Preliminary note:
[Despite my avatar, and the nice things I say about Grado products below, I have no connection to Grado Labs, other than being one of their many satisfied customers. Grado Labs has not seen what I state below, they have no knowledge of what I am about too say, and I have no idea if they would even agree with any of this. Having given this caveat, I note that I sent an email question to Grado regarding this issue because of their excellent reputation for manufacturing high quality products, and because they do not manufacture DAC's. Therefore, in my opinion, Grado Labs would have no reason to give anything other than a 100% frank answer to the question I put to them. Because I believe that the answer they gave me was an excellent and honest one, I believed that it would also help answer the OPs question, so I repeated their answer to me below. Grado Labs has not has not seen, or approved of, my strictly personal opinions given below.]
Artguy,
Is it really true? Did you really get zero responses to your very logical question that is not only well-stated, but which also should have elicited many responses from many Mac owners who are now trying to figure out what to do with their old G5's?
I think that it is at least possible that there are many people in our position (assuming that your G5 still lives and has not been melted down for the aluminum or something).
First, because of the possibilities of upgrading via the Thunderbolt connection, and because Mac Pros have gotten much more expensive relative to the current line of iMacs, and because, for most practical matters, these days, unlike in the past, iMacs are about as fast as the much more expensive low end Mac Pros, there are many of us who, from the Mac 9500, to the Blue & White Macs, to the G4s, and finally, to the Power PC swan song, the splendid Mac G5 (mine is the 2.7Ghz x2), there are many of us who were previously dedicated tower Mac users who have now finally, and reluctantly, jumped on the iMac band wagon.
For me at least, this was a very traumatic decision. I want a Mac Pro, but considering the costs, and the elimination of the speed difference (high end iMac vs low end Mac Pro), I very reluctantly followed Steve Job's advice and stopped imagining that I was a pro when, in fact, I am just the kind of home user for whom Apple designed the iMac.
Overall, Steve did us all a favor. He caused us to quit wasting money on expensive Mac's, and wasting money on all of the tinkering we did because we had access to the guts of the computer. My wife absolutely loves Steve's position because I cannot keep buying new cards and other stuff to stick into a tower Mac. She loves my decision, and she misses Steve (we both do), but I miss the tinkering, however illogical it was.
But now FINALLY for my point (if you have read this far). Under pressure from my wife to give away my beloved G5, because I now have an iMac (3.4 Ghz x 4 cores), I am looking for reasons to keep the G5. After perusing my G5 manual (yes, I still have it and it is in mint condition), I noticed that the Toslink input and output at the back are digital audio in and DIGITAL AUDIO OUT.
Therefore, it appears that one can obtain from a G5, a pure digital audio output that had been subjected to neither of the two types of audio atrocities that audiophiles hate: (1) obtaining sound via the type of internal computer amp that would send audiophiles into grand mal seizures; and (2) obtaining sound that has been converted to analog by the type of digital to analog conversion via whatever kind of DAC can be cost-effectively built into a computer (95% of whose users could not care less about what kind of DAC it has, but whose other 5% of users care dearly about this).
So, whatever kind of device one hooks up to the Toslink audio out port at the the back of a G5, need not be able to somehow negate the effects of an internal DAC because the sound cooming out of that port is digital and, therefore, has not been "touched" by the Mac's internal DAC. Also, because it is a simple "line out," without amplification, one can choose whatever type of amplification one chooses to connect. In my case, the amplification services will be provided by a Grado RA-1 stereo headphone amplifier, with Grado HP-1 headphones being the ultimate target of all of my efforts to provide clean sound to my ears.
Now, as to your question, Artguy, I am sorry to report that I am no audio expert, so I can give you no personal advice. However, I did take the step of contacting what I consider to be an honest, knowledgeable source of information on this subject, Grado Labs: http://www.gradolabs.com/
Grado has no axe to grind on this issue because they do not manufacture any DACs. However, virtually 100% of what they do manufacture is manufactured in the USA and is exceptionally well built. For the users of headphones, anyone who has listened to Grado headphones can attest to the fact that their headphone line, from top to bottom, is composed of headphones that are well built. These headphones, even at the low end, provide suprisingly good sound for their price. In my mind, Grado has a very good price to quality ratio throughout their entire line of products.
For the practitioners of the ancient and esoteric religious practice of sending totally analog sound into amplifiers, where the feed has been created by an object known as an "audio cartridge." This "cartridge" creates its signal by means of dragging an object known as a "stylus' across a vinyl disk known in ancient 20th Century America as an "LP," short for "long playing album." This is a reference to the ancient practice of distributing an artist's musical creations as a group of songs, or, an "album" if you will, instead of our current practice of selling one song at a time.
