the sound you get from the mac is ok, nothing to write home about. when you attach a jitter device to the mac using the toslink to reduce or eliminate the jitter and at the same time converting to a coax cable, then attach an external dac to that, then you are getting there. forget about usb setups also. get an external dac that supports toslink and/or coax, those are still the best sounding.
Requesting input from iMac users
I have been playing my iTunes library through (into) the main system via a Toslink coming from the headphone jack on the iMac to the input of the Krell HTS 7.1 processor. It sounds good to me, however, a friend is telling me that this is the lowest quality option for playing the music. According to him the headphone jack is putting the music out through a very inexpensive DAC in the iMac thus diminishing the quality out and causing the processor to accept the music via analog, converting to digital and then back out again in analog. A series of distortion causing steps.
I do have a Pop Pulse (never used) that would allow for coming out of the iMac via USB into the Pop Pulse and back out with digital cable (SPDIF) to the processor. Apparently this eliminates some extra DAC conversions. Would this be a better option? How do you do it?
I do have a Pop Pulse (never used) that would allow for coming out of the iMac via USB into the Pop Pulse and back out with digital cable (SPDIF) to the processor. Apparently this eliminates some extra DAC conversions. Would this be a better option? How do you do it?