![]() So, yes, gingembre may find the appealingly cheap direct optical connection works well enough - it's a no-brainer as your first option. And I've not actually found anyone claim their mobo output is better. ![]() Ĭlick to expand.“No proof of a word”? And where's the plug? The only device I named was the VLink, which we don't sell, or rate.Īs you've only apparently tried optical from Mac to DAC, presumably you're interested in what people with experience of the many alternatives have to report? Of the literally hundreds of auditions and home trials we've run over the past six years, your experience is a minority: something like a quarter - maybe a third - of listeners find optical-out from a computer is no different to their CD player. HiFi World ran a group test of SPDIF converters last year, including the VLink, which is worth looking up. ![]() It's surprisingly important to audition a few for comparison - and even pay attention to apparently insignificant factors like their power supply, which is usually the USB feed taken from the computer whose ground plane is polluted with noise from the CPU, multiple chipsets and dozens of switching regulators. Such a converter is effectively a master clock, and as such plays a significant role in the 'sound' of your computer transport. When you look at USB-SPDIF converters, you're getting squarely into the realm of 'clock upgrades' that were being perfected by Wadia, Teac, Meridian and Trichord (among others) back in the 90s. The latest Mini is a little better than most, but typically the output from a motherboard has uncommonly high jitter - and the optical SPDIF on a DAC is usually also its highest-jitter interface. Whereas the innards of your Mac make a thorny environment for its ultra low-rent clock. You can of course just jack a common-or-garden optical cable into the DAC, and this will be your cheapest and quickest fix.īut will it give you the same quality as the CDP? Likely not - but it's very easy to try! The SPDIF output stage of your CD player will be a thoughtful piece of work: probably a really well implemented clock, with a carefully isolated power supply. It's difficult (but not impossible) to hardwire the Mac to the DAC: we sometimes hardwire an SPDIF feed direct from an Intel motherboard, but it's a much tougher proposition with a Mac. Click to expand.Three questions raised there!
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