In any case, the reason for this history lesson was so that those of you born in the last few years of the previous century would understand what I am talking about when I mention the fact that Grado Labs also produces (and, indeed, originally produced nothing but) very high quality audio cartridges.
So, having established that Grado Labs: (1) has no dog in this fight; and (2) definitely knows what they are talking about when one seeks the highest quality, least processed, most accurate sound to feed into one's amplifier, I will now disclose what I was told by Grado Labs on the topic of digital to analog converters.
"DAC's can be high quality products providing high quality sound.
that said the music files on your computer need to be lossless for it to make sense to make the investment.
Also these so called"audiophile" DAC can be over priced.
there are many "sound cards" available from pro music stores that are just as good and 1/3 the price and also better performing...Roland, Apogee, AVID are companies that make very good sound cards( they are actually boxes that connect via firewire or USB).
all in all digital music files can be very good, it is also an excellent way of accessing your music library.
but being better than a good CD player or an good turntable, probably not."
I am not put off by the quite accurate final sentence because what I seek is a way to play high quality music from my computer, my iPad, or my iPod Touch. I am heartened by the second to the last statement and my search is the same as yours, Artguy.
Yes, it is true that the very best sound is probably not digital at all, but analog sound coming from pristine vinyl LPs produced by the direct-to-disk method, or its equally expensive equivalent. After paying for the expensive vinyl recordings, then one must assemble an equally high quality set of equipment to play it. I have seen some systems where the cartridge alone costs more than my whole stereo system. Then the tone arm to carry it costs about five times that, and finally, the turntable upon which to mount the tone arm costs about as much as my car. And after all this, we still need pre amplification, amplification, and speakers. Yes, this will sound better than whatever comes out of my iPad, but it is a bit burdensome to carry around, even for those few who could pay for it.
I guess a good CD player would not be quite as ridiculous. But, it strikes me as being a bit tedious and expensive to go back to buying albums instead of iTunes. Also, my instincts tell me that the most important part of this CD player would be the part that produces the analog to digital conversion (the internal "DAC").
So, this brings us back to the point made in the second to the last sentence in Grado's reply to my question:
"all in all digital music files can be very good, it is also an excellent way of accessing your music library."
So, I guess what I am about to say will disqualify me from being a true "audiophile." I am willing to publicly state that I believe that I will be satisfied by "lossless" digital sound, if played with good equipment and converted to analog with a high-quality, but not overpriced DAC. I have a nice stereo system at home with a pair of 91 pound JBL, L-150's which might put me in the near audiophile category, once I buy the preamp and the power amp for which I lust (I already have a nice Denon turntable and Denon cartridge that produce good analog sound, once hooked up to a good tube preamp and tube power amplifier). I guess I need a few high quality AC cables and interconnect cables, but I already have the Monster Cable for my speakers.
To the audiophiles out there (or anyone willing to give an opinion), how dramatic, or subtile, will the difference be between: (1) my "at home stereo system" described above (with the intended additions, once finally configured, using good vinyl recordings or CD recordings played through a good CD player; and (2) a Mac G5, playing "lossless" iTune recordings, with the output being the Macintosh G5 digital sound output fed into a Tolink cable, that connects to a good DAC, and then, is connected to a Grado RA-1 Headphone Amplifier, and, finally, played in analog form to me by my Grado HP-1 Headphones?
In any case, I find that the majority of the music I play is when I am either on-the-go, or when I am not in my living room but in my study at my computer. Given the fact that even Grado Labs says that "all in all digital music files can be very good" and given the fact that a good DAC can make it better, yes, I want a good, but not overpriced DAC. I would put this DAC between the digital Toslink output of my G5 (or, possibly a USB output, if the output is truly digital and the cables as high quality as the Toslik cables) and the analog RCA inputs of my Grado HP-1 Stereo Headphone Amplifier. Ideally this DAC would have Toslink inputs, USB inputs, or both, and would have a provision or RCA outputs. My next question is, what DAC would fit this description or come close?
So, calling all audiophiles! What advice would you be kind enough to give to Artguy and me? Also, if you see any mistakes in any of my conclusions, my assumptions, or my stated "facts," please feel free to correct me, or even to have a little fun saying what an idiot I am. But, most of all, can you point us in the direction of some good DACs? They need not necessarily be inexpensive, but please leave out DACs that are in the category of "overpriced" as noted by the comments from Grado labs.
Edited by HonoluluWalt - 10/7/11 at 2:56pm
