Digital Audio Output on a Mac Versus PC

John both Mac and Pc are capable of top quality sound, with a capable dac, the difference is the mac does it 'out of the box' and the PC has to be tweaked a little, bypassing the PC's sound kernel with ASIO drivers or direct streaming etc.
Firewire is good because it has no embedded timimg signal, so the dac just draws the correct amount of data.
Personally I really like the itunes interface and the fact you can you use an ipod as a remote control!

I recently made the switch from a CDX2/XPS2 to a computer front end and Weiss DAC. Initially I tried two alternative computer front ends: my MacBook and a laptop running XP.

The MacBook was a doddle to set up, though I use sbooths Play rather than i-Tunes (I simply think Play sounds better, no idea why).

On the XP laptop I tried Foobar2K, J. River v12 (the free one), Winamp, and the cmp player. I had to do a lot of fiddling about to ensure that I completely eliminated the Windows KMixer and unmapped my internal sound card. I also followed a lot of postings on audiophile websites regarding stopping a lot of other processes on Windows to seek to maximise the audio quality. However, try as I might I could not get the XP output (via firewire) to sound anywhere near as good as the MacBook using frewire.

I am assured that Windows can produce as good, if not better audio than a Mac but I guess it needs a lot more computer savvy than I possess.

I hope this helps.

John, on review I note you also asked if Firewire sounds better than Dig/Optical.

I can only speak for the Weiss DAC2 but I found a substantial improvement in sound quality using firewire against the optical. My understanding of the technical reason for this is that firewire allows the Weiss clock to be the Master, which avoids the jitter issues associated with optical.

There are other regular contributors to this forum who can explain this far better than I - Eloise are you out there?

quote:

Originally posted by DHT:
John both Mac and Pc are capable of top quality sound, with a capable dac, the difference is the mac does it 'out of the box' and the PC has to be tweaked a little, bypassing the PC's sound kernel with ASIO drivers or direct streaming etc.

This ONLY applies to XP machines. There is no dreaded "K-Mixer" in Vista or 7.

Lastly, the PCs are ever bit as "out of the box" on the newer machines.

All is well

quote:

This ONLY applies to XP machines. There is no dreaded "K-Mixer" in Vista or 7.

Lastly, the PCs are ever bit as "out of the box" on the newer machines.

All is well

Patrick Hi, what do you have to do in Vista/windows 7 to optimise the sound quality, is there anything to disable ,uncheck etc.
Thanks.

I'm not Patrick .. but last time I checked it out the Wasapi plug in seemed to be a good move for foobar and Vista.

quote:

Originally posted by likesmusic:
I'm not Patrick .. but last time I checked it out the Wasapi plug in seemed to be a good move for foobar and Vista.

I'm running Vista, but I must say that I still prefer the ASIO-drivers from ASIO4ALL combined with the ASIO-foobar-component to the WASAPI-foobar-component on my machine.

-
aleg

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
Windoz pc is as good as my Mac optical through the same DAC as you have,But a bit more work has to go into it.
Stu

That is my experience as well. I am not sure why Apple people demand that a Mac sounds better. People who own both, i.e. don't have a fanatical allegiance to either, typically think they sound the same.

I also must be getting bit transparency from the K-Mixer as well (which it is in most scenarios), because I cannot discern any change going to ASIO.

Although I can spot a MP3, even 320s and V0s, from a lossless file every time. Which most say they cannot.

It is all very strange to me how I am lacking the acuity to differentiate between a Mac and a PC, when I have fairly sensitive hearing on all other existent phenomena.

-patrick

quote:

I am not sure why Apple people demand that a Mac sounds better.

I don't think they do - setup properly there should be no difference. The Mac just seems easier to get high quality data out of with less messing around.

i second that James.....cant wait to set upon my old pc with a sledge hammer soon as the imac arrives REVENGE IS SWEET !

quote:

Originally posted by DHT:

Patrick Hi, what do you have to do in Vista/windows 7 to optimise the sound quality, is there anything to disable ,uncheck etc.
Thanks.

DHT,

I am not sure, but I would suspect it includes the standard methods (not mine) of increasing performance.

For XP that should include:
- Turning off ALL system sounds
- All system volumes @ 100%
- ALWAYS bypass KMIXER by unmapping or using ASIO4ALL
- Dedicate the computer for music replay. Using the computer for other tasks can cause conflicts, increase latency and cause audible issues
- Turn off ALL sleeping and hibernation
- Turn off virus scanning and screen savers

Other suggestions (once again, not mine)include not using any other USB inputs if using a USB connected hard drive. Or, use 16 bit color, and window's classic mode, etc....

The most obvious suggestions would be having enough RAM and processing power for your particular OS. This is VERY important for hi-res audio.

I will look around for an "optimization guide" for Vista and 7. But I would suspect that XP might be ideal for audio. All of the memory hogging graphic details and bloated programs a la Mac, cant be helping anything.

