[iMacfan]

Hello,

Should be getting a Mac Pro this week, and will be using it (among other things) to house all my music (Apple Lossless). I've been using a PC with a M-Audio Audiophile PCI card, which gives a good quality line out, and was wondering how the MP built in audio fares, or if I'm going to have to get an external DAC.

Any ideas?

David

[jac]

Off topic? No, I think that answers Davids question spot on.
Sorry, I can't be of much more help than Trick-or-treater, but both the analog and digital outs on my Power Mac do it for me.

[Todd Madson]

The SPDIF audio ins and outs on recent machines have done pretty well from
what I can tell - the G5s were 32, 44 and 48 khz sample rates with 16 and 24
bit sample widths.

You could try listening to: http://pod.ath.cx/asbtunes/asb-orangecrush.mp3
to see what to expect. There's two spots where the tune goes nearly silent.
It is not the highest audio bitrate mp3 but you can get a feel for the overall
audio.

[Todd Madson]

Originally Posted by iMacfan 

Hello,

Should be getting a Mac Pro this week, and will be using it (among other things) to house all my music (Apple Lossless). I've been using a PC with a M-Audio Audiophile PCI card, which gives a good quality line out, and was wondering how the MP built in audio fares, or if I'm going to have to get an external DAC.

Any ideas?

David

The SPDIF audio ins and outs on recent machines have done pretty well from
what I can tell - the G5s were 32, 44 and 48 khz sample rates with 16 and 24
bit sample widths.

You could try listening to: http://pod.ath.cx/asbtunes/asb-orangecrush.mp3
to see what to expect. There's two spots where the tune goes nearly silent.
It is not the highest audio bitrate mp3 but you can get a feel for the overall
audio quality.

I imagine the Intels would do as well or better.

[iMacfan]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson 

The SPDIF audio ins and outs on recent machines have done pretty well from
what I can tell - the G5s were 32, 44 and 48 khz sample rates with 16 and 24
bit sample widths.

You could try listening to: http://pod.ath.cx/asbtunes/asb-orangecrush.mp3
to see what to expect. There's two spots where the tune goes nearly silent.
It is not the highest audio bitrate mp3 but you can get a feel for the overall
audio quality.

I imagine the Intels would do as well or better.

Thanks, but are you talking about the actual analogue line out or the digital one - because that is my question. If the line out isn't clean, not muffled and with no interference, then I'll have to use the optical out into a DAC - but that costs money.

David

[Todd Madson]

The analog outs aren't bad, they seem better than the tower-Macs of several years
ago. It's about as clean as you're likely to get out of an analog output.

[all2ofme]

I run mine into a DAC and think that it's worth the added expense (and I don't even feel that lossless is warranted!).

Headroom (www.headphone.com) do some brilliant ones and ship to the UK if you want to spend some cash. They start at $200 and go up to $muchmore. No affiliations, just like dealing with them and their products.

[druber]

What file type/bitrate are you encoding to?

[iMacfan]

Originally Posted by druber 

What file type/bitrate are you encoding to?

I use Apple lossless in iTunes.

[Todd Madson]

Lossless sounds gorgeous if the source material warrants its use.

Say for instance acoustic instruments recorded with high-end condenser
mics - it's gorgeous, silky smooth sounding stuff.

But a lot of alternative rock? Hell, there's no substantive difference
encoding it 128kbps mp3 versus lossless but that's my opinion!

[iMacfan]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson 

Lossless sounds gorgeous if the source material warrants its use.

Say for instance acoustic instruments recorded with high-end condenser
mics - it's gorgeous, silky smooth sounding stuff.

But a lot of alternative rock? Hell, there's no substantive difference
encoding it 128kbps mp3 versus lossless but that's my opinion!

I know what you mean, but with HD space now so cheap, there's no point not to really. At least I'll never have to rip the CDs again. All I need now is to find a way to downsample the files when transferring to my iPod.

David