HELP ... Mac MIni and Bel Canto DAC3 Problems ...

This is strange. I just came from a buddy's home with my DAC 3. We hooked it up to his Mac Mini. After a little playing around in the Midi setup..it worked just fine.

I'm not a Mac user,but what do you see in your Midi setup?

My output shows "USB Audio CODEC" ... I tried adjusting settings in Midi setup to no avail.

I think that it is a digital lock problem as the first decimal point in the display lights up just before I get a drop-out or pop. Hold on, I am going to try something ...

... I think I have found the problem. I connected my USB cable directly to the Mac Mini, instead of going through the USB Hub, and the drop-outs have almost completely disappeared. I am now using a 20ft USB cable ... I'll try a shorter one and see if that removes the remaining pops.

I guess the Benchmark has better digital locking as it was able to lock on with my old set up without issue. Anyway, this looks like it is going to solve the problem ... now to spend a couple of days doing an A/B comparison between the two ...

Thanks for your help :-) BTW, how did the Mini / DAC3 combo sound at your friend's house???

I use a 15 ft cable no problems in my setup.It sounded great in my friend's setup! It sounded so good he didn't want me to take it away! lol
He's vowed the Bel Canto Dac 3 will be his next purchase.It will replace his preamp and DAC. Just like it replaced mine. ;-)

He drove two monster amps with the Bel Canto. A Classe CA300 and a Audire Otez. Both look like engine blocks sitting on the floor.

It is a phenomenal piece ..which you are soon to learn! :-)

I had a similar problem with my bel canto DAC 2 aka the brick. I had frequent drops in signal as evidenced by the input signal light changing color every 20 seconds or so. Needless to say this was a pain. The sound was great in between. After a good deal of research, here and via the bel canto folks, I concluded that this isn't extremely uncommon to bel canto dacs. I was told the clock was extremely sensitive to any jitter. My cary cdp did fine with other dacs and alone. I bet the the problem is the combo, mho only of course.