Help with improving audio quality for iMac

[dave_32]

I'm looking to learn a bit more on how I can improve the sound quality at my desk. I was looking into DAC's and I'm not sure which one to get.

I've got a pair of Klipsch R51PM powered speakers, 1- Polk Audio PSW 10" sub, and a JBL PB10 10" sub.

I'm open to suggestions as to how to make improvements to sound quality. Maybe I'm completely on the wrong page, maybe I don't need a DAC. I've done a bit of research over the course of the last couple of months. All of this audio stuff is confusing to me.

If you have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know. I would really love some assistance with this. I attached a picture of my setup. If you would like additional pictures or information, let me know and I will provide that ASAP.

Thank you very much for your time. Have a good day.

 

[Tangband]

I'm looking to learn a bit more on how I can improve the sound quality at my desk. I was looking into DAC's and I'm not sure which one to get.

I've got a pair of Klipsch R51PM powered speakers, 1- Polk Audio PSW 10" sub, and a JBL PB10 10" sub.

I'm open to suggestions as to how to make improvements to sound quality. Maybe I'm completely on the wrong page, maybe I don't need a DAC. I've done a bit of research over the course of the last couple of months. All of this audio stuff is confusing to me.

If you have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know. I would really love some assistance with this. I attached a picture of my setup. If you would like additional pictures or information, let me know and I will provide that ASAP.

Thank you very much for your time. Have a good day.

Buy a pair of Genelec 8020 or 8030 . This gonna get you real highend sound from your desktop. I guess you are taking the signal from your Mac from the headphone socket ?
Because a Mac dont destroy the sound as a Windows machine might do, it might be good enough and you dont need a separate dac.

With a mac , you should also have Apple Music high resolution , - its as good sounding as tidal. If you dont have it, it would be the first step to upgrade.

If you decide to keep your klipsch, dont put them directly on the table - buy a 10 cm stand.

You can gain massive improvements for free if you:

1. Turn off your subwoofers and listen only to the klipsch. Put them on the table where they sound the best and where you can hear the bassplayer play tunes without any booming. 5 cm more apart or less apart or back/forward can make a big difference.

2. When your main speakers alone can play bass in a good way with the right placement, now you can turn on your subwoofers and finetune the active crossover to the mains.
The sound will be much better.

 

[dave_32]

Buy a pair of Genelec 8020 or 8030 . This gonna get you real highend sound from your desktop. I guess you are taking the signal from your Mac from the headphone socket ?
Because a Mac dont destroy the sound as a Windows machine might do, it might be good enough and you dont need a separate dac.

With a mac , you should also have Apple Music high resolution , - its as good sounding as tidal. If you dont have it, it would be the first step to upgrade.

If you decide to keep your klipsch, dont put them directly on the table - buy a 10 cm stand.

You can gain massive improvements for free if you:

1. Turn off your subwoofers and listen only to the klipsch. Put them on the table where they sound the best and where you can hear the bassplayer play tunes without any booming. 5 cm more apart or less apart or back/forward can make a big difference.

2. When your main speakers alone can play bass in a good way with the right placement, now you can turn on your subwoofers and finetune the active crossover to the mains.
The sound will be much better.

Thank you for your response. Had I not just bought the pair of Klipsch speakers, I would probably entertain those speakers. I will have to try and get my money's worth out of the speakers I have now first.

I believe I have the high resolution in Apple music enabled. Does that only affect audio coming from the Apple music app? I've wondered about that. I thought the equalizer within the Apple music app only affected the music when playing through Apple music.

I'm definitely going to try that. I'm going to look for speaker stands right now. I've noticed that quite a few people use those monitor/speaker stands. Great idea. Thank you! I've got quite a bit to learn when it comes to crossover. Both of my subs have a know to adjust crossover I believe.

The last time I was at Best Buy buying RCA cables, the CSR said that I would be splitting the signal because I was hooking up an additional subwoofer. Would that affect the overall quality of the audio coming from each sub?

 

[dave_32]

Buy a pair of Genelec 8020 or 8030 . This gonna get you real highend sound from your desktop. I guess you are taking the signal from your Mac from the headphone socket ?
Because a Mac dont destroy the sound as a Windows machine might do, it might be good enough and you dont need a separate dac.

With a mac , you should also have Apple Music high resolution , - its as good sounding as tidal. If you dont have it, it would be the first step to upgrade.

If you decide to keep your klipsch, dont put them directly on the table - buy a 10 cm stand.

