extegral

Thanks everyone for your advice. Mark

a) i believe so. b) i hope so. c) with a Sony it would be, but with Samsung, they say not. d) don't know yet, but agree it would be worth comparing. however, if it is better direct then I'm hosed 'cause with 3 different sources into a single rear input, that's not a viable solution with that amp. e) to my knowledge, the PS3 won't pull (or is it push?) music from the external drive. i think i just have to plunk the cash down and try it. and if it fails, well, I get a good AV processor/receiver (NuForce, Parasound, Outlaw?) and do things the conventional way and am just "out" an extra-nice two channel amp. thanks for your advice.

All, I am a relative newbie to Macs/iTunes/iPods and have an opportunity to set up a new a/v system, with emphasis on digital music, in a new home. I have a fair amount of digital music in FLAC from my pre-Mac days and recently ripped my CDs in AAC for the iPod. I was planning to now convert and/or re-rip into ALAC. For the system I expect to use 3 sources: PS3 for games and DVDs, Cable TV DVR for broadcast music shows, and Apple TV to pull from an external drive. I was going to feed all 3 into a new Samsung LED TV via HDMI, then take the TV's 2 channel stereo TOSLINK out into a Bel Canto S300iD with TOSLINK in and built-in DAC. The Bel Canto would power 2 Spendor A5s. I don't have enough space or rear wall access for surround in my 13 x 13 "library," so this seemed like a good allocation of money in the right areas in order to get good power to some great speakers from a digital environment. And I know a lot of this is objective, but... if I am missing anything here or doing something the wrong-way or if you have any other comments or advice, they'd be most welcome. Thanks, Mark