CWLondon, M_snow is correct.
1) I use headless mac mini and play Audirvana. Majestic sound. The Audirvana manual explains the importance of bit perfect feed to DAC, which can be only guaranteed if you keep volume at 100%. Else the PC output gets digitally altered.
2) Audirvana includes settings where iTunes engine including volume control and the identification of the time that the track has played till is disabled. This is to guarantee bitperfect feed.
3) For playing FLAC files, in Audirvana Plus menu, switch to iTunes integrated mode. Then may be you need to quit and restart, use command+tab to switch to Audirvana Plus, then in same menu you will see "Add files to iTunes" option. Clicking on this will lead to a box where you can drag and drop flac files. Then press "Start" at bottom of box.
4) you can use the remote app on iPad to now play flac files just as if they were wav/aiff/mp3/mp4 files. There will be no difference in sound quality, something you can verify if your system is a highly resolving system. With Antelope Zodiac you will certainly be able to verify.
All the best.
1) I use headless mac mini and play Audirvana. Majestic sound. The Audirvana manual explains the importance of bit perfect feed to DAC, which can be only guaranteed if you keep volume at 100%. Else the PC output gets digitally altered.
2) Audirvana includes settings where iTunes engine including volume control and the identification of the time that the track has played till is disabled. This is to guarantee bitperfect feed.
3) For playing FLAC files, in Audirvana Plus menu, switch to iTunes integrated mode. Then may be you need to quit and restart, use command+tab to switch to Audirvana Plus, then in same menu you will see "Add files to iTunes" option. Clicking on this will lead to a box where you can drag and drop flac files. Then press "Start" at bottom of box.
4) you can use the remote app on iPad to now play flac files just as if they were wav/aiff/mp3/mp4 files. There will be no difference in sound quality, something you can verify if your system is a highly resolving system. With Antelope Zodiac you will certainly be able to verify.
All the best.