Hi all, I'm a bit of a newbie to computer-served hi-fi audio, and I'm just starting to put together a rig, so I'm looking for some general advice on how to get the best sound out of my SB2.
By way of background, I'm running through a Musical Fidelity A3.2 integrated amp into Magnepan MMGs. At this point I've got the SB2 going directly into the amp from the RCA analog outs of the SB2. My music is sitting on my iBook G4, the vast majority of it coded in AAC at 320 kbps. Here are my questions: 1) The SB2 is hooked to the network via ethernet cable, but my iBook is going wireless through an Airport card. Will it make any difference whether I hook up the iBook with an ethernet cable too? 2) Does it make any difference how long the ethernet cables are? 3) Am I going to notice a huge difference if I get a bigger hard drive and go to lossless compression instead of 320 kbps? 4) I don't reallly have $1,000 to spend on a DAC; how much am I hurting my sound by going out the SB2's analog outs? With the quality of my amp/speaker setup, should I bite the bullet and get a decent DAC? 5) Anybody tried the Headroom products? I'm looking at the Micro DAC for $300: http://www.headphone.com/products/headphone-amps/headroom-amps/the-micro-line/headroom-micro-dac.php This seems like a reasonably-priced quality DAC, but frankly I'm not all that up on this stuff, so I could use some advice. Thanks, Mike -- Mike Anderson _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
