"Mini" to Optical for Airport Express

The analog outs on the AE are junk, trust me.

Use the Toslink out with an adapter and a glass cable such as:
http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/category.cgi?category=220&item=SP-TOC-99HQ&type=store

The jitter from the AE is quite bad, but this will bring it up to most cheap DVD player kind of quality. You can do a lot more to make it lower jitter BTW.

If you need the Toslink adapter, I have a bucket of them. Just send me a postage-paid envelope and I'll mail you one.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer

Streetdaddy - the AE with Toslink is not even close, sorry. The problem is high jitter. However, there are ways to make it even better than most USB solutions. For instance, if you put a Pace-Car reclocker between the AE and the DAC, the jitter is minimized.

Modifications to replace the power supply and clock in the AE and making it S/PDIF coax output is also quite good.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

There are two ways to go:

1) Off-Ramp Wi-Fi - modded AE - $1200 with Superclock4 and S/PDIF coax output

2) Stock AE with Pace-Car reclocker - $1350 with both I2S and S/PDIF coax output

#2 is better.

Decent DAC's in the $1000 range - IMO, there arent any, but you can get close with dAck2!, Benchmark DAC-1 or Lavry Black. Probably the most listenable in stock form is the Lavry Black. There are others, like the Channel Islands or PSAUDIO digital link III, but I have no experience with these.

Steve N.

I recommend the turbomodded DAC-1 or the modded Northstar 192. Completely different animals with mods. Both are in the $2750-$3K range though.

Steve N.

Streetdaddy - the Toslink input is available, I have not updated the website yet. I'm currently evacuated to a friends house by a 10K acre forest fire in Oregon. The Pace-Car also now has S/PDIF output as well for standard DAC's.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Streetdaddy - I2S is the native interface for most D/A chips. Whenh you send a S/PDIF signal to a DAC, it must be converted first to I2S before going to the D/A chip. The fact that this conversion is not necessary reduces jitter.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Hals_den - This is the first time I've heard the "sound burst" complaint from an AE. Since it only happens between tracks, this is at least a clue. I need to know if it ever happens when playing long playlists or only when manually selecting a new track. Also, are you double-clicking on the track or using the mouse select and then the play button?

If it is the iTunes player injecting these, then the Pace-Car will probably not eliminate them. It is probably bad data bursts and the Pace-Car just sends through whatever data you input to it.

Steve N.

Streetdaddy - the DAC-1 Turbomod is $1200, the I2S interface is $500.

I would also recommend the op-amp upgrade for $300

Steve N.
Empirical Audio