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Anyone using an Apogee Mini-Dac?

Recently, I ripped several hundred CD's uncompressed to the hard drive of my Mac G4 1.25 GHz Powerbook and played it through my system by taking the headphone OUT and splitting it into the R & L inputs in my pre-amp. Sounded suprisingly good. Better than CD's played on my $400 Denon DVD player. And that was from a Headphone out! Now, I have bought an M-Audio USB Audiophile DAC. This allows me to use the computer as a digital transport which feeds a digital signal to the DAC through the computer's USB port. This makes an incredible imrpovement to what was already pretty darn good sound. The M-Audio DAC cost around $175. Now, I'm curious. Apogee makes a similar USB DAC called the Mini-Dac, which goes for around $1,000. Anyone had any experience with these?
rsbeck

Showing 2 responses by rsbeck

rsbeck OP
887 posts
 
My pre-amp is the Meitner Emm Labs Switchman, my amps are Levinson 436 Mono-blocks, my speakers are Monitor Audio Studio 60's, my headphones are Sennheiser HD580's. That part of my system would be capable of showing the differences. I am thinking the source, the Mac G4 and i-tunes
(CD's ripped uncompressed using AIFF), would be the limiting factor, if any.
rsbeck OP
887 posts
 
Finally broke down and bought the Apogee USB Mini-Dac. Sounds waaaay better than the M-Audio USB Audiophile. Huge improvement. Full, rich, detailed, deep wide sound stage -- all the good stuff -- and allows me to use the computer and hard drive as a high quality Juke Box.

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