Enochrome

I'm getting 16bit streaming of "Kind of Blue" on my Macbook. It says the device is capable of 24bit/96 and the track is available in 24bit/96 but it's relegating it to 16bit. Is there something I am doing wrong? I notice other tracks by other artists in 24/96 are having the same outcome.

Maybe I misspoke using the term "bloated", but there seems to be an emphasis in the mid-bass with this dac, and there is nothing wrong with that. Also, I don't use headphones barely, most listening is done through speakers, which are Snell Type J's that have ruler flat frequency response. Maybe the midbass emphasis is negligible with headphones and a proper head amp. Upsampling and oversampling confuse me but I won't let it get in the way of my listening tastes. I think the oversampling is done in the dac chip itself. The dac I have has Burr Brown that 8x oversamples, but their is an upgrade to Wolfson chip that 64x oversamples. Is Schiit coming out with the "statement" series at the end of the year and the Gungnir and Mojnir in the summer?

Thanks for the advice on that. I had the Bifrost already and returned it. I returned it not because I did not like it, I did, it's that I bought the unit without USB thinking that I would not need it relying on the optical out of my Macbook at 24/96khz. I had the same result with the Bifrost; muted vocals, decreased volume and lack of drive and dynamics. So I deduced that it must be the port or sound card of my 5 year old Macbook. One thing I would like to point out to all Bifrost owners is their term "analog" when describing the sound of the Bifrost to other dacs. Yes, it does have an "analog" sound but it is not similar to that of vinyl. I buy a lot of vinyl, and listen to that mostly. Analog vinyl can be rich and warm but also very fast, punchy and dynamic. The Bifrost sounds like an analog rig with MM cartridge fed to a tube amp, but very different than an rig fitted with an MC cart and high end solid state amps. So, their is a certain type of analog sound that the Bifrost is comparative too. I use a Acurus DIA-100 integrated amp that uses a passive preamp so there is no coloration from it when I listened to the Bifrost. The Bifrost excels at 4 things in order of importance: 1. tonal texture, 2. cohesiveness, 3. 3-D soundstage, 4. drive and punch ( transients and weight?). Fractional cons: it is somewhat a little bloated which seems to slow down the dynamics, but this might solve itself after hours of use; the input button feels cheap, and most importantly the light is way too freak'n bright (like a flashlight). I will eventually get the unit with usb, maybe when the next line comes out and it is cheaper on the used market. Let me know if anyone wants to unload theirs when the Gungnir comes out. Lastly, what is the point of using Pure Music if you have the Bifrost? Schitt is ardent upsampling haters, but Pure Music is all about upsampling?

I looked into the M-Audio option, but most of the reviews stated severe reliability options. Still looking for best case alternatives.

Thanks for the advice. I pretty much suspected that it was the laptop itself and that the optical output is really not for serious use. I will have to see about the usb option. Is there any firewire converters under $100?

What is audio midi? I have it simply set up to play through "digital out" under "sound" in the "preferences" panel on my macbook. I am using itunes only, no additional plugins. I thought it was weird to because the beresfords only do 16/44 through usb, and I even tried the demo version of Pure Music, which upsample, through toslink and got the same poor audio result.

Hi, I am trying to use my original macbook as my main "music server". I am having an issue with the toslink output from the headphone jack in that it sounds terrible. When playing, and compared to usb, it sounds muddied the vocals are lower and the soundstage is extremely narrow. Is there something wrong with my computer or is toslink out on Macs just inferior naturally? I am currently running the toslink from my Mac to a Beresford dac that can take 24/96. I will be getting a Schiit Bifrost this week that can do 24/192 (irrelevant for mac toslink). Will the Bifrost "super clock" fix this possible as well? Any insight will be appreciated, Robert