Apple iMac for audio on a computer? how good is it?

You would need an external DAC, then an amp, then a software player to play FLAC files.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LCfiner 

You would need an external DAC, then an amp, then a software player to play FLAC files.

 

You mean because of the headphones, not because of FLAC, right? External DACs and amps aren't required to play FLAC.

OP you should just try out the HD600 with the iMac. Set it up next to your Windows machine and A-B them; if it doesn't sound as good to you, you've got your answer.

I use an iMac running Win7
The headphone out of the iMac is decent mid-fi in my opinion.
I use an external DAC to improve on the sound quality.

If you plan to run OSX, you need another media player as iTunes doesn’t support FLAC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric_C 

You mean because of the headphones, not because of FLAC, right? External DACs and amps aren't required to play FLAC.

 

OP you should just try out the HD600 with the iMac. Set it up next to your Windows machine and A-B them; if it doesn't sound as good to you, you've got your answer.

yes, I mean because of the headphones. you can’t install a new sound card inside the iMac, so you need the Dac/Amp to bypass the iMac’s internal sound equipment.

as for Flac playback, you need a new playback app as iTunes won’t do it. so either download something like Fidelia or convert the FLAC to apple lossless and play in iTunes.

What makes Macs great for music is that as long as you don't mess with the iTunes EQ settings or sound enhancements, you can get a pure bit-for-bit signal out of it via either USB or the optical toslink output of the headphone jack (or via Airplay to either an Apple TV or Airport device). It's a great digital source, and obviously iTunes for Mac is miles better than iTunes for Windows. Obviously working with ALAC is much easier than FLAC on Mac OS X, but as they are both lossless, you can convert them easily without any trouble or data loss.

However if you want something great sounding, then yes, you need an external DAC, and from there you can go either to an amp/headphone amp for cans and speakers, or just from the DAC to active speakers. The DACs in the Macs aren't great because they don't have to be, but it offers a great starting point.