Dament

It's not that I think its fake, I want to know if an unknown brand and unknown product could sound good for the €1500 pricetag the speakers is given in comparison to better known brand speakers..

Hi, I was wondering, with an iPhone 3GS and iPad 2 in combinatiom with a Cambridge ID100 dock which bypasses built in DAC and passes untouched DIGITAL signal onto my DAC and amplifier would I be able, if I buy your app for 1 of my devices (which one?) to play 24bit/96KHz natively confirmed? I can't really make up the answer from the thread.. Thanks!! Because upon till now, iTunes only syncs 24bit/48KHz at most.. Higher sample rates are rejected.. But even the 24bit/48KHz are downsampled somewhere down the line when playing? EDIT: Just found out that when using Home Sharing with iTunes I'm able to stream 24/96 files and play them.. Just don't know if this will natively output when docked to ID100? EDIT2: Using the FLAC-player app I played some songs, all encoded 24bit/96KHz, with my iPhone 3GS (5.0.1) docked to a Cambridge ID100 dock with Digital Out hooked up to a DacMagic which showed a 48KHz received signal.. Will the be fixed in the future or is this hardware related?

Also I have a Myryad Mi with a 3,5mm jack headphone output, don't know about the impedance though.. Ideally, since my headphones are 50 ohm I need a 50/8=6,25 ohm output impedance? Would using this jack be better than headphone out iMac?

I've been to a hifi retailer and listened to a lot different combinations and found this to be the best: Myryad Mi (Amplifier, CDplayer and Tuner in one box with iPod-dock) in combination with a digital dock ($99 Pure i-20) it sounded surprisingly alot better because the iPhone built-in DAC was bypassed. Also the $1500 Xanadu AW-15/2 speakers turned out to be the best to my ears.. My question is: have I been listening wrong? Because when I came home I googled on Xanadu and couldn't find at least 1 review of the specific speaker.. The brand is not very well-known, could I get a much better (evenly looking good) speaker for the same money? Or is it personal preference here.. Any recommendations whether I should buy this setup or not? Thanks

Oh and one more thing: The DacMagic plus has a headphone jack rated for 32-600ohms.. What would happen if I connect my 50 ohm Sennheiser 595HD? Does the DAC know which impedance headphones is connected? Or is the Sennheiser overdriven in some way losing Bass response? I can't find a clear answer on this subject impedance mismatch..?

All of this you named would only make a difference if you used analog output using the built-in DAC for listening.. If you're aiming for quality sound you don't want to be the internals of the computer involved (for different reasons like noise) so you use the Digital Out (built in every Mac!) and use an external DAC and amplifier for listening.. But if you do want to listen to analog output than you could indeed invest a lot money (but poorly invested since it could never be better than digital out) in the internals.. Also when listening to Analog output (example with Headphones directly connected to headphone jack) you should make sure, and this is a lot easier with Mac than with Windows, that you listen to the bit perfect not up- or oversampled or converted or transcoded or in any way altered version of the music. In Mac you do this to make sure the Volume in iTunes is all the way up and you MIDI settings (use spotlight to find MIDI) are matching your source material before starting up iTunes.

Hi audiophiles, I'm looking to buy first setup and was looking for advise what to buy by the experts! I will listen most of the time from my iPhone or iPad so I think it would be preferably to buy a dock with digital out (bypassing built-in DAC): Cambridge ID100 connected to external DAC: DacMagic. Since I listen to CD's pretty often I need a CDplayer but I don't have any idea how to compare these (except for listening somewhere) I will be using Digital Out to the DacMagic also (which has 2 Optical Digital inputs).. But since I read CD-player do not output bitperfect but fill in missed gaps by themselves I don't know how much to spend here. Also I will be needing a (integrated) amplifier and speakers, any suggestions here? I measured my room: 5,2m by 5,9m, height 3m.. Budget ID100 and DacMagic EXCLUDED about $2300? PS: I'm listening mostly to lossless 16/44.1 files but I do also have around 100 songs in 24/96 format which I'm able to natively play (not entirely sure YET) with an app called FLAC-player for my iPhone go check ik out. Thanks!

Thanks for your answers! Very helpful. Now if I listen to my iPhone with Sennheiser 595HD would it improve quality to buy this: http://www.sendstation.com/us/products/pocketdock/lineout-usb.html?

Thanks, looks good! Does it make any difference to use Toslink vs USB or not since it's using asynchronous jitter reduction? Oh and how does an amp drive 16 to 300 ohms properly? Can it vary the impedance when connection different headphones or is it somewhere around 150 so it can do all (which would cause no good bass on my 50 ohm headphones) Also, I read that you should connect 50/8=6,25ohm impedance to my 50 ohm headphones because 1/8 is the best factor for the least distortion?? Am I messing here? Thanks

Hahha, you are already calculating €100 as being $100.. it's still more like $145 at this time

Hi, I do have more to spend but since my headphones didn't cost more than 210 dollars and they sound OK, since the impedance is only 50 ohms, right out of the iMac I thought that it wouldn't be necessary and it would not cost much to get the most out of these easy to drive headphones?

It really depends on the difference it would make, but I'd prefer not to spend more than €100

Subscribe to my thread: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/iMacSennheiser-595HD-headphones it didn't get much attention so far

Humpf.

Hi, I would like to improve the sound of my headphones while listening on my iMac 27 inch 2010 2.8GHz Quad-Core to music (16/44.1 FLAC and 320MP3 + some 24/96 FLAC files).. Would it be better to buy an external amp and DAC? Will this make an big difference in sound quality? I have an low impedance (50ohms) headphones Sennheiser 595HD, any suggestions? Thanks.