Gary W

I would definitely agree with the others. Hang on to your new iMac and listen to an SSD if possible before you make any changes. The system I am using to make these comparisons is probably $15,000.00 + by the time you add in the cables. Things like the DAC and connectors also make big differences and at the end of the day it only has to sound right to you. Audiophile sound isn't a race to the finish line but more of a journey with lots of side roads and stops and sometimes you get lost but that's part of the fun. As well one of the other threads has a discussion going about the sound differences of 32 bit opposed to 64 bit Macs. I believe that has a lot to do with why in my system my laptop using exactly the same ripped music sounds so much poorer. These new iMacs are running in native 64 bit so even with the serial drive it's a big improvement. Cheers Gary

I'm running a new 2.93ghz quad core imac and it is 64 bit right out of the box. When I first compared it with my early 2008 macbook pro using an M2tech Hiface I was shocked by the difference but couldn't understand why until I read your post. I believe this is a big step towards digital audiophile sound at least for me.

The short answer is yes. To elaborate on my previous post I went back over to the friends to check out the new imac on his system which now has the DACmagic replaced with a Bryston BDA-1. Using a second input on the Bryston we could A/B with his Rega Planet CD player for comparison. What we found was that the imac using the SSD had a noticeable improvement in coherence and the soundstage opened up dynamically. When we did the comparison with the serial drive there was a notable difference between the hard drive and the Rega Planet CD but it was questionable whether it actually sounded better or not. The Rega is not exactly a slouch when it comes to CD players but my friend was rather dismayed by it's lack of sound stage compared to the SSD. At the moment he is awaiting the arrival of a Bryston BDP-1 which is their new digital interface that all the HiFi rags are raving about. Once he receives it I will trek back over with the imac to A/B against a loaded external hard drive going into the Bryston interface. I will let you know the results when it happens.

I'm new to the website and still reading forums but I thought this might interest you. I have been trying to utilize my macbook pro as an audiophile source for my stereo for a couple of years with little success. Started with a toslink cable and mini optical jack to a Meridian 200 DAC feeding a Parasound amp/preamp with Mirage M3 speakers.results:very poor. Switched to USB with an MTech 2 Hiface and Prisma digital interconnect cable. results: slightly improved but not audiophile quality. Thought that it might be the older DAC so I took laptop,Hiface, and Prisma cable to a friends. Ran laptop/Hiface into DAC magic feeding Simaudio Moon amp/preamp with Totem Forrest speakers. result: not even close to audiophile. Received Imac quadcore 2.93ghz with SSD & 1 TB serial Jan. 5/11. Hooked it up with Hiface/Prisma cable into Meridian to test new super drive. result: Better than Meridian200/203 transport combo. Next used apple lossless ripped music on SSD.result: Amazing, sound stage opened up with no loss of detail.