[Danseph]

I bought a pair of SM3, had custom sleeves made and I couldn't be happier. The best experience I've ever had so far. But, since I've had the sleeves, I'm painfully aware of a hissing sound the iMac makes. Now I made sure that the output was set up at 24 bit/ 96 KHz under Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup. It attenuates the hissing, but it's still really present.
 
Is there a way to improve the situation or should I get a DAC or something else?
 
(In case it's useful, It's an iMac alu late 2007, C2D 2.8 Gz, changing the system or iTunes volume doesn't help and the pieces I listen to come from a CD and are encoded in ALAC)
 
Thanks for your help and expertise. 

 

[Marcus_C]

The sm3 do hiss from a noisy source so yes, a dac or external sound card should get rid of it. As for dac specifics I can't help much, the uDAC is really popular on here, it's probably the one i'd go for at it's price.

 

[Danseph]

Thank you very much Marcus for your help. Do you need if all Macs are like that or if the new ones are less noisy. 

 

[Danseph]

After reading this review (http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/515155/incremental-review-completed-nuforce-udac-2), I'm thinking the u-DAC2 might not be the best choice as the hissing sound is still very present when used with the SE530 which seems to have similar caracteristics as the SM3s.

 

[Danseph]

After reading the forum, I'm inclined to go with two major product iBasso D12 or Apogee One.
 
Now, please keep in mind that I'm going to switch to a MacBook Air due to travel reasons, so I don't have a firewire port. Portability is important and the form factor of the iBasso seems reasonable to me.
 
Price I can put down is around 250 $ - 300 $. 
 
The most important is to get raid of this hissing sound and get the best out of my SM3s. Is it possible at this price?

 

[Danseph]

I felt it was appropriate to move the discussion here since we are now on a different topic
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/519915/what-amp-for-my-mac-sm3#post_7019141