comparison. My 2014 gets pretty warm with one YouTube video running and nothing else.

 

[vddobrev]

I don't have a subscription and don't plan to get one.

I did a trial download of the program that measures thermals and that was back in July or August and don't have it anymore. I could try running it on my 2014 MacBook Pro for comparison. My 2014 gets pretty warm with one YouTube video running and nothing else.

Thanks again, this one is free https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control/download

I tried full screen without lyrics and it heats up to 92-94C. I would appreciate it if you tired on you 2014 MBP.

 

[vddobrev]

Just to visualise, this is the full screen mode with lyrics, the cursor is at the button to show lyrics:

Yea, that is a curved screen...

 

[pshufd]

Thanks again, this one is free https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control/download

I tried full screen without lyrics and it heats up to 92-94C. I would appreciate it if you tired on you 2014 MBP.

My old system is running Mojave so it has iTunes to play music. When I have the Mini Player running, it's using about 5% CPU. I can't make the Mini Player full-screen as there are no controls to do so. It almost sounds like a bug in Music.

 

[vddobrev]

Just got a new M1 Mac mini, and I am glad to report that the music performance that I had with my 2014 is non existent on the new M1.
However, I am disappointed and sad to see that the M1 mini only supports 48.0KHz audio over HDMI. Why Apple? The 2014 mini supports up to 192.0 KHz over HDMI and optical!

No 44.1KHz either, and that is shame!