Please Help! - DAC or USB Soundcard for Wedding fill music from itunes (Mac book pro) to band sound system

[admin_exported]

Hi everyone, I could really do with a bit of advice. I get married in two weeks time and we're having a friends band play a couple of sets in the evening. In between the band playing and afterwards, we are planning on queuing a load of music up in itunes and playing it out from my mac book pro into the speakers set up by the band. What i want to know is for a preferably max budget of £100-£120 and maybe less, what can i do to improve/maximise for budget, the output quality of my music. I appreciate straight away that a lot of people will not be impressed with what we're doing etc but when you hit your final budget, theres not a lot you can do about paying for better things, dj's etc! The most important thing is just trying to get the best out of what we've got. Should i be looking at an external sound card or a DAC? What do people suggest? Many thanks for your time reading this post and hope you can help me out. My mac obviously has usb2, firewire 400 and an 3.5mm/optical out.

Cheers, Nick

P.S I've just been looking at the Beresford TC-7510 and maybe this is what i need - any opinions?

 

[Anonymous]

if u use the optical out with a toslink connected to the bands amp (if it has an optical in) u dont need anything else do u ?

I dont have a macbook - but when i play audio flac files through the pc optical out into the amp they sound great.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your reply edsib1, unfortunately the band has quite old equipment and their amp/ p.a. doesn't have any kind of optical or digital in. The question is, is the music going to sound good enough just coming from my 3.5mm to rca (hopefully everyone being quite drunk by then!) or am i really going to notice a difference using some kind of DAC. Bearing in mind that most of the music is in MP3 format and at varying compressions, some as low as 128 but most 192 or more.

 

[idc]

I would save your Mac book and either

just connect the ipod to the amp using a LOD or line out dock connector with goes from the base dock of the ipod to phono cables. Search for Russ Andrews GQ-24 or ebay with 'Line out dock phono'.

or get a docking port as it will keep the ipod charged during the evening.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi IDC, thanks for replying. So do you think that the sound quality will be good enough straight from my ipod and its dock into the amp and not needing to go through some kind of DAC to clean and improve it etc first?

Many thanks fro the reply, Nick

 

[idc]

For a wedding dance where lots of people will either be ignoring the music or drunk, yes! If you have an apple dock I think that it works by connecting from the minijack output to either the amp's aux phonos or headphone input. I would check that before the wedding and get the right sort of cable which can be easily found on Amazon or ebay. I also assume that the apple dock will allow you to keep the ipod charged. I use a GQ-24 LOD cable, but thinking back it is not suitable as you will get 2-3 hours max before the ipods battery runs out.

 

[AlmaataKZ]

I agree. At a party the main thing is great music, feeling the mood, reading the crowd. Ipod straight to amp with a cable or via a dock is more than enough. Put your time into choosing the right music.

Dacs and stuff are for later, you know, when you (hopefully both) will be relaxing with a drink, quitely at home

 

[Anonymous]

Cheers everyone, some sound advice (pardon the punn)! I think i'll stop stressing about the sound quality and move on to stressing about family politics! I'll deffinatly consider a DAC further along the line for home enjoyment and relaxation. Many thanks, Nicholas