queequeg

There are many good speakers available and although B&W's are perfectly fine, they're just one of brand - I would hardly say that they're unbeatable at any given price point. You may want to consider bypassing an outboard amplifier and pay some attention to a powered monitor configuration. This solution cleans up real estate and makes for a perfectly wonderful performing system. There are a number of high quality brands available in this category.

Thanks Chris - I will take your advisement into consideration. Was I off track with Peter's line of thinking? Would the Fireface 400 allow for hirez playback?

But frankly it's most likely because I'm a dolt when it comes to this stuff. Suffice to say I'm new to this. So, Peter is recommending that one uses an RME Fireface 400 for better sampling/etc and then out to an external DAC? This would be sufficient for hirez recordings? I would like to go to use my Mac as my hifi system and the Drobo for RAID array for music archiving/storage. I would like to run out of my desktop to a High quality but discrete DAC (needs headphone out). I'm thinking the Grace M902 would perform this wonderfully. Then Finally "balanced out" to a pair of powered monitors on Sound Anchor Stands with Aurelex pads for isolation. I'm thinking about adding a sub too. Should I add the RME Fireface 400? Am I going the wrong way here? Thanks, Jon Jon