Well, the suggestions on this thread have been helpful. The Saturn going into my Rega DAC still sounds supreme and I have limited options with alternatives. I wanted to avoid using a CD player as a transport for a host of reasons (I prefer listening to entire albums but haven't found the time lately for long listening sessions, plus my headphone system is on my desk, away from my amp and speakers, which the Saturn feeds).
I've gone back and given toslink another go. The last time I tried it was when the Rega DAC first came out and I still had my old MacBook Pro. I really didn't give it a fair chance. But with my MacBook Air, I don't have optical out. So, I tried going toslink out of my Apple TV 3 through AirPlay (using a silflex 3' cable).
I have to say that the ATV3 to the Rega Dac sounded a whole lot better than my MBA and USB/Vlink. It at least didn't sound 'flat' anymore and sounded more neutral. I compared the toslink into the DAC with coax from my Saturn (switching by using the input selector on the DAC) and the sound was more comparable between the two than between the Saturn transport and MBA/USB/Vlink. In fact, it was a bit hard to distinguish between the two. To me, the toslink in from the ATV sounded a touch less 'edgy', but that was all (in fact, I came to prefer this sound).
To stream via AirPlay, I used iTunes and Audirvana Plus. I preferred A+ (imaging was more solid) but was getting occasional dropouts (no such dropouts on iTunes - may try Airfoil with A+). Files were ripped in .aiff.
This is what I heard on my system. I'm open to trying other things that were suggested like an SBT or a Mac Mini (or even something like a QA-550 SD card transport, which seems interesting).
Treb
I've gone back and given toslink another go. The last time I tried it was when the Rega DAC first came out and I still had my old MacBook Pro. I really didn't give it a fair chance. But with my MacBook Air, I don't have optical out. So, I tried going toslink out of my Apple TV 3 through AirPlay (using a silflex 3' cable).
I have to say that the ATV3 to the Rega Dac sounded a whole lot better than my MBA and USB/Vlink. It at least didn't sound 'flat' anymore and sounded more neutral. I compared the toslink into the DAC with coax from my Saturn (switching by using the input selector on the DAC) and the sound was more comparable between the two than between the Saturn transport and MBA/USB/Vlink. In fact, it was a bit hard to distinguish between the two. To me, the toslink in from the ATV sounded a touch less 'edgy', but that was all (in fact, I came to prefer this sound).
To stream via AirPlay, I used iTunes and Audirvana Plus. I preferred A+ (imaging was more solid) but was getting occasional dropouts (no such dropouts on iTunes - may try Airfoil with A+). Files were ripped in .aiff.
This is what I heard on my system. I'm open to trying other things that were suggested like an SBT or a Mac Mini (or even something like a QA-550 SD card transport, which seems interesting).
Treb