[bestefar]

This week, I set up a wireless system with an Airport Extreme. I used my old Airport Express to connect to a DAC in my stereo in the living room. I'm pretty happy with the results, but am looking for obvious ways to set iTunes to improve the sound. All I've done so far is to max out the volume in iTunes and deselect the auto level matching. Are there any other settings changes that will improve the data stream to the DAC? Most of my songs are either AIFF or Apple Lossless, as they were ripped from CDs.

[wataru]

iTunes sends the data uncompressed to the Airport Express, which then sends the data to your device digitally (if you're using the optical out). There's no "improvement" to be had over the source data, except perhaps playing with the iTunes equalizer settings.

[bestefar]

I am using the optical out. Thanks for replying.

[analogika]

- The most important thing is to turn off the "Sound Enhancer" in the iTunes settings. That's a faux-surround/exciter function that *really* ****s up the sound through the usual phase-munging. Horrible except on complete crap speakers.

- Setting iTunes' volume at maximum ensures that there's no dithering going on.

- Disable the "sound check" function.

- Turn off the EQ (or set it to linear and keep the pre-amp adjustment at +/- 0dB).

- Further improvement *might* be noticeable if you use a bit-accurate ripping tool such as Max, rather than iTunes' quick-and-dirty CD ripper. I haven't compared results.