Ant

Hi again so I have found it at last. Except that I was mistaken in my description. Here is the weblink: http://www.xitel.com/2007/prod_hflpc.htm It is a USB connection to a separate DAC which is bundled with what the manufacturers describe as "high quality cable". Looks interesting, if rather cheap. Audiofiles may well find the idea a little far fetched, while audiofools such as myself may be more forgiving. This whole process is a steep learning curve. For reference I listen to cd's on a rotel rcd02 and ra02 amp thru b&w speakers. I also have an older system of arcam alpha 8 cd, amp and power amp thru acoustic energy AE109 floorstanders in a bigger room. Personally I prefer the arcam setup for it's slightly smoother sound which sounds more like vinyl to my ears. I also have a bit of vinyl thru a project 1 or an ariston rd80 with linn tonearm and nagoaka cartridge. These systems are as good as I can tell the difference on (at leaast for the money I had for them!) Anyway if anyone has used this product please let me know. Secondly, bearing in mind my current setup does anyone recommend a particular dac/cable set to improve the sound from a mac mini. Finally, just to confuse things again I found this link regarding a high end ipod dock: http://whathifi.com/mp3/archive/2008/02/26/news-krell-s-163-1350-ipod-dock-we-kid-you-not.aspx What amazed me was the following comment from the chap at krell: "As for the issue of D/A conversion, that’s a bit of a red herring. The iPod’s internal DAC is actually very capable; how you retrieve and deliver the analogue signal is a much more critical issue to address in terms of sound quality." What do you all think of that? Cheers, Ant

Hi folks somewhere on the web I found a company selling a 3.5mm jack to RCA lead which incorporated a DAC and was really long. This would be ideal for me to connect a macmini/iomega minimax music server (which I do not yet own!) to my hifi (they will live in separate units about 8 feet away from each-other) Problem is I cannot remember where I saw it and hours of trawling has so far drawn a blank. All I remember is that they were about £60 and that the DAC was supposed to be an improvement over the DAC in the minimac. Anyone know what they are called? Cheers, Ant

By Gum, that was certainly a quick reply! I've been waiting a week for someone at What Hifi to reply to the same question! Cheers mate!

HI all read the great articles, but none seem to advocate the use of airport express (AE) for wireless and I would love to know why? I want to set up a music server from scratch and will probably buy macs of one or other type to achieve this. The system is for listening to in my main living room where I also have my TV. I love the macbook based system but without AE then using a laptop seems daft, after all, why not a mac mini via a TV as a menu? My question then is would it be possible to link a macbook, a time capsule for extending disk space and/or backing up files, AE connecting to my amp via a decent DAC? Would this affect the sound as the macbook should send the track to AE wirelessly in it's original digital code format and the AE should then pass this wired to the DAC and thence to the amp? Am I missing something? Thanks in advance for your advice, Ant.