digital cables for v-dac and use of iTunes

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Forummembers, I am from Belgium hoping you can help me with below questions:

I am currently using Naim Nait 5 and Naim CD 5 together with Wharfedale Evo 30 loudspeakers. My decision is to transfer into streaming music play-back using iTunes. My cd's are all ripped into iTunes via Aplle Lossless. I already bought a LaCie wireless disk to store the music.

My idea is to buy an Aplle Airport Express and a Music Fidelity V-Dac. The process is that the PC provides wireless music-signal into the Airport Express; the Airport Express provides music via a digital connection to the Naim Nait.

My questions:

1.) What digital cable do you advize to connect the Airport Express and the V-Dac ? The Airport Express has a mini-jack digital output. The V-dac has both digital coaxial as SPDIF inputs. What's the difference and which one is prefferred ? Do I need a Tosslink ? I was thinking on GQ-24 from Russ Andrews.

2.) I want to connect my Digital TV Tuner to the V-DAC too. The Digital Tuner has a SPDIF digital output. The V-dac has both digital coaxial as SPDIF inputs. What's the difference and which one is prefferred ?

3.) Am I correct that a USB connection between the V-DAC and either the Aiport Express or the Digital Tuner, is of LESS quality than an optical interconnection cable ?

4.) Any advize on a descent HDMI cable to connect the Digital TV Tuner to the Philips TV ?

5.) My CD's are imorted into iTunes using Apple Lossless conversion. However, I also have a number of FLAC's. iTunes doesn't support FLAC. What is the best way to get these FLAC's into iTunes ensuring the highest qulity possible. My current approach is to convert the FLAC's into AIFF and load the AIFF into iTunes. Than - within iTunes - I convert the AIFF's into Apple Lossless. This is double-work. Any better option or process. DO I need an extra tool ?

Thanks for your help !!

Iver

 

[Anonymous]

I have the V-DAC in a similar setup, so here goes:

1) You'll need a minijack toslink cable. Any cable is fine. You can normally get them in most large electronic stores and hi fi retailers - no need to spend more than 10€.

2) Unless your tuner has a coax output, you'll have to use the same input on the V-DAC as that for the Airport Express, which means swapping cables.

3) Haven't compared, but the tests indicqte that on the V-DAC the SP/DIF is better than the USB by a fair margin.

4)As long as it meets the standard, any HDMI cable is fine.

5) can't help, sorry.

 

[iMark]

Here's a couple of suggestions for you.

1) I use a cheap optical cable from the Airport Express to my DACMagic. Works fine.

3) You can't use the USB port on the Airport Express for audio. The USB port has very limited use. You can connect a printer to it.

5) For the Mac there's an audio converter called Max. You can convert your FLACs to Apple Lossless without losing any metadata. Max is free and can be downloaded here.

http://sbooth.org/Max/

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks a lot ! That really helps.

I checked the TV Tuner. Apart from SpDif out it also has a RF Out Coax. Is that the one I need ?

Cheers,

Iver

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks a lot ! That really helps.

I checked the TV Tuner. Apart from SpDif out it also has a RF Out Coax. Is that the one I need ?

Cheers,

Iver

 

[Anonymous]

 

[Anonymous]

No, RF out is different, it allows you to connect the tuner to another TV, DVD recorder or similar.