How good is the iMac's internal DAC?

Read through 90% of the replies and maybe because they're old? They are not allowing for you too view an entire scope of why someone would pay $12,000 (USD) for an Antelope or even more for a DCS DAC.

DAC's can be as simple to understand like the various amplifiers offered in the audio world. But there are any at various price points that off more or less options needed in a studio or home. I'll try to explain with my 20 years of experience with studio and audiophile DACs and why some cost more, and some cost the same, but offer the same as the less expensive DACS.

Before Philips and Sony manufactured their they each wanted their own signature sound for their CD players in the 80's. Both companies were in a royalty partnership for the software of CD Players--CD's. Anytime a CD was sold it had that famous looking CD logo on it and Philps and Sony pulled royalties not only off the machines, but every CD sold. To make sure they weren't sending cloned machines out they (Phillips/Sony) created their own DAC chips to put in the early machines to help separate the machinery.

There's some great sites that deal the history of this and a book called "Perfect Sound Forever" which is a fun read about the history of the music business when CD players broke out. Has some simple science behind some points, and the book just really wants you to hit Goodwill to look for some of the older CD players to see how their sound reproduced.

Anyway, I won't write a book on the subject no matter how much it fascinates me. The people at Dutch Audio Classic have an incredible archive of info based on the early DAC chips (esp the TDA1541) Philips made and a list of every model that utilized them. I'm no expect, but I learned so much about what I needed in a DAC and why most delta sigma DACs are what gave digital audio it's bad reputation. I'll I'd owned was delta DACs and some sounded good, not even close to what my analog set-up could kick out. Around 2006 I was given a Marantz CD7 along with an amp, speakers and accessories for no other reason that the friend of mine was moving overseas and knew I'd give it back to him when/if he came back. I was not overly excited about it, as I already had a nice new Oppo 83SE and figured I could sell the Marantz CD7. In 2013 my Oppo went out. I decided to use the Marantz CD7 until I decided on a new digital machine. Put in an early Japanese CD release of Floyd's DSOTM. Went to work at my desk and after a few minutes I stopped what I was doing and put in MFSL version of XTC's "Skylarking" and I was sure it sounded better than any SACD/DVD-A/DAD I had sitting around my house. Did some research on the player I seemed to own now and found a small group of audiophiles who knew the secret of the TDA1541A and mine the TDA 1541A Double Crown S2. Since knowing what I had I saw the CD7 now sells for between $550 and now I just did a search on HiFi Shark one in Canada sold for $2400. I read a couple posts in HiFi forums of people finding one in Goodwill and one in a Garage Sale--both for under $20. The Magnavox version is the cheapest, but supposedly still sounds incredible. I keep an eye for those now.

Well...I've written a book it looks like. Anyway, do yourself a favor and learn about this chip and this era of digital audio. Check out how some of the most high end DAC's use their own cloned version of these multi-bit DACS.

So my suggestion to you is mosey over to Schiit as they are now seeing the light and taking a risk by offering old technology with their own version of a resister ladder DAC. The reviews are solid for the Schiit Modi 2 Multibit at only $249. I've owned the BiFrost when it first came out--just a plane Jane one. But Schiit does offer their version of a multi-bit DAC at around $650, I think? But the Modi 2 seems like a great deal. Call them up and ask--they're super transparent and don't BS. http://schiit.com/products/modi-2.

Here's a link to all the crap I just wrote about. If this stuff interests you...Be careful...you can spend hours reading about how and why old technology was superior to what is the most common these days. That's not even including Lambizator's website which has some of the best articles on the subject. Now I'm on the lookout for any old CD player made by Phillips but badged by Marantz, Magnavox, and more.

http://www.dutchaudioclassics.nl/Philips-TDA1541/

Moral of this---Don't waste any money on 24/192 or DSD DAC when you can get something even better based on old technology.

The DAC is adequate for most typical consumer use, but not at all adequate for professional use, in my opinion, nor is the "headphone" output of an iMac suited to such use. Whether a USB audio device will be an improvement will depend on what you get. If you get a low-end unit such as a Griffin iMic, then it won't have much if any improvement over the internal DAC.

There are professional-grade USB and Firewire audio input/output though, such as the units from M-Audio. Better would probably be one of the device that takes an optical output from your Mac, if your amplifier doesn't have an optical input of its own, such as the Meridian Audio Director (which also takes USB, but optical will be better).

So it depends on what you really want in terms of quality and how much you're willing to spend, and of course the quality of your content. If you're just buying compressed tracks from the download stores, anything much more than the iMac's audio output or a low-end USB device probably would be overkill.

Regards.

cheap ones can give a lot of channel crossover issues

and just be pretty much an usb audio card just like all speakers one connect by usb are

The Epiphany Acoustics E-DAC unit seems to get decent reviews, but I know nothing about it otherwise so I can't offer any personal opinions (nor of the Meridian, for that matter). If you can buy it from a place that would allow you to return it after trying it out, it might be worth a go.

As to whether your iMac has an optical output, that would be listed in the tech specs, which you can look up for your model here:

http://support.apple.com/specs/#imac

If you're not ripping your CDs as AIFF, Apple Lossless or WAV, then anything better than the Epiphany would again probably be overkill.

Regards.

If you just accepted the default settings in iTunes, then all of your tracks have been compressed to 256Kbps AAC, not bad but significantly less than CD quality (I can easily hear the difference, but your mileage may vary). Apple Lossless, WAV and AIFF keep the exact quality of the source material, though as a result the file size will be larger. Apple Lossless is a good compromise, offering original quality at about half the size of AIFF or WAV, but is a format created by Apple and hence not as universal as an industry-standard format. You can change the import settings here:

iTunes > Preferences, click General, and click Import Settings.

You might find this helpful for starters:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/digital-audio-file-formats-lossy-and-lossl ess-code.html

and there are a number of other articles on the web discussions lossless vs "lossy" codecs. If you want to improve the quality of your playback, I'd highly recommend you start by re-ripping your CDs in a lossless format before you spend for any external audio device.

Regards.

Apple Lossless tracks might play on an Android phone with a third-party app. andLess is one that apparently can, though not having an Android device myself I have no personal knowledge about it. Lossless files of any type will be pretty large, though, and would quickly fill up your phone, so you'd want to transcode them first before synching to the phone. There was some discussion on the subject here that might help:

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/computer-based-media/apple-lossless-rips-to-androi d-phone

Regards.

angloargie wrote:

Yes I set my upper limit with the Fubar II but may well opt for the cheaper Epiphany.

A few more things to consider:

You won't get much benefit from all the "audiophile" grade parts in the more expensive DAC's unless your amp uses comparable parts; & frankly, the differences are so small to begin with that it is debatable if they can be heard when playing back compressed formats like MP3 or AAC. If you have a lot of 24 bit/96 kHz tracks (substantially better than so-called CD quality) you are more likely to hear a difference than if your stuff is all ripped from CD's using lossy codecs.

iMacs include relatively high quality DAC chips, roughly the same quality as in 'non-audiophile grade' external converters. However, the inside of a computer is not a very friendly environment for a high quality audio DAC. High speed digital signals throughout the computer produce noise that is all but impossible to filter completely out of analog audio outputs, so there is some benefit gained just by locating the converter outside the case, be it in an external USB-connected box or in an amp with an optical or coax digital input.

That may or may not be important to you. If you hear annoying low level whirring type noises in your external speakers when your Mac runs CPU-intensive processes, an external converter should eliminate them. Likewise, an external converter, particularly one with an optical connection, will eliminate any annoying humming noises you might hear.