2. digital
  3. 146537-9462

Best solution to send digital files to my DAC

Hi All,
I’m a novice when it comes to digital audio, so:
I have a very good DAC feeding into a good preamp. I have many digitized CDs and hi-rez files stored on my computer, but I would rather transfer them to a better audio device.  What is the best device(s) on which to store all my digital music and send it to my DAC. I don’t care about connectivity with any other devices; I just want to know what’s the best thing to use. Is it a streamer? A server? What’s the difference? What is the simplest way to get the best possible quality from a storage device to my DAC?
Thanks in advance.
Rustler
Ag insider logo xs@2xrustler

Showing 1 response by n80

n80
2,107 posts
 
I'm a novice when it comes to hi-fi but I am using my Mac as a music server connected to my DAC via USB.

This is a very simple solution and since I use iTunes I can run it all from my chair with Apple Remote on my cell phone.

There are certain things you need to do to keep the files from running through the computer's sound card but that's easy too.

Many will say the iTunes messes with your files and degrades SQ and I can't argue with that. I use BitPerfect, a cheap app that claims to bypass all of iTune's machinations to send a bit perfect file to your DAC and just uses iTune's cataloging features which really aren't that bad. I can't really tell any difference with BitPerfect on or off.

I rip CDs using XLD which is free.

Even with a cheap DAC there is not much difference between this system and direct playback of a CD via a CD player.
More to discover