Connecting Mac to Naim amp

Posted by: Simon Lovell on 11 September 2016

Can i connect my mac to my amp to listen to music from computer ?what cables do i need?

Posted on: 11 September 2016 by hungryhalibut

And your amp is? And your Mac has what sockets? We need a little help here. 

Posted on: 11 September 2016 by Huge

Short answer: Yes.

More helpful answer: Exactly what HH says...

Posted on: 11 September 2016 by Simon Lovell

sorry .it is a NAC 102,NAP 250 and I have a flatcap.Mac has the usual 3.5 headphone jack.just trying to have an easy spottily listen.

Posted on: 11 September 2016 by Huge

OK, the simplest solution is to use a 3.5mm stereo jack to 5pin DIN lead.

However a better solution is to use a better USB DAC such as the Chord Mojo (and the same type of 3.5mm stereo jack to 5pin DIN lead).  Even though Spotify is lossy compressed (Ogg Vorbis compression), the effect of better quality DAC can still be heard clearly.  Incidentally some Macs have an optical S/PDif output incorporated into the 3.5mm headphone socket, and this is an alternative way of connect in an external DAC.

Posted on: 11 September 2016 by hungryhalibut

So, using my immense experience accumulated over thirty years, my logic is that as the Mac has a 3.5mm jack socket, and the Nac 102 has a 5 pin din socket, the lead you are looking for is a 3.5mm jack to 5 pin din lead. I'd have a look at flashback sales website. 

Posted on: 11 September 2016 by Simon Lovell

right .well i have one of those but it stops me having any volume control for some reason.Also seemed to have interference.

Posted on: 11 September 2016 by hungryhalibut

You just set the mac's volume control to a reasonable level and then use the Naim volume control. There is no reason it won't work. That said, assuming the Mac has usb sockets, something like an Audioquest dragonfly Dac may be better sonically. Perhaps your dealer could lend you one? 

Posted on: 11 September 2016 by Huge

Are you connecting it to the AV input?  That's designed for systems where you're adding the NAC to something like a AV surround sound system - they control the volume themselves.

Posted on: 11 September 2016 by Richard Dane

The NAC102 though doesn't have a unity gain AV input - unless it has had a factory mod to enable this on one of the tape loops.  So, if you don't know the history of your NAC102 then maybe it had a U-G mod done - try a different input.  

If you have owned from new and you never had the mod done...  

Either way, place a DAC, any DAC, between the MAC mini and your NAC102 and connect optically to isolate against all the nasties emanating from the MAC. Without this you will, at best, have potentially poor performance, and at worst, lots of noise and impaired performance throughout the system.

Posted on: 11 September 2016 by Huge

Don't forget that, when using an optical output from the Mac, you need to set the Mac to output a digital format that the DAC can handle ( AppleMIDI? ).  Usually this means PCM stereo (NOT 5.1 / Dolby / DTS etc), and not exceeding the maximum sample depth and sample rate that the DAC can accommodate.

Posted on: 11 September 2016 by mcjt

I use a cambridge audio dacmagic XS with my mac and amplifier. Like the AQ piece, it's inexpensive and will do the trick.