SONOS APPLE AIRPORT DAC WIRELESS STREAMING WHAT IS THE BEST OPTION?

[admin_exported]

Hi Guys, I am in a rather difficult position. 
I am building a hifi system, however, I would like to play music from my Mac into a dac that plays through the hifi system. 
To put everything simply, I shall ask a series of questions, the answers of which, will tell me what the best route is to solve this issue.
(1) How can I play music from a Mac (iTunes) into a DAC and then into a Hifi system. 
(2) I would like to seriously improve the mp3 sound quality to emulate the sound quality expected from good CD recordings, what is the best way to achieve this?
(3) Lastly, what program would I need to install on my Mac to be able to send the music via a wireless connection to the DAC?
The real problem is that, the only musical output on the Mac is a 3.5mm jack. I cannot connect this directly to a DAC because the sound is already analogue and not digital. 
Most DACs can only receive a digital input, which tells me I cannot connect a DAC directly to a MAC. But rather, I would have to send the signal wirelessly to a Music Router (e,g SONOS, SOUNDSQUEEZE) and connect that to the DAC and then from there feed the signal into the Hifi Amp. 
Is there any easier way to go about doing things? Or is there anything I need to know? 
Planned system: Naim Nac152XS/ Naim Nap155XS/ B&W 805s/ Naim CD5X2/ Van Del Hul Blue Series/ Partington Dreadnoughts/ Cambridge Audio DacMagic 

 

[mattjax05]

Quite simple really - you need an Airport Express to stream (wireless) music to and the digital feed from the AE can be connected (wired) to a DAC. For iTunes you should rip all of your music in Apple Lossless format to achieve the best possible sound.

 

[mattjax05]

BTW if you don't already have a wireless network you will need AirTunes installed on your MAC to be able to stream directly to the AE.

 

[Dan Turner]

Hi Dean - I have just implemented a very similar solution, so hopefully I can help.

(1) How can I play music from a Mac (iTunes) into a DAC and then into a Hifi system. You can get a DAC with a USB input and connect the MAC to it via that.
(2) I would like to seriously improve the mp3 sound quality to emulate the sound quality expected from good CD recordings, what is the best way to achieve this? Don't use MP3, use either Apple Lossless (files take up about half the space of the CD originals and theoretically should be no loss in quality) or rip you CDs with no compression at all (WAV or AIFF files) to be absolutely certain of no loss in quality. Unless you have a very high-end CD player at present I'm confident that high-quality rips being replayed from your Mac via a decent DAC will provide better results.
(3) Lastly, what program would I need to install on my Mac to be able to send the music via a wireless connection to the DAC? Apple produce the Airport Express for this very purpose - it can connect either wirelessly or wired to you router and allows you to stream music from your iTunes. The AE connects via optical digital connection to your DAC. It comes with the Airtunes software that kind of bolts on to iTunes. Very slick, especially if you have an ipod touch or iphone to use as a remote controller via the Remote app.
The real problem is that, the only musical output on the Mac is a 3.5mm jack. I cannot connect this directly to a DAC because the sound is already analogue and not digital. Are you sure about this - all the current crop, and I believe several generations to date use a combined 3.5mm socket which outputs both analogue and optical digital signals - you can get adaptors for standard toslink optical digital cables to fit a 3.5mm socket. You should check your spec, but as I said above you could still use USB instead.
Most DACs can only receive a digital input, which tells me I cannot connect a DAC directly to a MAC. But rather, I would have to send the signal wirelessly to a Music Router (e,g SONOS, SOUNDSQUEEZE) and connect that to the DAC and then from there feed the signal into the Hifi Amp. Hopefully based on the above you will find that you can connect the Mac directly to your DAC, but in any case, I think that you'd find it inconvenient to have that as your only option and therefore if you're using iTunes as an interface, the Airport Express option is both seamless and very effective, and most importantly it allows you to use your Mac for other things whilst playing music (e.g. it doesn't have to be physically sat by your hifi). You can also get several and stream music from you Mac into any room of you house, selectively controlling which ones are active and which ones aren't. Anyway - I can recommend the Cambridge Audio DAC-magic, which is absolutely excellent. Also I have to admit I haven't had the chance to experiment extensively yet, but I can't tell any difference in quality between having my computer connected directly to the DAC via USB, or streaming via the Airport Express.

 

[PJPro]

Dan Turner:....Don't use MP3, use either Apple Lossless (files take up about half the space of the CD originals and theoretically should be no loss in quality) or rip you CDs with no compression at all (WAV or AIFF files) to be absolutely certain of no loss in quality.....
No need to go with .wav, etc. Lossless compression will not degrade sound quality, will save space and have the added convenience of tagging.

 

[Anonymous]

dean9:(1) How can I play music from a Mac (iTunes) into a DAC and then into a Hifi system.

If you've got a MacBook or MacBook Pro the 3,5 mm jack doubles as an optical output. All you need is a TOSlink to (optical) minijack cable.

If your Mac don't have an optical output, USB is your best option. A wire connection between a computer and a hi-fi system might introduce hum anyway. Unless you by an expensive DAC, it will also be imited to 16bits/48kHz ("CD quality"), while an optical connection (except with some cheap DAC's) don't have these limitions.
(2) I would like to seriously improve the mp3 sound quality to emulate the sound quality expected from good CD recordings, what is the best way to achieve this?There's no way to improve sound that's been degraded. Some people think harmonic distortion makes music better though, and add components that provide this -- like pre amps or even DACs with tubes...
(3) Lastly, what program would I need to install on my Mac to be able to send the music via a wireless connection to the DAC?Using Apple AirPort Express iTunes is all you need. If you want to use other applications than iTunes, you'll need Airfoil to connect them to AirPort Express.Sonos is a system of it's own and not dependent of your computer. Squeezebox has it's own software. Personally I find both alternatives limiting, compared to the inexpensive and expandible AirPort/Apple TV system.