325xi;189770 Wrote: > Why do you think merely having optical out guarantees quality of that > mini sound card feeding that out?
Or the Airport Express, for that matter. This "serious" review of the AEX digital out -- http://www.stereophile.com/budgetcomponents/505apple/ -- sounds upbeat, but sections like the following seem a little disconcerting: "One operational glitch that didn't affect my system to any significant extent but did do so for some readers was the fact that, as the AE doesn't have a local clock circuit, when the incoming data is interrupted, as it is when you change songs in iTunes, there is no longer a digital output to feed the DAC, which loses lock as a result. Both the Levinson and the Benchmark DACs that I use deal gracefully with the lost lock ... I therefore missed the fact that with some other DACs, the first seconds of a song might be cut off." "AE ... is limited to ... 16-bit data only. ... It is also important to note that the AE functions only at a 44.1kHz sample rate. When you play 32kHz or 48kHz data, iTunes sample-rate-converts the data in real time before sending it to the AE." (The SB handles 44.1 and 48; the Transporter can also handle 96k. Both can handle 24-bit recordings, according to http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32951) Since Apple doesn't prominently post the sort of technical detail that you can get on Slim's hardware (http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?HardwareComparison), I think you should seek out such reviews. I get the feeling that Apple included the digital output because of the prevalence of digital inputs in mid-fi AV receivers -- not for high-end gear. Certainly Apple's marketing this as "hi-fi" doesn't help their hi-fi credibility: http://www.apple.com/ipodhifi/ ...but the widespread praise of the cheap T-amps makes it clear that you shouldn't rule Apple's hardware out just because their gear is not expensive enough! Sonos: a quick search in these forums will turn up hours' worth of reading. Here's one place you might start: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23490 -Peter -- peterw http://www.tux.org/~peterw/ free plugins: http://www.tux.org/~peterw/#slim BlankSaver BottleRocket FuzzyTime SaverSwitcher SleepFade StatusFirst VolumeLock ------------------------------------------------------------------------ peterw's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2107 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=33836 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
