Apple Mac as transport to DAC

Using a computer [including a MAC] as a transport - playing the CD directly - has never worked so well when I have heard it done, or done it myself, as storing the CD files on a hard drive and letting the computer feed a DAC.

In general I would say it is less fine than using a plain CD player of quality.

There are huge debates about the best way to rip CDs to hard drives and the best playback software system in the Distributed Audio section ...

For myself I am very happy with bog-standard iTunes using ALAC [apple loss-less] storage on the hard drive.

The best place to look to learn and get confused as well on the forum is the Distributed Audio section.

ATB from George

Mac is excellent for ripping cd's, and I wonder if it is not the best computer for that. I hear a Mac, the last new big one, working wireless with a streamer made by an audiophile in France that is nothing less than an improved Airport Express, beautifully build as a white saucer and with some very powerful power supplies inside. The brand was DB-Systems, make La Rosita, model Beta. It sounded as good as my CDS3 + 555PS on a NAC 252 + 300.

quote:

Originally posted by patrik0631:
Mac is excellent for ripping cd's, and I wonder if it is not the best computer for that.

Best?
Ease of use?
Best sound?
Compared with what?

Just curious.

/M

Bonjour Patrick,

I can see that you have been very much impressed with the Rosita, as it's not the first time you're mentioning it
I heard about it myself but never listened to it...
Nonetheless I must say that it's hard to imagine that the Mac/Rosita sounds as good as a CDS3/555PS

You may need to purchase the 552 pre (I know Christmas is over) in order to get the full potential of your source

Regards,
Edouard

Hi Edouard,

The Rosita Beta sounds as good. We also tried a friend's Accuphase CDP500, and again, the result was as good. The we compared the Accuphase DAC against the Rosita : as good. Coup de chapeau pour la Rosita.

I got my 552 a few months ago, but have not listened to it yet, as I am far away from it (it got delivered at a friend's auditorium). I will pop in in a few weeks. Needless to say I am curious. As he's a Magnepan dealer, he only said to me that the ones I have, the MG 1.6, are not up to their task with their metallic tweeters.

I will need better speakers. Good would be Magnepan 20.1, but I dont't like their imposing size. I consider Sonus Faber or anything that would conquer my heart...

KR,

Patrick

quote:

Originally posted by mike_f65:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by patrik0631:
Mac is excellent for ripping cd's, and I wonder if it is not the best computer for that.

Best?
Ease of use?
Best sound?
Compared with what?

Just curious.



That's my question, as I know nothing about computers. Ease of use with Apple is for sure. Wonder if other PC's would be up to the task. I learned that Asus brought out a ripping module at the CES.

KR,

Patrick

i have just gone down that very same route macbook-ca dagmagic in to my 122 pre and so far loaded 200+ cd,s on to the hard drive and compared to my cd5x they sound bloody good,in the apple loseless format.the downside is bad recorded cd,s still sound bad

I would probably be better off with a CDX2 before a DAC then???

Just a thought but in my bedroom i have a philips DVD/SACD player. How would this work as a transport? It is the DVD963SA that was raved about a few years ago.

How is a transport connected to the DAC?

It would work wonderfully. Get the DAC first!!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:
It would work wonderfully. Get the DAC first!!!!!

guess the philips transport will be ok, philips/sony had lots of experience with the basic transport. i use the latest cyrus transport feeding the naim dac and the output is tip top. in the last 5 weeks ive experimented with several cd/and dvd as transports and they also give good results with the dac. the dvd player sounded better with optical to dac.

I tried an ancient Philips dvd player with the Ndac. Playback was very poor compared to the exceedingly good results from my Cyrus CD8. Both connections were with a Naim dc1 coax cable. The Philips didn't have an optical output.

What cable does the CDX2.2 connect upto the DAC with?

Are S/PDIF and coaxial the same?

Alan, S/PDIF stand for Sony/Philips Digital Interconnect format. This is a protocol that usually uses either 75ohm coaxial connection via RCA/phono or BNC, or optically via Toslink Optical connector. There is also the lesser-seen AT&T optical connection that I believe also uses the S/PDIF protocol.

The CDX2.2 uses a coaxial connector for S/PDIF with a 75ohm BNC connector.

And would this connector work between a dvd/sacd (with coax and optical outputs) player and the dac?

Once again, sorry if the answer is obvious.

