[Violinboy123]

Hello all!
I was incredibly lucky to be gifted a pair of Sennheiser HD 800s for my birthday. I currently am running the 800s with my Earmax Pro and a Sony SCD CE595. I am looking for a DAC (preferably small enough that i could travel with the DAC and the Earmax) that would pair well with the Earmax and the Sennheisers for around $300-400. I am new to the whole dedicated DAC and also could use an explanation of how to rip all of my CDs. I am wondering what the quality difference will be with a cd rip on my MacBook + DAC vs my Sony. Any and all responses would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
-Jeff

 

[PredatorZ]

Just use your mac and Itunes, ripp to apple Lossless, set your import settings to import and eject & apple lossless encoder. These will be indentical to the CD. I have a Ray Samuels Predator DAC/Amp, it was $475. Congrats on the great Birthday Gift, a belated happy Birthday BTW. I'm guessing you would run an output from your sony, maybe the digital optical or coax to your PC, you would probably have to rip it to wave, then cut it up manually, or record each song one at a time, convert them and then tag them, sounds like a real pain. For just a few SACD's maybe, but thats a lot of work, your MAcbook will do all the work for you. Just save your SACD player for listening sessions.

 

[Happy Camper]

A Pico.

 

[Violinboy123]

Thanks guys! I ended up with a little pico and am quite happy. I believe my quest for a great CD player is over. I can definitely see myself moving up the DAC chain quickly...this hobby is so adicting!!