Surprised by the sound of my iMac

[islewind]

A friend has been generous enough to let me use his brand-new HD650's for a month. I know that they need some amplifcation to sound their best, and a bithead is on the way to at least start in that direction.

My comment at the moment is that I'm not surprised at the paucity of sound when I connect the 650's to my iPod, or to my Sharp or Compaq laptop computers, but that I'm very surprised at how good they sound connected to my iMac directly. They sound very good to me, and though I'm sure that amplification will bring noticeable benefits, I could easily live with these things right from the computer, whereas there is no way I could live with the sound straight from the other devices I tried.

Maybe I'm just not aware yet of just how much better things can sound, just like 20 years ago when I bought a pair of Pioneer headphones for $40 that seemed like they were great. Of course, compared to what came with my walkman, they were.

 

[smsmasters]

Ignorance is bliss as they say.

 

[jwilldermood]

Why is it ignorant to think one source sounds better than another?

 

[islewind]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwilldermood /img/forum/go_quote.gif Why is it ignorant to think one source sounds better than another?

...I think he means that you can be happy with something that isn't really that great if you don't know about the better alternatives. At least that's how I took it.

 

[bigshot]

Macs have very good built in sound.

See ya
Steve

 

[nibiyabi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by islewind /img/forum/go_quote.gif ...I think he means that you can be happy with something that isn't really that great if you don't know about the better alternatives. At least that's how I took it.

x2

 

[nibiyabi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by islewind /img/forum/go_quote.gif ...I think he means that you can be happy with something that isn't really that great if you don't know about the better alternatives. At least that's how I took it.

x2. He was referring to the following:

Quote:

Originally Posted by islewind /img/forum/go_quote.gif Maybe I'm just not aware yet of just how much better things can sound, just like 20 years ago when I bought a pair of Pioneer headphones for $40 that seemed like they were great. Of course, compared to what came with my walkman, they were.

 

[Christopher]

no line in and no optical on iMacs makes christopher a saaaaad paaaaanda

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christopher /img/forum/go_quote.gif no line in and no optical on iMacs makes christopher a saaaaad paaaaanda

What do the line-in and optical on the iMacs make Christopher?

 

[islewind]

The iMac does have line in (only through a miniplug jack) and optical out.

 

[Wodgy]

The current line of iMacs (as well as the Macbook and Macbook Pro) do have very good onboard sound -- good enough that many people may not want to upgrade. Plus, they're bit-perfect out of the box. The HD650 do deserve proper amplification though.

 

[serpico]

I agree the sound is pretty good for many headphones without a need of a portable amp. Picked up a new ALU imac and the sound is great coming through my MDR7605 cans.

 

[irchel]

Macs are also unix based and don't have windows' totally foobared audio pipeline, so the dac can play at its fullest, powered by a stable power supply (pc psu)... why the hell should that sound bad? Ipods on the other hand have only their weak accu batteries to power their even weaker output stages - hopefully they sound fairly crap.

I am on Audigy 2 zs / unix / pc, together with hd-600, and i can tell you holy **** does that sound good! Surely it would be better w/ amp, but it's so enough how it is like now.

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

I just compared the headphone out of my Mac Book Pro playing the tune Kind of Nitzer, with the Arcam CD73 / XCANv3 playing the tunes Seven Nation army and Death of a Tone. The cans tested were the HD414, HD580, Philips HD910, and Koss Porta Pro.
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/sen...9/#post3760555

Then I ordered a 0404 USB.

 

[Bones13]

I am using iTunes (ALAC) on my iMac > USB > Headroom Ultra MicroDAC > Raptor > HD650 and the sound is awesome. No extra drivers or filters. Much simpler than my PC was with XFi > optical > DAC, etc. Sound is cleaner. Don't even get me started on Vista.

On the MacBookPro I find the audio out to be pretty good, better than my Dells ever were, but of course it is improved with USB sound systems as well.