Yup. You could use either to connect to the DAC. Certain players may perform better via one or other. A good quality 75ohm digital cable should be used for coaxial (the Naim DC1 is ideal here). For Optical, the biggest weakness is at each connecting end - the connector itself can be less than ideal and the finishing of each end is critical. Many leads are plastic and while some can perform well, many are pretty lack-lustre. Proper glass-fibre leads perform well in my experience.

Note that SACD cannot be passed via S/PDIF. For best performance a DVD player should be set up to output a 2 channel PCM signal. This can usually be found in the set-up menu of your player (if available).

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:

For myself I am very happy with bog-standard iTunes using ALAC [apple loss-less] storage on the hard drive.


ATB from George

I second that. Files played through my Ipod classic through an Arcam RDoc into my 252 sound great.


Rooster

quote:

Originally posted by Alan Paterson:
And would this connector work between a dvd/sacd (with coax and optical outputs) player and the dac?

Once again, sorry if the answer is obvious.

Alan

S/PDIF is not a connector it is a kind of "digital language spoken over the cable".

The cables that are used with S/PDIF are either coaxial (75 ohm) or optical.

The optical cable uses most often the TOSLink connector


The coaxial (75 ohm) cable often uses either of two types of connectors
1. the RCA / phone type which is most commonly found on 'ordinary' Hifi and video equipment.


2. BNC type connector which Naim prefers.


The Naim DAC offers 4 optical connections and two RCA/phono-coaxial and two BNC-coaxial connections.
The Naim DAC supports only 4 incoming connections so combined out of those connections I mentioned above.

To complicate thing a little further. Naim (and others) offer coaxial cables that have RCA/phono connector on one side (e.g. to connect to DVD-player) and BNC on the other side (e.g. to connect to DAC).

I hope this clears things up a bit.

You just have to look at your DVD/SACD and see what digital output it has.

-
aleg

The player has optical, coaxial,stereo phono and L/R phono outputs.

What would be the ideal connection here?

Also, does the transport make a big difference to the sound? Would i get much of an improvement in the future by moving up to a CDX2 purely for transport duties? If so would this determine the cable i should use?

Alan,

If it's a DVD player, and it's also connected into an AV system, then you may be best using the optical connection. This way you'll isolate the DVD player and AV system from the main Naim system and avoid any possible ground loop issues. However, coaxial can often give a a slightly better result, but much depends on the quality of the transport.

Yes, the transport will make a big difference to the result. I don't wish to start a "bits is bits" debate but I'll put a few of the challenges a transport faces into layman's terms; Firstly it has to recover as much information from the disc as possible with as little interpolation and error correction as possible. Secondly, noise becomes an issue; both electrical from the power supply, and light source noise caused by reflections within the transport. I'm no tech expert, but it's been explained to me that noise gets modulated and demodulated with the digital signal and has a serious effect on sound (perhaps somebody with a greater technical knowledge can explain this properly?). Naim go to great lengths to minimise reflections within the drive - one reason why the disc drawers and trays on the CD players have an anti-reflective surface coating on them. The lasers on Naim CD players are also controlled with custom software that narrows the read area (only a small part of the read area contains pits so effort spent reading dead areas translates to more noise) and the intensity of the laser is lowered to cut down on reflections, which cause light source noise. Then there is the issue of data clocking to attend to, something that is rarely done well in inexpensive players.

I could go on, but you begin to see that the quality of the transport becomes very important indeed...

In the case of the CDX2, this has been carefully designed from the very beginning to be the best possible transport. With the latest CDX2.2 Naim have engineered a digital output that won't compromise the player. The output is the best possible one within the S/PDIF protocol, i.e a true 75ohm BNC connection. The DAC also has these on board, so if you have a CDX2.2 then you should connect using the BNCs, ideally using Naim's own DC1 digital interconnect.

The dvd player is not used for A/V (in fact it isn't used at all, just been hanging on to it on the off chance i ever want to listen to and SACD's which i only have about 10 off anyway).

quote:

The Naim DAC supports only 4 incoming connections so combined out of those connections I mentioned above.

You can have 8 items connected to 4 selectable inputs. If two sources are connected to one input, the dac will automatically select which source is outputting a signal. I'm sure one overrides the other if both are providing a signal at the same time1

quote:

Originally posted by Keith L:

quote:

The Naim DAC supports only 4 incoming connections so combined out of those connections I mentioned above.

You can have 8 items connected to 4 selectable inputs. If two sources are connected to one input, the dac will automatically select which source is outputting a signal. I'm sure one overrides the other if both are providing a signal at the same time1

I stand corrected.

-
aleg