Imac to my dac- sounds awful?


Guys- be gentle, I'm a new Mac user. Got a new Imac 24 today with the 2.8 Ghz processor, 500 GB Hard drive. Beautiful to look at, so far I love the Leopard OS (I'm a lifetime Windows user ).

Imported some cd's into ITunes, and set it up per the advice on the Wavelength site- i.e. Import Apple lossless, set my preferences in sound to USB dac.

Plugged in my Glow Audio Amp1, which is new and has a built in 16 bit Dac and headphone output.

Sounds like crap- it sounded much better on my windows XP rig running ASIO 4All. I'm hearing some distortion and intermittent dropouts that occur at random.

I KNOW it's me- where can I get educated on how to address this?

Thanks much!

Any ideas where to steer me?
danlib1
Try troubleshooting to see if the rips were bad by playing directly from the cd. Also make sure you're not running a bunch of apps while ripping. Welcome to the Mac camp.
I am sorry to hear you are having some difficulties.

I am also relieved to hear that life actually is not as simple as:

"JUST GET A MAC!"

Good luck.

cwlondon
I don't think it's the way the files were ripped....I enabled the Mac sound output and played via the Mac soundcard to my speakers and I hear none of the trash- it actually sounds okay.

It's only when I set sound preferences to USB Audio, plug the USB Dac in and listen through the USB Dac/Headphone combo that it sounds bad.

But that same Dac headphone combo on my windows rig- using ASIO4all and J. River media player- sounds pretty good.

So it must be the way I have the Mac audio setup, or the 16 bit Dac in the Glow Audio Amp 1 is somehow incompatible with the output from the Mac?

Please keep the help coming!