iMac to amp help needed

A

Anonymous

Guest
hi. i use an airport express and take the digital out straight from the airport express into my amp which has a dac already. it seems a very cost effective way to stream music when sat at my desk working. i guess a lot depends on what amp you have? As an example i have the cyrus amp with the qx onboard dac so works well. to be honest, its surprisingly good, even with pretty low rate audio files the gap between them and playing a cd is very small.

hope that helps.
 

professorhat

Well-known member
Dec 28, 2007
992
22
18,895
Visit site
Yup, the Airport Express does have an onboard DAC so you don't need an external one for it to work (though it will improve the sound so might be something you consider later). You can of course just run a wire straight from your iMac to the amp (how close are they)?
 

davejones1988

New member
Jun 16, 2012
5
0
0
Visit site
Hi thanks for the reply I herd by runniing a cabe from the amp direct to the onboard sound card the quallity is very poor I dont think I have the colrreect input on my amp in order to connect the airport express
 

SpursGator

Well-known member
Jan 12, 2012
58
46
18,570
Visit site
You need to make sure that the iMac's output is a line-level out and not being used as a headphone jack. Check your settings Preferences > Sound.

Consider an inexpensive DAC that can accept the optical out It will sound better.
 

professorhat

Well-known member
Dec 28, 2007
992
22
18,895
Visit site
davejones1988 said:
I dont think I have the colrreect input on my amp in order to connect the airport express

You will, you'll just need this sort of cable

35rca6new08.jpg


On the other hand, if you can afford to get a reasonable external DAC, you will benefit from it - again, you could just run a direct connection from the Mac into the DAC as well - all depends whether this is feasible or whether you need to stream it over the wireless because of where the Mac and Hifi are positioned.
 

MajorFubar

New member
Mar 3, 2010
690
6
0
Visit site
davejones1988 said:
I herd by runniing a cabe from the amp direct to the onboard sound card the quallity is very poor
Don't believe all you hear. I spent nearly a year streaming a Mac Mini to my amp using its output jack and I never felt like it was critically letting the side down. Yes my current USB DAC is better but then it should be seeing that it was £300 on its own. Trust me the standard DAC in your Mac is not by any description 'poor'.
 

Rethep

Well-known member
May 2, 2011
15
0
18,520
Visit site
I agree with that. Also the Dac used in the Airport Express unit is not at all bad. I could not hear any substantial difference with a Cambridge Dac Magic.

Try connecting your Airport Express with the cable shown above, and listen for some timeperiod. Could be you might not change anything further.
 

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts