Transport, Touch or Mac Mini to Dac??


I have a PW Dac that I am running straight to my amps.
I have a Touch as a transport now, but am contemplating running a 2010 Mac Mini as a transport/server connected direct USB or converter to the PW Dac. I tried the Bridge but didn't find a lot of difference in comparison to the Touch and the server software is not ready yet.
I also still think that CDs through a high end player sound resolving and good.
Which transport route for maximum performance into the Dac?
Has anyone else tried the 2010 Mac Mini route?
mr_bill

Showing 2 responses by aaronmadler

I have the Mac Mini going out via an M2Tech Hiface to my Eastern Electric Minimax Tube DAC along with the Touch going to the DAC and then feeding into my Levinson 326S preamp. IMHO, it sounds fantastic and all equipment before it hits the preamp costs $2250. If you go to your local library, then you can rip cd's for free. The most simple and best sounding flac player I've found is:http://sbooth.org/AyreWave/ I've also tried downloading high resolution tunes on HDTracks. You can also get a separate harddrive for about $125 which holds 2 terabytes of music. Of course, this doesn't include cables, but they can be inexpensive to whatever price you think makes sense for you. I use a toslink cable going from the Touch to the DAC along with a BNC cable going from the M2Tech to the DAC along with a pair of RCA cables going to the preamp. There you have it, A high end source system for less than $2500!
Mr bill,
I have never done an A/B test between the Mac Mini to Hiface vs. the Touch. My only reason to purchase the M2Tech is that I believe the USB out is limited to 16/44 resolution and with the M2Tech, it allows 24/192 with greater resolution. It comes with either RCA or BNC connections. I use BNC as I've heard it is superior. I'm not sure if it is or is not.