Audiophile output on Mac OSX

[Landloper]

Thanks for a most engaging post, Peter.

I run i-Tunes usually through the optical out into a DAC, but I also have some files that are only avaialble in FLAC so have to run a second app, VLC. I tried Audirvana but I didn't much care for the interface and I also had some difficulty integrating it with i-Tunes, so once the trial expired I left things as they were. Personally I'm not overwhelmed with HiRez as it doesn't seem to me to justify the price charged for the (often minimal) improvement over a red book CD. Others clearly get a good deal of pleasure out of HiRez music. Perhaps having 58 year-old hearing minimizes the impact of HiRez tracks too.

I like the idea of a computer into a pair of active speakers as music centre, with an HPA handy for nightime.

[Shovel_Knight]

I run i-Tunes usually through the optical out into a DAC, but I also have some files that are only avaialble in FLAC so have to run a second app, VLC. I tried Audirvana but I didn't much care for the interface and I also had some difficulty integrating it with i-Tunes, so once the trial expired I left things as they were. Personally I'm not overwhelmed with HiRez as it doesn't seem to me to justify the price charged for the (often minimal) improvement over a red book CD. Others clearly get a good deal of pleasure out of HiRez music. Perhaps having 58 year-old hearing minimizes the impact of HiRez tracks too.

I like the idea of a computer into a pair of active speakers as music centre, with an HPA handy for nightime.

There is a free app called XLD (X Lossless Decoder) that can transcode FLAC files into ALAC (Apple Lossless). There's no loss of quality and ALAC files are fully supported by iTunes.