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The first but I 'm sure not the last question from a neophyte trying to see if hard drive digital audio is going to work for me.
MacBook Pro Core 2
van Alstine Ultra DAC
Airport Express
MF Trivsista 300
B&W 801's
This dac has only coax in. Is it possible (and a good thing) to use an optical to coax adaptor such as Audio Authority 977R optical-to-coax between the AE and DAC; since I can't use USB from the MacBook Pro?
Go gently with me, boys; I'm just feeling my way around this technology, so keep it simple.
Follow Ups:
Thanks for the education thus far. No, xmas, I do not have an optical cable; I was just trying to figure out how to connect to the van Alstine Ultra dac that only has coax in.
I've been reading but have still not understood where the Squeezebox, Transporter, etc. fit into the scheme of things. Is there a basic book, article, etc dealing with Macs, airports, back up hard drives and the digital hard drive source?
xmas,
Thanks a plenty for the primer. It is getting me on the way to hard drive music-land. Still, I have to adapt this and the other bits of info so my ancient binary brain can make sense of it, not purchase unwisely, and hopefully, leave the arena of expensive cd players in the near future. Gracias again. farmdoc
you are very welcome -and rereading your original post which I misread completely, no mini-coax to SPDIF is not likely to be a very happy thing...
Hi -my duh - coax is much easier - lots more from the same crowd and many others
no basic book though I am thinking about writing one LOL
So basically in the land of Mac there are two ways to get your data off of the hard drive and out of the computer: USB and Ethernet. (ergo concept one is that whatever you do will always go through the computer in some form unless its a network server or coming off of the Internet)
USB is basically a one way system meaning that there is no USB DAC that allows you to control/access the library. So if the computer is in the same place you are doing your listening all is good - if its not it gets awkward, I mean do you really want to have to get off the couch and go to another room to pick a track? Hint - NO
The Squeezebox and its revved up sibling The Transporter, are network devices. Meaning that they hang on your Ethernet or WiFi network like another computer, a router, a printer etc. And because Ethernet is two way, using the supplied remote and the LED display on the unit you can access the library over the network. Meaning that the hard drive can be at one end of the house and you can access it from any room you have put on the network without leaving your seat. You can also drive it from a computer if you like - all free software with the unit.
In addition, you can create a NAS - network server - basically a stack of drives in some out of the way place in your house where the noise is not bothersome. And you can bypass your computer completely and by connecting the SB to the Internet stream radio - some great stuff out there.
It's more powerful the Airport Express because its two way
The Squeezebox (SB) has a built in DAC. So you can either output SPDIF (pre DAC obviously) to your own DAC, or output an analog pair to your preamp (post DAC) If you get into this and buy into the mods from Bolder Cable or some of the emerging modders, you will probably use the analog out. Which means you can feed a very high quality source straight into a pre, an integrated or a receiver anywhere in the house without a DAC, SPDIF cable, fancy power cord etc...
Now the ultra nice thing IMHO is that you can mix and match USB and SB devices and access the same iTunes library. So for instance - I have a USB Brick in my office, a SB in the bedroom, a heavily modded SB in the home theater room and another SB in the guest room. And of course I also feed my iPod from that drive. Very powerful and flexible.
As far as hard drives, its the easy part - I prefer to keep all of my library on one hard drive - I have 1,300+ CDs on one 400Gb drive with some room left. Because ripping that many CDs is a PITA I have an identical drive on which I backup the drive.
So most likely you will end up with a pair of Firewire drives though if there is any way to do SATA off your laptop I much prefer it and highly recommend it.
There are some good articles, here is a selection
http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/harddrive/harddrive.html
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/4564.html
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue22/nugent.htm
http://musicserver.blogspot.com/
Hope this is more encouraging then discouraging. Think of it this way, you bought a Mac it's all easy from there...
Yep - it will work fine - maybe not the optimum but certainly well enough to give you a taste.The problem is that there are no really great Toslink cables that fit the Airport Express mini format. And as I read it the MacBook does not seem to have an optical out like the towers do.
There is of course another way, depending on your setup - mostly how far the MacBook is going to be from the DAC. This may be attractive to you because I assume you already have a standard optical cable that you like.
SO
Assuming the MacBook is within 15 feet, you can get one of Belkins premium USB cables. Use that to get the data out of your Mac and connect it to a USB to Toslink box. The Waveterminal U24 used to be the gold standard but is no longer being imported.
There are others like the M-Audio Transit USB. I am sure other inmates will have suggestions. If you want to do some research you will find this type of unit in the pro audio space and semi pro space (meaning musicians and recording studios) not in the hifi world.
The other way to go is straight to a USB DAC or a Squeezebox but that is a discussion for another day.
I would avoid cheap interface adapters like the plague.Some of the electronics engineers here may have different perspectives based on actual experience and jitter figures.
I think the adpater would just be another potential source of clock jitter but I could be wrong.
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