Would My Setup Benefit from a DAC?
LG100
Posts: 10
I'm playing music files from my iTunes collection and they run the gamut of aac, mp3, aiff, wav, and possibly one or two other types thrown in. It's all going to the present 2 channel system wirelessly as follows:
iMac (iTunes) > Airport Extreme router > Airport Express > 36 foot long run of RCA left/right channel leads necessitated by a near impossible wireless network situation which involves the stereo system being at a far end of a metal building and the Airport Express having to be situated in a window on the near end of this same metal structure...none of this, unfortunately, is moveable. >2 channel rig
Would investing in a DAC (My first thoughts are something along the lines of going with the Peachtree Decco or Nova integrated amps w/DAC) be a real "bang for the buck" upgrade here or something less? Thanks.
iMac (iTunes) > Airport Extreme router > Airport Express > 36 foot long run of RCA left/right channel leads necessitated by a near impossible wireless network situation which involves the stereo system being at a far end of a metal building and the Airport Express having to be situated in a window on the near end of this same metal structure...none of this, unfortunately, is moveable. >2 channel rig
Would investing in a DAC (My first thoughts are something along the lines of going with the Peachtree Decco or Nova integrated amps w/DAC) be a real "bang for the buck" upgrade here or something less? Thanks.
Post edited by LG100 on
Comments
-
Depends upon the quality of your sound files. Definitely if your rips are Lossless. But with of a highly compressed lossy MP3, the quality of the sound has already been compromised - probably more so than the lower quality sound card built into your I-mac
-
garbage in garbage out.....always has been. I do though expect the shells will come off the peanuts shortly.
RT1 -
What is your setup? MP3's are really made for casual listening... like crappy headphones or crappy car stereos... if you have a dedicated 2ch system, MP3 should be a last resort.
-
cokewithvanilla wrote: »What is your setup? MP3's are really made for casual listening... like crappy headphones or crappy car stereos... if you have a dedicated 2ch system, MP3 should be a last resort.
Current setup is a budget Sherwood Receiver into a pair of Polk TSi 100 bookshelf speakers, source component being the iTunes via wireless configuration I mentioned earlier. I guess, to be more concise here, I should say that my main area of concern is the very long run of RCA leads going from the Airport Express device to whatever upgrade amp/speakers I might want to get at some future point. There's no working around it and I'm wondering if this particular weak link in the chain would render a DAC so much "Ferrari carburetion on a Yugo" even if I was playing nothing but the highest quality lossless files.
