emw

Has anybody listened to the Intona USB cable? I have done it and it is a very good cable and can compete with the big boys. For me it seems that the impedance story is important. There are micro details, which other USB cable just do not transfer. I compared it to Wireworld Silver Starlight, Audioquest Carbon and Moon Audio Silver dragon. None of them come close to the Intona Premium in terms of micro details and room/space information. It has "less sound" then the other USB cable. Just my 2 Cents...

Eloise, thanks, this is good and useful info. Basically I have everything set up in that way, but....still no sound.

can you let me know how and,or where to get this SoundSource menue. I only have the MBP for my Audio, so I m not very familiar with the setup and functionallity of the OS and the MAC products. However, I have not managed to get the device working. May try it later again. Its a nice sunny day today, audio has to wait until the sun is gone..... Anyway, thanks to everyone in this forum, all are very help full. I m sure we will get it to work.....

no, I had not dropped it. Thanks for this hint. But still no sound through the M2T. Obviously now the internal speakers are muted since the loudspeaker icon is moved from Internal to M2Tech. Anything else you could teach me.

Hello, I have received today a M2Tech USB device from a friend to test and I can not get it to work. I have downloaded the latest driver for SnowLeo and I can see it in the audio MIDI setup. However, when I start iTunes it will play via my internal speakers. I must do something totally wrong,.....but.... what. Is there somewhere a kind of setup manual.....

thx for your help. However, does it mean, that I have to life forever with this amarra plugin ? There should be a way, how to setup itunes without the need for this plugin.

Since I have uninstalled AmarraDemo software, I have serious problems with navigating in itunes. More or less when ever I want to skipp back to a song or in coverflow to an other CD itunes, itunes stopps and I get a message like "problem with amarra plugin". I looked in the "library/itunes/itunesplugins" and there is no plugin anymore. I had removed AmarraDemo with "AppTrap". Any idea, how I can solve this problem ? ps: running iTunes 9.1 and PureVinyl 1.34

I had compared the Weiss Dac2 with Toslink connection to my MacBookPro vs the Weiss DAC2 with firewire connection. At this comparision my wife preferred the optical over the firewire connection. Compared to my Diy Dac I at least judge the 2 different connections on par. This depends very much on the Toslink receiver and the implementation on the digital receiver in the DAC used. For ease of use and less components I would always start with the optical link. Once you got used to this setup, then you compare it to other interfaces. The cost of the Toslink cable is a nobrainer.

yes, I use Amarra's volume control, do not have an preamp and have a mac connected via Toslink to my DAC. If that is the kind of configuration and your question was related to this - yes works, ... but there are some issues you should watch, see my comments in the thread PV vs Amarra.

.....this is depending on your requirement, how big your external HD has to be. I can not hear my HD at all - its a 320 GB, 2.5" FW Seagate to Go (see below). I'm sensitive as well for noise and find my MBP fan is too noisy, bur not the external HD.

1. Digital volume control: I feel that PV sounds best, when I set Audio-Midi to 24/96 and let PV up sample my red book material or mp3 files. At present I have eliminated my preamp in my chain and have my DAC directly connected to my active x-over. Since the gain of my gear is high, I do have to reduce the volume level in PV down to -30dB for comfort listening levels. With the upsampling activated it still sounds pretty good even down to -40dB. This works aswell when playing 192Kbit mp3 files !! And you can reduce the level even further down to ??-100dB. When I want to do the same with Amarra, the digital volume control only works down to -40dB. On lower level it just mutes the output totally. When playing mp3 files on Amarra - it just wont work - you have to use the slider in iTunes. In PV you have a "+" and "-" button to klick for 1dB volume steps. The slider in Amarra is not as convenient. ATTENTION!!! When I start Amarra I most times get a piep from my computer as unmuted signal at full level which is nearly blowing my speaker drivers. Could not find a way to eliminate this. Therefor I always have to start Amarra with my DAC disconnected - ugh!!! In these aspects PV is the clear winner. 2. Handling during playback: With or without "memory playback" enabled in PV, you can not skip in a song to a certain position (time), you always have to let the player move through the songs. As well I have experienced, when I play for a longer period (some hours) PV takes more and more RAM. Usually starting at around 1.9 GB and ending at 3 GB RAM. A restart of PV does not help, only a restart of the MBP resets this. CPU usage is lower with PV than Amarra, but only when you disable song info and some other things. The winner is Amarra. 3. SQ I have compared mp3 192Kbit, red book 16/44 and 24/96 as AIFF files. The big difference for me - PV sounds more clear - Amarra has more body. Now, depending on the quality of the record, the one or the other can sound better. BTW, PV is not as thin as Play sounds to my ears and Play is better than iTunes. PV wins on mp3 playback. Red book material I see a very small advantage for Amarra. Amarra wins on 24/96 playback. 4. Price - performance PV is the clear winner for me - but to have both may be the best.

like the Weiss DAC2 , or any other ? How do you feed the Chord with the digital signals - USB or SPDIF BNC or ? Do you use the Cord output stage in balanced mode to your speakers and what preamp are you using ? Thx.

...can you let us know, in which country you are ?

well my experience is, that most audiophile cables do have a "sound" compared to high quality engineered cables. But most times, depending on your equipment, you really need the " sound" of the audiophile cables to get "your sound" balanced. When I moved from PASS Labs components to my DIY Borbely products, I had to change my complete cableing. I sold my Wireworld Gold series cables and replaced them with "high quality engineered cables", which let the quality of my components shine.

XLR plugs are cheaper than the gold plated, and are sonically superior since these do not have a nickel plating between base material and top plating. No snake oil, just facts.