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I love macs and rely on them to make my living but you
don't have to drink the kool-aid.
I think that's the most sensible comment in this whole thread. It do enjoy the standard audio output from my macbook pro, but I would be deluding myself if I didn't think it was vastly improved by outputting through my cyrus DAC-X ito my speakers. I have been a mac user for 4 years, but am certainly not ignorant of their shortcomings!
i find it funny that this is a mac thread and it got hit by pc users that
probably did not do an a vs b and see for themselves oh and i use both
a dell when i have to and a mac pro when i can.
Since we completely jacked this thread I will just say this... Apples are simply fun computers- that is the best way to put it. I was not burned by PCs, I simply took a chance/ tried something different when I tried out an iMac. I had used PCs for years. Turned out it was a good move. I never thought of a computer as a toy until I got it. One last thing- I admire peoples loyalty to PCs- but bear in mind most Mac users are previous PC users- I wasn't born into a Mac family. And I will not go back. How many die hard PC users have actually sat behind a Mac for any amount of time the way most mac users have sat behind a PC?
As far as sound goes- my iMac sounds better than my wife's Dell. Do I know why- no. But I do not understand why some amps sound better than others. I just know they do.
Just got a new MacBook yesterday (and using it right now!), and so far, I'm happy with the sound. It's as good as most portable CDPs I've tried and a little better than the iPod. It's as good as the line out on the Titanium PowerBook I was using. I haven't tried the optical out into the DAC yet, but I'll get to it this weekend. Part of buying it was so I can jack in an external hard drive with lossless rips and use the remote to play music. I was using an Intel Mac Mini for that, but ended up giving that machine to my father when his old Mac died. The Mini optical out sounded great.
That being said, I prefer the turntable and SACD player to this, but Macs are pretty darn far from bad. You can get good sound from a consumer device. Maybe not the last minute detail, but overall, it's excellent.
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UNCLE ERIK Vinyl, Tubes & Grado
Orbe SE -> SME IV -> Fi Yph -> Zana Deux/Si2A3
RS-1, HP-2, HF-1, K-1000, K-701, K-501, K-340, K-240DF, HD-650, HD-600, HD-414, DT48, DT880, MDR-SA5000, ATH-6, Aperio Alpha
mac users are still pc users. They have the exact same hardware. There is no such thing as a "mac" anymore. A mac is just a pc with an apple logo that has a chip that allows it to run mac osx. Otherwise, they are exactly the same.
As for OSX, it is horrible. Ive tried to "sit down" with it several times, but it is just the most unintuitive and poorly designed interface i have ever seen.
It is too dumbed down, it doesnt give you much ability to configure it. I also hate the dock and the way you cant maximize windows. I also cant stand the fact that every little app is shareware and your computer is basically useless without buying a million different little apps.
Apple is great for people who don't know how to use a computer, but i run windows with NO real time antivirus (i do have a few scanners and stuff that i can use occasionally, but again, no real time) and i havent encountered any problems in the past year. Its just common sense about what you should and shouldnt click.
I'm just like you. I run my PC without any real time AV. I also have a Mac. You don't have to be stupid or "not know how to use a PC" to run a Mac. It also doesn't make you any smarter to run a PC anyway....
Let's get back on topic! Sound quality not operating systems!
Well Mushi I haven't had much practice working on computer problems over the past 2 years becuase since I switched to Mac I don't have any blue screens, fatal errors, virus invasions, registry nonsense or any other of that crud to deal with. I am just forced to spend time on Final Cut and other apps and actually working instead of fixing the Gates Gifts that keeps on giving and giving and giving.....
You are fooling yourself if you think it is as simple as the chipset or, even more moronically, if you think that asus manufacturing a Mac designed by Apple is going to be the same as them manufacturing the generic cut-throat- priced junk that is badly designed by Acer or Dell or whoreallycaresifitrunswindowsanyway corp. Just one example... I actually use an external DAC. But the DAC in my Mac is made by TI and specs out higher than a lot of the high-priced externals people rave about here. The SQ isn't just the chip. The discussions around here recently havebeen analyzing the effects of solder! I will believe my (and lots of other peoples') ears and be very confident that what my Mac is deliveringn is the result of a ciompany that actually cares about the user experience and designed a machine and had it manufactured to such a high quality that I am constantly thrilled with the performance i experience - audio and in numerous other ways.
And btw, I do like my music without all the hissing. Love how that gets mentioned as if it is an afterthought or somehow irrelevant to the typically superior Mac out-of-the-box music experience. If you can't afford a Mac, then fine, but the sour grapes arguments are really pathetic.
And one last thing. You couldn't convince me to run Bootcamp on my Mac for all the pirated CDs in China. Why would I ever want that Windows garbage on my lovely Mac?
Oh dear. Apple and audiophile kool aid combined. I always find a condemnation of PC hardware and Windows preceded by an admission of incompetence such a compelling argument.
I can't afford a Macbook? Read further up the thread and note the laptop I am using. Check the price of my laptop, and compare it with yours. You will find that mine is the more expensive. That you even tried to run that argument is contemptible. The only thing that you have indicated by a feeling of superiority for the ability to afford a trivial piece of consumer electronics is that you are not, in fact, wealthy at all, but a member of the lower-middle class who engages in vacuous conspicuous consumption, and in a laughably contradictory way, for you and your purchases are so very petty.
If you want to know the precise implementation of Azalia in your Macbook, it is a Realtek ALC885. The very same family that exists in almost all PC laptops. If you examine the manufacturer published specifications, you will find that its analogue performance is somewhere between that of an Audigy 1 and an Audigy 2 ZS.
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