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October 22, 2009 - 11:49am
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Recommend a great DAC for an Apple MAC Mini for around $1000.
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Hi Linus and welcome to the forum!
Unfortunately I don't have a DAC recommendation for you but I do have a few words of caution that may or may not prove to be useful.
A few questions:
1) Did you rip the CD into the Apple lossless format or did you simply use the default iTunes settings?
2) Are you aware that many of the high resolution audio files available for download/purchase are encoded as flac files (not all of them but a good number of them) and iTunes does not support the playback of flac files.
3) Converting a lossless audio file ripped from standard CD (i.e. one at 16bit/44.1kHz resolution) up to a higher bit and sample rate DOES NOT yield a high resolution file, only a much large file with exactly the same CD quality resolution.
4) Finally, I apologize if any of the above seems very basic to you but I have no way of knowing you're current level of understanding regarding these matters.
Anyway, if you have any questions about these issues, feel free to ask.
the best DAC I have ever heard at any price is the Mytek Stereo 96.
http://mytekdigital.com/products/stereo96dac.htm
under a grand and amazing sound...
ive auditioned and or owned products that cost much, much , MUCH more than that and wasnt as impressed... went through DcS, EMM Labs., Lavry, Grace, Bel Canto, and many others..
I bought the Benchmark DAC1 which I would surely recommend to you, the plain version, non USB, as your mac has a digital output (from the phono jack), you can connect it to the toslink input of the DAC and nice have a jitter free system.
If you don't need the very high quality headphone output then the DacMagic sounds like a less expensive yet still excellent option too.
- Fabio
I'll 2nd the Benchmark DAC1 suggestion, as I also own one and love it...
The Pacific Valve Musiland MD-10 Modified for $714 is an overacheiver.
Another vote for the Mytek Stereo 96.
I have the Benchmark and the Grace and really like both, but the Mytek is special.
Mytek also makes a wonderful sounding analog to digital converter, as I bet ncdrawl already knows. He obviously has great ears.
Hi Linus,
My 2
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