Please keep in mind that very few of the above have any effect on bit perfection. They may have effect on system noise, drop-outs, and overall system efficiency. The Kmixer and system sounds suggestions are prudent though if NOT using ASIO.

If your puter is operating near its limits, the above might help alleviate decoding issues with hi-res audio.
If your Computer is well spec'd, I would think none of the above would matter.

2 cents
-Patrick

quote:

Originally posted by james n:

quote:

I am not sure why Apple people demand that a Mac sounds better.

I don't think they do - setup properly there should be no difference. The Mac just seems easier to get high quality data out of with less messing around.

Right, hence my saying "Im not sure why...."

quote:

If your Computer is well spec'd, I would think none of the above would matter.

I would.

PS - Patrick - its a shame you are not just down the road as i'd love to discuss all of these over a few beers and with good music rather than across a forum.

Wish I'd waited really. Bought a macbook thinking it was the way to go but mine is one of those produced for a few months without Firewire, a little knowledge is dangerous! Was keen to try the mac/lav but now more than keen to compare that with the naim dac, peeved I may have compromised the "front end".

SAT,

Have no fear. Your Mac will perform just as well as any older, or newer, machine.

-patrick

quote:

Originally posted by james n:

PS - Patrick - its a shame you are not just down the road as i'd love to discuss all of these over a few beers and with good music rather than across a forum.

That would be great. I'm buying if you ever find yourself in Portland!

Include me, tho I have a puddle to jump, I'm game to try all the beers tho I'd be on the floor and not much intelligent conversation. but a hell of a time had by all.

I'll give up my Mac when hell freezes over.

Clear up one thing for me, I bought a Mini and started ripping CDs before I knew much on DACs. Some are in Apple Lossless some in AIFF, If I have to do them again should I choose WAV or AIFF?

Mud,

Stick with ALAC. You'll keep the tags and others players can decode ALAC if you find yourself moving to a different player in the future.

For Mac machines, AIFF is the best option IMHO if space is not a constraint.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter Dinh:
For Mac machines, AIFF is the best option IMHO if space is not a constraint.

Why?

quote:

Originally posted by winkyincanada:

quote:

Originally posted by Peter Dinh:
For Mac machines, AIFF is the best option IMHO if space is not a constraint.

Why?

AIFF = Audio Interlaced File Format - AIFF originaly was an Apple standard
WAV = Windows Audio File - It is a Microsoft / IBM standard. This is a popular format for older folks.

Both formats sound the same and both preserve the resolution of the CD PCM audio so the file sizes will be exactly the same as they are on the CDs. However, AIFF is naturally a logical choice for the Macs because all media apps (including iTunes, Amarra, etc.) on Mac support AIFF format by default.

Apple Lossless is just that, lossless. It does use compression but it acts more like zip (with no data loss). It will eat more CPU cycles when you play ALAC files, on some low powered machines you can hear some differences between AIFF and ALAC.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter Dinh:

quote:

Originally posted by winkyincanada:

quote:

Originally posted by Peter Dinh:
For Mac machines, AIFF is the best option IMHO if space is not a constraint.

Why?

AIFF = Audio Interlaced File Format - AIFF originaly was an Apple standard
WAV = Windows Audio File - It is a Microsoft / IBM standard. This is a popular format for older folks.

Both formats sound the same and both preserve the resolution of the CD PCM audio so the file sizes will be exactly the same as they are on the CDs. However, AIFF is naturally a logical choice for the Macs because all media apps (including iTunes, Amarra, etc.) on Mac support AIFF format by default.

Apple Lossless is just that, lossless. It does use compression but it acts more like zip (with no data loss). It will eat more CPU cycles when you play ALAC files, on some low powered machines you can hear some differences between AIFF and ALAC.

Thanks!

It should be noted that though some claim to hear differences in lossless formats, many audiophiles disagree. The CPU load of my 18 month old laptop is only a few % when playing ALC files and I don't think it's any different with WAV. That's unlikely to be a factor these days.

Even if the amount of things the CPU is doing affects the ability of the soundcard to output a low jitter bitstream, there is no a priori reason to suspect it will have less jitter at 3% utilization than at 100% or 50%. In fact, when going at higher levels, the CPU might present a more stable load to the power supply, because each additional thing it has to do will be less as a percentage of what it's already doing. So higher CPU load then might provide a more stable supply to the soundcard.

It's also worth noting that when the data reaches the soundcard to be clocked into a bitstream and sent to the DAC, it is the full expanded data. So it's difficult to see how the soundcard is affected unless through the power supply.

Thanks chaps. All very interesting.

I've tried transferring some Apple Lossless music files onto a flash-memory thumb drive. The playback sound quality off this was notably inferior to playback from the Mac's hard-drive.

Any logical reason for that? Presumably data is extracted more slowly/less efficiently than from the Mac's HD?

John.