I have a MA12000 with internal DAC 2. I was streaming from an iFi Zen Stream via USB. One day it stopped working. The McIntosh guy that handles this stuff basically told me that the DAC 2 never breaks down and it must be a driver problem. So, why did it work in the first place? In the end and after no help from McIntosh my dealer replaced the board. So lesson one would be that the manufacturer won’t help. I streamed via a MacBook Pro, but that was sonically inferior to Zen Stream with iFi’s top power supply. So, streaming from a computer is not ideal. Second, it took so long to resolve that I purchased a Holo Zen Stream KTE and that was a major improvement. Lastly, I upgraded to an Aurender N20 and this, along with proper cabling brought my digital more in line with analog. So, upgrade streamer first. Buy with a solid return policy. I think that you need to spend $1000-$1500 and more to upgrade the DAC. Unfortunately, both upgrading streamer and DAC are important upgrades. I didn’t sense that you wanted to improve the sound, but we’re only looking for reliability. If that is the case then you are stuck with upgrading the DAC.
MCintosh MA7900 USB Driver causing Windows10/11 Crash
The Windows10/11 is experiencing intermittent kernell crash when playing music or any sound over the USB port in the MA7900. The Windows driver on the MCintosh web site is like 10 years old. The online support team had me try many things and nothing fixes the problem. Please note that this intermittent problem is present from day one when I bought the MA7900. Is there anyone out there using that configuration without any problems? Any suggestions to get an updated driver outside the MCintosh labs?