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dawsonmackay

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  1. I understand your frustration but I am not going to write a treatise to satisfy all of your inquiries. I don't care what the signal is of the G5. What I have found in using Duo Core, which is newer than the G5, that it does not render a really great signal. When I bought the 3.06 iMac with 4GB, it was better but not until I replaced it with 16GB RAM. Not that I am rich, but a year later bought the newest iMac and for $200 more got the fastest processor with an i7 chip and bought the 16GB RAM also. You need to quit speculating: "If the mac sends out a digital signal bit perfect..." You said it yourself, "If." And I am going to say it too, "Yes, if..." That's the whole point of this exercise. We audiophiles are on a never ending quest to be one with our music. Unworthy, disgraceful, whatever, sci-fi, science fiction, fantasy, you understand completely what I wrote. Validity is in the ears of the beholder. Go to the Apple website and look at the specs of the iMac vs. the Mac mini. It turns out that the faster the processor coupled with as much RAM as you can buy aids in the delivery of great music. As you know music is a complex waveform that requires/demands lots of memory as in buffering. USB to the DAC - not optical is the best way to go but few DACs today have a USB input and high $. That's why I bought the Off-Ramp with an AES output because my Wadia doesn't have a USB but AES. I hope that this comment satisfies your last 2 to me.
  2. If you are destined to stick with the G5, you should lower your expectations on all related gear because the G5 will not output the same signal as a new iMac 3.06 Intel i5 chip. The G5 speed compared to this new iMac is a disgrace to music. What you are not thinking about is the speed in of the computer which resolves the music. If the computer cannot send a hi-res file to the DAC what is the point of buying an expensive DAC? For your query that music recordings are the weakest link, that is a bad assumption on your part. The equipment I have right now has opened up a new world of "old" music to me. For instance, the original soundtrack of West Side Story. The vocals are outstanding. I recently bought an Off-Ramp 4 from Empirical Audio and it now equals the Wadia transport that I previously owned for several years. That transport cost $7K and the Off-Ramp 4, $800!
  3. Forget about a G5 - it's too slow and not enough RAM. You will definitely get computer sound out of it BUT it may disenchant you. Whatever system you end up with, all 4 components, they have to match or else you might as well give the money to charity. Whether you have a Weiss, Bel Canto, Wadia, it's only good as its weakest link - that being the old G5. Up to 50% of that combination, the system gets strangled. Buy a current iMac or buy one used that's about two years old. Older than that and you're fooling yourself. I have an iMac with 16GB of RAM and a huge difference from 8GB to 16. You're bats if you think that you can cheapen on one of the most important links in the system - the computer. My suggestion is buy one of the components that you will keep for the longest time - probably the computer. Then whatever money you have left buy what you can. This process is never ends, which is the glorious plight of the audiophile. Good luck.
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