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In for a penny, in for a pound...

JTC

JTC

PFM Villager...
I've just thrown caution to the wind and ordered an MDAC as a headphone amp, based upon all that I've read. Bit of a gamble given that I haven't heard one, but having the CDQ I am confident that it will be at least as good as that for headphone replay.

Now all I need to do is to work out how best to connect it to the Mac Mini at the other side of the room - around 6m in a straight line, call it 8 metres if I allow a bit of tidying and run it under the floor (luckily for me we had the carpet and boards back recently and so I know this can be done albeit perhaps requiring a level of contortion usually displayed only by nubile assistants in magic acts).

In the meantime I'll probably just connect it to the SB Classic although that is for sale as I'd much prefer not to have two independent music systems on the go (although they are happy to share the same library in the meantime).

Most bizarely of all, the trouble'n'strife didn't put up an objection to my doing this - I guess because, all-told, the past three months system change has actually freed up more than enough cash for the CDQ and the MDAC. Happy days.

Anyway, glad I got that off my chest. Soon I can go back into PFM retirement as hanging around these fora is a sure-fire way to set the little system-upgrade demons off again... :)
 
That looks good. Is USB 1.1 good enough for digital audio?

If so this might be just what the Dr ordered.

Mac in study, extenders down to the hi-fi and a Behringer 202 USB thingy for a cheap and cheerful taste of computer audio. Would that work?
 
This looks very useful for when I put the mini in a different room to the dac.

Am I right in assuming they have a repeater somewhere in there?

It seems an excellent solution and dirt cheap too.

So where's the catch? :confused:
 
Mark Packer said:
That looks good. Is USB 1.1 good enough for digital audio?

If so this might be just what the Dr ordered.

Mac in study, extenders down to the hi-fi and a Behringer 202 USB thingy for a cheap and cheerful taste of computer audio. Would that work?
Click to expand...

I think I recall reading here that it's at least good enough for 44.1-16bit.
 
My big worry is that (having finally found a link to the MDAC manual) it states 'Use only certified USB2.0 cables' and 'Avoid USB extension leads' for the Mac.

I'm not sure if this is a case of 'don't do it, it won't work' or simily 'try to avoid if at all possible'...

The alternative would of course be a long optical cable from the back of the Mini but my understanding was that part of the big benefit of using an MDAC was the asynchronous USB connection and I've no idea how an MDAC would compare if simply connected with an optical cable...
 
John, JW reckons because of the triple buffering that the optical will be exceptionaly close to the usb on the Mdac. Alas I can't experiment because my ancient mini does not have an optical out :(

I can say that if soundstage is your thing then the extra provided by the Mdac will be a nice bonus.
 
There are USB 2 booster/extender cables on the market.
The guy who built my dac uses one, a normal 5m cable would not work.
 
The HD800s don't really want for much in that regard and as the MDAC will be a headphone only solution the real benefit for me is simply that I can avoid having to reorganise the room around as where I want to sit with the cans on is too far from the system - and given that there's a whole lot of installed sockets and a dedicated spur where the system lives, it's easier to simply buy a new MDAC. I'd happily have kept the (excellent) Novo but it requires a line-level input and as I'm using active speakers I can't avoid but to use the XLR outputs as variable, so I was basically stuck and the only solution I could think of was to either buy a balanced preamp for the main system (which I'm loathe to mess with now, given how good it's sounding) OR what I've done, which is add another DAC for headphone listening.

Excessive? Of course, but I'm still at this stage cheaper having bought a CDQ and an MDAC than I would have been buying that DAC1 HDR...

So, I'll try an 'overland' USB with extension dongle first, and if that works fine then I'll run it under the floor... probably having to bribe my eldest son to run it for me. He's five and I'm sure he'll love the chance to go 'exploring' (provided I promise not to seal him under the floor-boards, tempting though that is ;-)
 
My concern is whether the use of such things will have any impact on the performance (e.g. pops/clicks/drop-outs or even it simply not working at all)...
 
Also, there are many ethernet-based USB 'bridges' out there - again, are these going to work properly? They're a bit pricier but you can extend over MUCH longer distances as ethernet is designed for such distances whereas USB is not.
 
JTC said:
My big worry is that (having finally found a link to the MDAC manual) it states 'Use only certified USB2.0 cables' and 'Avoid USB extension leads' for the Mac.

I'm not sure if this is a case of 'don't do it, it won't work' or simily 'try to avoid if at all possible'...

The alternative would of course be a long optical cable from the back of the Mini but my understanding was that part of the big benefit of using an MDAC was the asynchronous USB connection and I've no idea how an MDAC would compare if simply connected with an optical cable...
Click to expand...

Hi JTC,

Maplins sell an "Active 10m USB extender cable" - this will work OK, you can then even add a 5M "standard" USB cable to this giving you 15m.

John
 
Thanks, John, that'll do nicely. 10m will be plenty, I was getting worried!
 
Hi JTC, just tested my MDAC using 3 connected USB cables (cable 1, extender 1, extender 2) and it works fine with no drop outs. I don't see why a single long USB cable won't work for you and, given how cheap they can be, do try this before looking at boosters etc.
And if all that really doesn't work, I can confirm that I can't hear a difference between optical and async USB from my iMac.
You're going to be fine ;)
 
Thanks - JohnW also confirmed that this should work, so I should be good to go. Just need to run the cable (not too difficult as when I put in the hifi ring I left plenty space to run additional cables) and away I'll go :)

That only leaves one final thing - finding out how best to work with a Mac Mini / PureMusic connected to two USB DACs. I'd much prefer to have simultaneous output if that were possible (maybe it is - I've emailed the author of PM) but as a fall-back I am pretty certain that it's easy to manually switch outputs, albeit not something that can be done using the remote app (pity).
 
Yes, this will work and you don't need PureMusic to achieve it.
Just go into OS X Audio/Midi Properties, click the + in the bottom left corner and create a "Multi-Output device". You can then add your two USB DACs into this virtual device and OS X will output to all at once. You can also choose which is the master.
Just tested in my system and have successfully created a Multi-Output device which is simultaneously outputting to MDAC USB, MDAC Optical and HRT USB.
 
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