Airport Express and Asynchornous USB DAC

[Stormboy]

Hi

I am thinking of buying a high quality asynchronous DAC - such as the new Arcam D33 - so that I can play music on my iMac through my stereo. However, the computer and the stereo are in different rooms. Therefore, I am thinking of putting an Airport Express next to the DAC and connecting it to the iMac with an ethernet cable. Will this work and will it allow me to get the benefits of asynchronous DAC, i.e. having the DAC controlling the data timing.

Thank you

Stormboy

 

[John Duncan]

Few things. Yes it will work, but:

- unless you have thick walls wireless should work fine. Try that first before running the Ethernet. It can however be worthwhile setting it up via Ethernet before unplugging.

- airport express doesn't output audio over USB (that's so it can act as a wireless print server) only via its optical output in the 3.5mm jack

- AFAIK (and I'm not a tertiary qualified engineer) asynchronous only works for USB, not the optical. Now whether or how the Arcam reclocks from optical I don't know, but phoning or mailing Arcam might get you a definitive answer from somebody who knows what they're talking about.

 

[Stormboy]

Hi John

Thank you for the advice. I suppose I will have to get a long USB cable and use a repeater, or get a Mac Mini.

Stormboy