Peter

I've been looking at this thread and glad you seem to have sorted things out.

Nevertheless I would imagine your McIntosh MCD500 will give awesome results even though its digital inputs (both (coax and toslink) is limited to 44.1/16 redbook standard. (as per my reading of the manual).

Even though your IFI iLink can accept up to 192/24 (from USB) there is no point as the McIntosh can't accept such higher resolutions. So simply, within JRiver, go to DSP Studio and set all higher sample rate inputs to output at 44,100 hz. Any downsampling done at this stage by JRiver will be PPP (practically pretty perfect) and then will flow through the iLink with no further up or down sampling to the McIntosh which, as you know, will do a great job in the analogue conversion.

Redbook standard, if converted well, will sound great - the major limiting factor is the original mastering - or heaven forbid the horrible compression applied to many CDs.

But having said all that, if you are still unhappy with your McIntosh I would be very happy to cure you of your unhappiness - just send it to me.

E