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How do I play YouTube music from my IMac thru my Conrad-Johnson amps?

Hi guys and gals... How do I make this work?  I’m asking you knowledgeable people here rather than going to my local Hi-Fi shop where they will try to sell me more expensive gear to make this work.  I invested more than $20,000 on my system about 15 ago and I really don’t want to spend $1000’s more if I don’t have to.  I just want to be able to play all the great music from YouTube thru my great amps and speakers.  I’m tired of most of my CD’s and my Sim Audio CD player quit working several years ago and they tell me it needs a new transport so my expensive system has been sitting idol for years and is just taking up space in my tiny downtown apartment. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance :). Gordon
128x128doug714
auxinput
2,920 posts
 
Streaming Youtube from sources such as Roku, Amazon FireTV, AppleTV uses a really crappy youtube app and sound quality (as well as video quality) will be pretty bad. 

Streaming using the web browser on the actual iMac computer always gives superior audio/video quality.  It will also allow you to force the youtube resolution to a higher rate (such as 1080p or 720p).  These higher rate videos always have better sound data than the 480p setting.

Like others have suggested, your best bet is to get a USB DAC and connect it directly to your iMac.
doug714's avatar
doug714 OP
53 posts
 
Hey all.  This is what the HiFi shop is trying to sell me... a DAC for a couple thousand $$ and I was trying to avoid investing any more cash into my system, but i pay for YouTube Premium so it is commercial free and I listen all day and night to music there these days.  And I want to be able to listen to all that available music thru my high end system.  Thanks for any and all advise my friends :)
reubent
6,935 posts
 
Doug, as @onhwy61 said, you can connect directly from the 3.5 mm analog output from your iMac using a  3.5mm to RCA adapter/cable. It will be using the DAC built-into your iMac, so it is not optimal.

You also do not need to spend anything close to a thousand dollars to get a perfectly good DAC for your use case. I believe a simple Audioquest Dragonfly Black $99, Red $199 or Cobalt $299 or a Schiit Modi 3+ $99 will do the trick. You should get better sound quality using an external USB DAC than you will directly connected via analog from you iMac.
doug714's avatar
doug714 OP
53 posts
 
Thanks so much reubent.  Which one would you suggest for my case and where would you suggest I buy it?  I have a C-J Premier 17 preamp and C-J 2250A power amp, the smallest Focal Be “bookshelf” type speakers, plus great interconnects and speaker cables.  My Magnum Dynalab tuner and Sim Audio CD player are kinda useless at this point, so I just want to play YouTube music thru my quality amps and speakers from here on out.  My hundreds of CD’s are also useless and unnecessary at this point cause all this music is now available on YouTube and my CD player is not working.  I really appreciate your help and will gladly follow your advice.  Thanks :)
doug714's avatar
doug714 OP
53 posts
 
Also, my IMac is about 10 years old but it is still humming along so I have not replaced it with a newer model.  But I do have a new 7th gen IPad I just bought about a year ago.
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