Naim DAC-V1 & NAP100 or not ?

[amwarren13]

Hello all,

Need your advice please on the following - I currently play some of my music from itunes on my imac, which is connected via the headphone socket to a Cyrus integrated 8 vs2 amplifier, which powers a couple of small monitor audio radius speakers in my office/study.

I have a Naim Unitiserve in here as well, which feeds a Naim Unitiqute in another room.

Is my Cyrus integrated 8 vs2 performing the same conversion as a DAC would do from the music coming from itunes (ripped cd's and music downloaded from itunes), or would I benefit significantly more from having a Naim DAC-V1 and NAP 100 instead (which I could connect to the Untiserve as well) ?

Obviously it is a lot of money to lay out, so wanted to verify that I would really benefit from making the change.

Many thanks in advance for your thoughts

Ashley.

:cheers:

 

[Overdose]

I believe that the headphone output socket also doubles as an optical output. If you have connected optically to your amp, then the amp is doing the job of the DAC, if not, then the Mac is doing the DAC process internally.

Whether or not you can justify the cost of the NAIM DAC for any changes is entirely personal, but don't expect a world of difference. A small USB DAC can be had for less than £100 that is audibly transparent and really that is all that you need, particularly as you are only using the Mac as a source.

 

[stevebrock]

I believe that the headphone output socket also doubles as an optical output. If you have connected optically to your amp, then the amp is doing the job of the DAC, if not, then the Mac is doing the DAC process internally.

Whether or not you can justify the cost of the NAIM DAC for any changes is entirely personal, but don't expect a world of difference. A small USB DAC can be had for less than £100 that is audibly transparent and really that is all that you need, particularly as you are only using the Mac as a source.

You are right the iMacs headphone socket doubles as an optical output!

However you are actually wrong the Cyrus 8vs is an amp with no DAC in it, so the iMac is doing the conversion not the amp - so yes the Naim V-DAC will improve things greatly!

But beware the Naim V-Dac has no streaming functionality

 

[stevebrock]

Sell the Cyrus and get another unitiqute