good sounding DAC with usb in

[viseral audio]

need help looking for noticeable upgrade to headphone out on my iMac, doesn't,t have optical so have to use usb out. THANKS!

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

*Does Jedi Mind Trick* - Yes you do (have optical out - it's inside headphones port) and No you don't need to upgrade it - it's already more than good enough - Mac always had very good built-in DAC.
Don't like the sound? Upgrade the headphones!

 

[GrimSurfer]

BoredSysAdmin is correct about your Mac's combined audio/optical output.

You probably wouldn't want to use optical for an external DAC though. The optical-out on a Mac headphone jack is a one-way communication protocol port (output only, no input).

USB is two-way, which allows an external DAC to assume master clock duty.

It's good when the decoder/converter and the master clock are operating in close cooperation.

It's also good to leave DAC duties to offboard devices because background computer processes (video, file management, Ethernet, wifi) can interfere in clean and accurate clocking. After all, their primary purpose is computing not audio.

 

[viseral audio]

apple dropped optical out for its 2017 imac, headphone out runs to receiver and sounds pretty darn good but I just thought what if.... thanks everybody

 

[GrimSurfer]

apple dropped optical out for its 2017 imac, headphone out runs to receiver and sounds pretty darn good but I just thought what if.... thanks everybody

Yup, I read that. Not sure how wise that was, but there are rumours that Apple is withdrawing from music. If this is correct (and I'm not sure it is),then dropping the optical output makes sense.

If you think headphone out to receiver sounds good, wait till you try USB --> DAC --> phono out --> receiver CD in. It's another level entirely.

 

[viseral audio]

well worth it huh , any suggestions? thanks a bunch

 

[GrimSurfer]

well worth it huh , any suggestions? thanks a bunch

I have a Cambridge Audio DAC Magic Plus, which runs around $400. The entry-level DAC Magic 100 ($200) gets good reviews too.

Considering the DAC in your iMac is $5 in parts, I think anything of reasonable quality will be an improvement. The thing to look for is the chip set. Wolfsons are good. I'm told Burr-Browns are even better.

Matching things qualitatively seems reasonable. So if you have a Bryston 14SST power amp and killer preamp, spending $3k on a DAC might make sense. A little out of my league though...

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

well worth it huh , any suggestions? thanks a bunch

Do you have a Thunderbolt port? You should be able to get a thunderbolt to HDMI cable and use this to connect to your receiver. Then the later will serve as your dac.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I have a Cambridge Audio DAC Magic Plus, which runs around $400. The entry-level DAC Magic 100 ($200) gets good reviews too.

Considering the DAC in your iMac is $5 in parts, I think anything of reasonable quality will be an improvement. The thing to look for is the chip set. Wolfsons are good. I'm told Burr-Browns are even better.

Matching things qualitatively seems reasonable. So if you have a Bryston 14SST power amp and killer preamp, spending $3k on a DAC might make sense. A little out of my league though...

You make some good points and some very bad ones. $5 chip dac doesn't mean it is bad in any way. Especially on apple device. I will not make any assumptions unless I see some measurements, and last time I've seen Apple device DAC measured it was excellent.

 

[GrimSurfer]

You make some good points and some very bad ones. $5 chip dac doesn't mean it is bad in any way. Especially on apple device. I will not make any assumptions unless I see some measurements, and last time I've seen Apple device DAC measured it was excellent.

Fair enough and I too have seen the reviews on Mac DACs. But the fact remains that DACs aren't a priority in either design or operation in computing. So as good as they may be, it's not unusual to hear a massive clocking error cause rebuffering of the audio signal when the CPU decides it's time to check for a software update.

You are completely right - Spending $5 on DAC components is neither good nor bad, and Apple does a good job of it. But it's really a DAC chip and not much more. So it has to offload control, sponge off the power supply, compete for system resources etc. because it only contains $5 in parts.