Headchef
Active Member
My system sounds great, I’m very happy with it, but as is our collective affliction, I can’t just leave the bl**dy thing alone…
so rather than swapping things I figured I’d wonder about this for a bit, whilst actually listening to my hifi of course.
I use an Apple MacBook Pro as my digital source, that’s currently feeding (the superb) Aune S8 Reference DAC.
Now the Aune S8 is a very capable DAC being able to digest and expel very high rates (32bit 768k DSD512) but as we’re all aware such source material is very thin on the ground.
Now whilst I was goofing around actually making music I found myself in the OSX Audio MIDI Setup corner of my MacBook where I noticed a whole slew of options for my Aune S8.
Obviously when you set something like Roon to use your DAC it just does it, and the DAC will automatically switch between rates as per the encoding of the file you’re intending on propelling towards your ears. Automatically, *click* done, no dramas, exactly as it’s presented.
But what’s this then? In Audio MIDI set up you can set the rate that’s coming out of your Mac into your DAC, it states quite clearly that it’s using the DAC’s XMOS clock (which is going to be superior to the one inside the Mac) and in the limited OSX Audio MIDI Setup documentation it (almost) clearly states:
So am I right in thinking the Mac us uncompressing the file/stream, then sending the data to the DAC (FPGA) which then gets upsampled in the DAC and turned into that lovely analog goodness, or is the Mac uncompressing the file then using IEC 60958-3 to upsample it then send it to the DAC?
is it better to feed the DAC a 2ch 32-bit Integer 768.0kHz file from the Mac or just let it get fed straight from the software “transport“ at what ever the rate it comes as?
No I haven’t done any testing be it blind or otherwise, I’d just noticed this functionality on the Mac/DAC and began wondering about it.
Anyone know? Thanks in advance for your input be it high or low res
And just in case you were curious my set up is as follows:
Macbook Pro (various high res masters, all streaming platforms and also Roon)
Aune S8
EAR / Yoshino 859
ProAc Response 1SC
x2 Rel Quake
TellleriumQ Black II Interconnect & Speaker cable.
so rather than swapping things I figured I’d wonder about this for a bit, whilst actually listening to my hifi of course.
I use an Apple MacBook Pro as my digital source, that’s currently feeding (the superb) Aune S8 Reference DAC.
Now the Aune S8 is a very capable DAC being able to digest and expel very high rates (32bit 768k DSD512) but as we’re all aware such source material is very thin on the ground.
Now whilst I was goofing around actually making music I found myself in the OSX Audio MIDI Setup corner of my MacBook where I noticed a whole slew of options for my Aune S8.
Obviously when you set something like Roon to use your DAC it just does it, and the DAC will automatically switch between rates as per the encoding of the file you’re intending on propelling towards your ears. Automatically, *click* done, no dramas, exactly as it’s presented.
But what’s this then? In Audio MIDI set up you can set the rate that’s coming out of your Mac into your DAC, it states quite clearly that it’s using the DAC’s XMOS clock (which is going to be superior to the one inside the Mac) and in the limited OSX Audio MIDI Setup documentation it (almost) clearly states:
- If your Mac supports the hardware sample rate converter, the Hardware Rate Converter pop-up menu is available in the Input pane. When you choose Automatic from the pop-up menu, the hardware sample rate converter is turned on if the audio samples coming in are PCM and formatted according to the international standard IEC 60958-3. The hardware sample rate converter is turned off if the input stream is encoded. You can also choose Enable or Disable from the menu, to keep the hardware sample rate converter turned on or off.
So am I right in thinking the Mac us uncompressing the file/stream, then sending the data to the DAC (FPGA) which then gets upsampled in the DAC and turned into that lovely analog goodness, or is the Mac uncompressing the file then using IEC 60958-3 to upsample it then send it to the DAC?
is it better to feed the DAC a 2ch 32-bit Integer 768.0kHz file from the Mac or just let it get fed straight from the software “transport“ at what ever the rate it comes as?
No I haven’t done any testing be it blind or otherwise, I’d just noticed this functionality on the Mac/DAC and began wondering about it.
Anyone know? Thanks in advance for your input be it high or low res
And just in case you were curious my set up is as follows:
Macbook Pro (various high res masters, all streaming platforms and also Roon)
Aune S8
EAR / Yoshino 859
ProAc Response 1SC
x2 Rel Quake
TellleriumQ Black II Interconnect & Speaker cable.