Quote: Originally Posted by Eisenhower I just bought a macbook pro and the headphone out is super noisy, Its picking up all sorts of internal noise, and it sounds almost like r2d2 in the backround. Has anyone else noticed this? Maybe Im being a stickler, but I was expecting alot for...

Been trolling many sites for reviews, and I haven't found any others as knowledgeable as Head-Fi. Not only for the content of the review, but also for the discussions following, as other members pipe in. You may end up confused, but you will be informed. (same thing)

Quote: Originally Posted by happybob airport express is probably the cheapest option, but based on reviews, its optical out isn't as good as that of a squeezebox or sono, and the whole point of getting a usb dac is that the usb input supposedly is superior to optical in especially in...

Quote: Originally Posted by poo Couldn't you run optical out of an airport express into a DAC? Yes. I'm running a TosLink into my DAC. Works perfectly.

What's the bitrate you have stored your music in? Too low, and you'll risk hearing such artifacts...

Quote: Originally Posted by krmathis You could buy an external DAC or converter box which take optical digital input and output coax digital. My Electrocompaniet ECD1 have this option, and I am sure other devices have this option as well. Thanks, yes - I'm aware of this, but I...

Hi Grawk, Oh, you should see my Macs. I have owned Macs since 1985 and have very rarely had any warranty issues -- and I'm willing to take the chance here. Have several computers I'm not using actively now that have processor speeds that would be more than adequate to manage the task. Though...

Thanks. I really appreciate this. Think I'll go the modifying route - the Mac that will be managing my music, etc., will be a dedicated unit -so modifying it shouldn't be a problem. Will check into this ASAP. As you say, the point must be to have as few conversions as possible. I'm going to...

Quote: Originally Posted by Gatsu An inexpensive converter should do the job pretty well. There is no difference between the signals really, just one is optical and the other electrical. The format of the signals is exactly the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF If you take...

I'm getting high-resolution audio out of my Mac computers via USB or the TosLink Optical minijack. However, I have a pair of speakers that accept a digital coax S/PDIF signal. I have tried a TosLink Optical to coax S/PDIF converter (inexpensive). What other options do I have? Anyone have...

Quote: Originally Posted by vcoheda why do major amp manufacturers (RSA, HeadRoom, Single Power, HeadAmp) always demo their equipment at meets using CD players instead of computer based setups? I'm listening to music piped as lossless or AIFF files from my ReadyNas NV+ server -...

Quote: Originally Posted by dozens Also there is a red light in the plug port. Weird. The minijack OUT port doubles for both analog minijack and for optical digital OUT. The red light is the optical signal. But on my Macs that only begins when I have a Toslink Optical minijack...

There's a very useful Help manual embedded in the Mac OSX. If you enter Sound Output in it, you'll be guided to numerous options. Check System Preferences > Sound > Output. Have you chosen Internal Speakers. Are they muted? Check your menu bar - the sound volume there (loudspeaker symbol)...

Quote: Originally Posted by audioengr Of course it is. All networked and wireless networked devices will do bit-perfect. If not, then the data to your network printer would be hosed too.... Steve N. I trust you read on, since it was a rhetorical question, with the answer...

I'm presently using Airport Express to port music to my Grace m902 DAC/Headphone amp. A TosLink cable goes from the Airport Express to the DAC. Very convenient when I want to do playback from my Laptop. Is it bit transparent? According to Stereophile magazine it is. And the comment about...

Hi Gordon, You're touching on something that had me quite pleased, once I realized it. The CDP is just a way of getting the information off the disk and on towards the amplifier and speakers. Placing that same information on a high-quality, fast harddisk - and having it read through a...

Quote: Originally Posted by fordgtlover ^ is it you rig? No. Would love to have those speakers, though. It is set up in the main demo room of a hifi store in town. I'm in the process of building my own AV room, and I'm "rehearsing" speaker/amp configurations. I do know that...

Quote: Originally Posted by fordgtlover ^ Macbook Pro, a better source than an Uber expensive CD player, and you can type a letter to your Grandma while you listen. I didn't run direct AB comparisons with the Esoteric in the photo. But began the session (3 hours) with CDs on...

Quote: Originally Posted by DrBenway t's best, in my opinion to take the signal as a bit stream out of the PC via a digital audio out and then process the signal via the highest qualily external DAC. Now you've got yourself a clean analog signal to feed to your preamp. Done...

Are you referring to the Stereophile reviewers' opinion? I'm just asking yours. Or actually that of Elias at Benchmark. Between the points of attitude I'm able to cull the facts that: 1. Toslink has high intrinsic jitter, exceeding that of S/PDIF and USB, 2. That ground loop may be...

Quote: Originally Posted by dusk Price doesn't matter, sound quality does. What are your thoughts? If you're in a city with a Bang & Olufsen store in it, I strongly recommend that you take your computer to it and try out their BeoLab 3 speakers. When the BeoLab 9 was...

To all who have participated in this thread - A Big THANKS! Lots of useful information, lots of myths examined, quite a few discounted. As one in the process of moving my music to hard disk storage, at full resolution, this has made things a lot clearer. A question on the potential...

I'm going to have to post the obvious here: Sound engineers, when recording, processing and mixing music, use hard disks and computers to control the process, record performances and evaluate the results. Whether stored fixed on a CD or on a hard disk, it's the same bits and bytes...