The best way to use the AE is optical out to a DAC. Any DAC is better than the one inside the AE. Jitter measurements of the optical out are very good so even an inexpensive DAC will do. Then you and your wife can be happy.
New Apple TV & Airport Express
Today, I got both an Airport Express hooked up to my Audioengine A5+ speakers and an Apple TV connected to my home theater setup. I've been sitting on the couch for the past few minutes doing a quick comparison between a CD playing via HDMI from my Sony blu-ray player and the same album playing from Apple Lossless files through the Apple TV via HDMI.
Am I correct in assuming that in both cases the A/D conversion would be in my receiver which, should in theory, be virtually identical? They sure should nearly identical, but if I had to pick a winner it would be the CD. Obviously, the PC to Apple TV adds a few more links in the chain so one would expect there to be more degredation introduced to the final result.
My biggest reason for the comparison was to see if I should get interested in a stand alone D/A unit for my tube amplifier. At this point, I think I'll stick to CDs for the critical listening and use the Apple stuff to replace the 6-disk CD player for whole house background listening. I'm not sure why I didn't get these before, they are sweet!
My wife already loves being able to stream music from her iPhone to the Audioengine speakers. I also already love the mirror feature on the Apple TV, I can already see many ways for this to be useful and fun.
Am I correct in assuming that in both cases the A/D conversion would be in my receiver which, should in theory, be virtually identical? They sure should nearly identical, but if I had to pick a winner it would be the CD. Obviously, the PC to Apple TV adds a few more links in the chain so one would expect there to be more degredation introduced to the final result.
My biggest reason for the comparison was to see if I should get interested in a stand alone D/A unit for my tube amplifier. At this point, I think I'll stick to CDs for the critical listening and use the Apple stuff to replace the 6-disk CD player for whole house background listening. I'm not sure why I didn't get these before, they are sweet!
My wife already loves being able to stream music from her iPhone to the Audioengine speakers. I also already love the mirror feature on the Apple TV, I can already see many ways for this to be useful and fun.