urakis

Hi, im just curious how the Swan D1080MkII 08 performed in your tests, can you please give a small review? thanks..

Ive been using this plug in for more than 2 years now, its actually a real cool little add on to itunes, it makes the sound quality of compressed audio a bit better by digitally re mastering the output in real time, it would be a very good enhancement tool for most people who has a lot of low quality mp3s and aac files in their itunes library.

thanks for the highly regarded advice randall, i may have to try the speakers out before purchasing them, i think a few tracks in the listening room at the yamaha dealer near my area is enough to justify the quality of those speakers, i will check out the available av receiver models from yamaha and onkyo and will let you know my best 2 choices before i make the purchase, the link you mentioned is quite informative, i will take it into consideration when choosing my first av receiver, regarding the grados, i may have to go with the 60s first, my sennheiser px 100 is still quite new, im actually quite satisfied with its performance, since i only use them mainly to listen to music from my portable device, and occasionally on my macbook, its very portable as well with its folding design, again, thanks a lot for your expert advice, i will keep you posted and might ask you a few more questions before i make my final decision regarding the av receivers and speakers. thanks again..

yes i agree with that, i use fluke to import flac files into my itunes library, and then convert them to apple lossless. chris said that the sound quality is identical, i dont know if some of you guys will disagree with that?

i see what you mean randall, i have read somewhere in the forum section that there are built in DACs in most av receivers out in the market, thats why i got interested in av receivers, which i can also use to set up a small home entertainment system for my house later on, would i be able to use an av receiver together with an external dac? or should i just stick to an external dac for listening music from my mac? it would be quite difficult to get my hands on one because non of the audio equipment shops here in bahrain doesnt even know what that is. anyway, in regards to speakers, i have been looking for a pair of yamaha HS50M or HS80M to start with, do you think i would be a solid choice for my first pair of speakers? the dealer here in bahrain said they would be expecting some hs series by next month, the price is well within my budget, but if you think it would be a waste of money for me, please feel free to let me know what you personally think. as far as headphones are concerned, i really am very interested in getting a pair of grados for quite some time, i know i would not go wrong with them, i would probably get the ones you recommended, the sr 60 for home listening and the igrado for portable music, i would probably need to buy an ipod as well, so i will be able to bring some apple lossless files along with me wherever i go. i hope you can give me some more advice regarding this matter, thanks again.

interesting point you have there randall, i forgot to mention about it together with my last post, actually, im basically new to all of this and what i have can not really be considered audiophile quality equipment, to start with, i use my mac to listen to mp3s 320kb/s,aac and apple lossless music with itunes, i have a sennheiser px 100 headphone which i also use to listen to some music from my nokia 5800 express music phone, i have a good pair of pc speakers, (logitech z-2300) which is connected to my dell laptop for some easy listening in my bedroom using itunes also, as you can see, i dont really have that much to start with, thats why im really interested in buying some good quality entry level equipment just to get started, im seriously considering a good av receiver and a nice pair of stereo speakers, i hope you can recommend something from the brands i mentioned earlier that would fit nicely in my budget, thanks a lot and i hope to hear some feedback from you guys soon.

thanks for the helpful information guys, i will try listening to both files and see if there is a noticeable difference, although im fairly new to this whole thing, i appreciate every bits of information you guys can throw my way. i would like to ask for suggestions regarding high quality speakers for my computer audio setup as well, i am currently staying in bahrain, and almost all the good brands are not available here, i have been searching for grado headphones, audioengine speakers but without any luck, the only familiar speaker brands here are bose,(i know.. duh?) yamaha, harman cardon, B&W, sony and pioneer, i would like to get some suggestions from you guys regarding which brand is good enough for a newbee like me? and is it ok to start with a decent AV receiver rather than buying a usb dac? and if an av receiver would be good enough, which models among yamaha and onkyo can you guys recomend? my budget is around 700-1000 dollars, hope i can get some good recommendations from you guys, thanks and more power..

so it means that converting flac to apple lossless is basically like uncompressing a zip file? but does it affect the total output or would it sound identical to the original flac file? thanks for the quick response.. urakis

hi everyone, I recently downloaded some music in flac format, i managed to import them to itunes using a freeware called "fluke", i tried converting the flac files to apple lossless from within itunes, i noticed that it has increased the bit rate and the file size after the conversion is completed, i know its a different story when converting aiff and wav file to apple lossless format, it reduces the file size, but why does it increase when converting flac to apple lossless? i know it doest make the file better, or do they? hope you guys can give me some info regarding this subject. thanks regards to all, urakis

you can import flac files to your itunes library by using a freeware call fluke, just install it, then right click on the flac or wav files you want to import and select open with- other, then browse for fluke in your applications and youre all set, you will be able to play flac from itunes, regarding the 4gb of ram for your macbook, im not sure it can support 4 gb of ram using leopard, but im quite sure the up and coming snow leopard fully supports more than 4 gb of ram, since its a full 64bit operating system.