Mac sound quality

Some suggestions:

don't use the power conditioner with the IMac;
instead of an IMac, try a Mac mini... anything from 2007 forward, 2010 is the best for many reasons;
also, instead of using your IMac HD, use a peripheral HD... a firewire connected Oyen comes highly recommended;
you mention audio grade digital cable, is that a USB...? If it is, quality USB cabling matters... I recommend a dbaudiolabs Essential USB cable or a Ridge Street Audio Poeima (or higher, such as Alethias).

As Shadorne suggests, perhaps a different DAC might be a better angle as well... many excellent ones out there under $2k. I recommend the Tranquility or if you can find one, an iRoc. Others will recommend a plethora of good DACs I am sure.

Just some ideas to get a better start,

:) listening,

Ed

Thanks for the input . I have tried several DACs and was using it with out conditioner , it was worse . The Mac guys told me the Mac mini and the IMac should sound the same and explained why , ( way over my head ) . Im not using the USB port , I'm using the optical digital out going to the toslink input on the DAC . I have not been able to find the EQ off menu Shadorne spoke of .

Eq off is in iTunes preferences. The iMac does not sound as good a s a mini. I have both.I'll save the debate though, because I doubt that is the problem. Your iMac should trounce a mid level CD player. It is possible the DAC is an issue, but you ought to make sure that your set up is correct.

In itunes preferences:
turn off sound check'
turn off eq
in preferences> import options:
turn on error correction
set to import either ALAC or AIFF(prefered)

In audio midi set (in utilities, put a short cut on the dock)
set output to correct frequency 44.1k for CD
set bit depth to 2 ch 24 or 32 bit

Once this is running, you may consider another player. FWIW, currently there is a bug in iTunes 10.1 that seriously degrades. They will fix it, you channel balance will be to the right of what you would normally have.

Odd ... I am running the same DAC fed via a Windows box with FLAC files. The sound is at least as good and in some cases I feel its slightly better than my Wadia 23 CDP. It's pretty amazing. That being said, I am bailing on Windows and going to a Mac mini. I am also converting the whole collection to Apple lossless. I have tested the Apple lossless format files converted from FLAC and I didnt hear any difference on my Windows 7 box. A couple things you might try,

Encode a CD of MP3 files - as high a bit rate as you can and see if the sound improves. If the problem is transcoding to Apple lossless maybe the MP3 encoder will give better results. If it does improve, it must be someting in the lossless encoding. If not maybe your files are fine and it's an OS or itunes setting.

Do you have access to someone with a different Mac setup? Encode the files on a newer Mac and burn them to a CD then copy them to your Mac then see what the sound is like. I figure its something in the file encoding/creation OR in the playback stream.

Are there Apple based alternatives to iTunes? Might try a different player.