Note: The following is copied from a thread I posted in the Computer Audio forum (which received no responses). I'd really appreciate some advice on this- Thanks!!:
Thinking of doing a wired connection from an older Intel iMac to transfer 24/96 recordings to my receiver. After giving some thought & doing some research, it seems that going with a 30' wired connection (while not elegant) would be the cheapest route to getting bit perfect 24/96 from my iMac's optical audio output**. My plan is to use Channel D Pure Music with the ITunes front end for the player & then wire the ~30' from my iMac to my audio system. Right now I'm using an old Harman Kardon AVR 525 Receiver (which supposedly does up to 24/192) to do the digital conversion, but this might be replaced by a Schiit Bifrost (which definitely does up to 24/192) in the near future. My main question: do I go with a 30' optical cable or use an optical-to-coax converter & then use 30' of coax for the long run?
Seems that coax is generally preferred for longer runs, but I'm not sure about the trade-offs in using a optical/coax converter. Also, not sure whether 30' is a long enough distance to necessitate the benefits of coax. Edit: Another question- I am thinking of adding a splitter and routing another 15' cable to my bedroom system: does this change the preferred method for the long run (coax vs. optical), especially given that the signal would need to be split?
**The thought process being that, since (FWIR) Apple Airport Express cannot do bit perfect 24/96 via AirPlay wireless streaming, my $ is better spent on the Channel D software & some cabling versus a wireless streaming solution. As I understand it, we could still use the ipod touch remote functionality to control iTunes on the iMac.
