bretth

Yeah sorry - I misunderstood. I thought what was being advocated was bitperfect doing the sending to an airplay device - but you want co-existence. Sounds reasonable to me.

It would be a bit daft to use bitperfect with airplay even if you could. It's like bitperfect unscrambles the egg on the transmitter and then the receiving airplay device re-scrambles it again. The weakest link in the chain is the airplay receiver and airplay itself, the only point of bitperfect is to use it with a directly attached DAC.

*sigh* it would be nice if you could make the iTunes volume control take advantage of the DAC volume control through bitperfect, but I guess that ain't gunna happen.

That's curious. Adjusting the volume directly in BitPerfect I can see it reflected in both the OSX Audio setup and also on the AP1 hardware screen. Adjusting the iTunes volume I don't see any changes in either BitPerfect, the audio setup or the AP1 screen, but I'm still hearing the decrease in volume. I have to assume from what you are saying that it's just a display bug - i.e. the BitPerfect volume is changing behind the scenes.

I'm a little confused about how the volume works. I assume: "Volume control does not match iTunes" feature for 0.31 means that when you reduce the volume in iTunes it will make the volume move in the app. Currently it appears bitperfect plays the track but itunes (say through Remote app) still affects the volume of the playing track (maybe through core audio). I have a audiophilleo1 and my perfect scenario is that the remote app controls bitperfect volume which in turn use's audiophilleo's internal volume.

My original setup was MBP into HRT Streamer II+ into a Virtue One amp into JB3's. Perfect for nearfield and moderate volume, but I then used them on a television in a small living room which sounds great. They're really not fussy on the quality of the source. I now have Lenehan ML1 Plus R's speakers which I got 2nd hand. They're small but probably still double the size of the JB3's so not really suitable for a desk, though a small room with proximity switch would be ok. They're amazing speakers with incredible detail and will fill the room but much more fussy about the quality of the source. Crap recordings, poor rips or direct ipod out sound fine on the JB3's but on the ML1's can sound pretty ugly. Point being the difference between an old dvd player and a newer dac I can hear like night and day on the ML1's but on the JB3's the difference is much smaller and doesn't sound much better, so it's unlikely a halide bridge would add to your enjoyment of the JB3's. The JB3's would be considered audiophile because for the price and size they bring out not raw volume or detail but a sound that is a pleasure to listen to. They have the X factor on Jazz and vocals which make a lot of other small but maybe more detailed speakers sound lifeless, but they are what they are.

I have the JB3's and a couple of DAC's one of which is based on the same Wolfson chip that the Bel Canto C5i uses (Audio-gd NFB-2), and the other is a cheaper HRT Streamer II+. I also have a more expensive pair of speakers which I've used for comparison. In my opinion you will get little or no benefit from the Halide into the JB3's because the single drivers don't bring out too much detail compared to my other speakers. The strength of the JB3's is that what they lack in detail they make up for in warmth particularly in female vocals, jazz etc. I actually prefer the cheaper HRT streamer to the Wolfson for the JB3's because the HRT is a little brighter which suits the JB3's natural warmth, whereas the Wolfson (in my case twin chips) are already pretty warm, so some tracks particularly male vocals or poor sources can sound a little overdone on a Wolfson, Virtue One, JB3 combo. Hopefully the Bel Canto C5i will thread a path through the middle. Let me know how you go..