You can gain massive improvements for free if you:

1. Turn off your subwoofers and listen only to the klipsch. Put them on the table where they sound the best and where you can hear the bassplayer play tunes without any booming. 5 cm more apart or less apart or back/forward can make a big difference.

2. When your main speakers alone can play bass in a good way with the right placement, now you can turn on your subwoofers and finetune the active crossover to the mains.
The sound will be much better.

I found a 3d file to print a set of speaker stands. I'll attach the link. Is that kind of what you were talking about?

TEUFEL speaker stand Concept c200 c25 by Thinkdifferent

Remix from daktylus (thanks!). I added a hole in the middle, to save time & filament. The angle is about 15°. Original text: Simple speaker stand for the desk. Raises the front of the speaker by about 25 mm. I added some holes on the bottom for adding dampening rubber feet. Add some dampening...

www.thingiverse.com

 

[Tangband]

I found a 3d file to print a set of speaker stands. I'll attach the link. Is that kind of what you were talking about?

TEUFEL speaker stand Concept c200 c25 by Thinkdifferent

Remix from daktylus (thanks!). I added a hole in the middle, to save time & filament. The angle is about 15°. Original text: Simple speaker stand for the desk. Raises the front of the speaker by about 25 mm. I added some holes on the bottom for adding dampening rubber feet. Add some dampening...

www.thingiverse.com

Yes, Its probably much better than no stand at all.
Or this :

ISO Stands

IsoAcoustics Inc. is pleased to introduce the next evolution of our specialized line of speaker stands for the audio professional, music hobbyist, audiophile, and music lover. The new ISO Stands provide superior acoustic isolation and enhance the sound clarity of any speakers including studio...

isoacoustics.com

Looking at your loudspeakers - You have digital inputs like toslink and USB . Try connect your Mac with digital connection ( toslink or USB ) and use the connection that sounds the best .

 

[Tangband]

Thank you for your response. Had I not just bought the pair of Klipsch speakers, I would probably entertain those speakers. I will have to try and get my money's worth out of the speakers I have now first.

I believe I have the high resolution in Apple music enabled. Does that only affect audio coming from the Apple music app? I've wondered about that. I thought the equalizer within the Apple music app only affected the music when playing through Apple music.

I'm definitely going to try that. I'm going to look for speaker stands right now. I've noticed that quite a few people use those monitor/speaker stands. Great idea. Thank you! I've got quite a bit to learn when it comes to crossover. Both of my subs have a know to adjust crossover I believe.

The last time I was at Best Buy buying RCA cables, the CSR said that I would be splitting the signal because I was hooking up an additional subwoofer. Would that affect the overall quality of the audio coming from each sub?

Apple high resolution will be downsampled to 44.1 /48 kHz if youre using the Macs headphone socket, but it will still output 24 bit. Most material are only lossless and that means max 48 kHz anyway so no problem. If you buy a separate dac like topping d10s you can play 96 or 192 kHz 24 bit with some of the material on Apple music.

Always start with the main speakers position, to find the right distance between them where they play bass in a good way even without subwoofers.

Then power on your subs, and use your ears when you tune in the active subwoofers. Listen for the tunes that the bassplayer is playing, it shall be a clear pitch and not boomy. Good luck

 

[dave_32]

Yes, Its probably much better than no stand at all.
Or this :

ISO Stands

IsoAcoustics Inc. is pleased to introduce the next evolution of our specialized line of speaker stands for the audio professional, music hobbyist, audiophile, and music lover. The new ISO Stands provide superior acoustic isolation and enhance the sound clarity of any speakers including studio...

isoacoustics.com

Looking at your loudspeakers - You have digital inputs like toslink and USB . Try connect your Mac with digital connection ( toslink or USB ) and use the connection that sounds the best .

Ok, so maybe a riser instead of an angular stand? I'm printing both a riser and a stand with an angle. I'm going to try both and see which is better:

Riser - I'm going to start with this one at the height it's at. I'll go from there if it needs to be taller.
Angled stand - I just made this. One of the very few things I've created from scratch.

As far as connection, sorry I didn't mention this before, I'm using USB to connect the computer to speakers/subs.

 

[dave_32]

Apple high resolution will be downsampled to 44.1 /48 kHz if youre using the Macs headphone socket, but it will still output 24 bit. Most material are only lossless and that means max 48 kHz anyway so no problem. If you buy a separate dac like topping d10s you can play 96 or 192 kHz 24 bit with some of the material on Apple music.

Always start with the main speakers position, to find the right distance between them where they play bass in a good way even without subwoofers.

Then power on your subs, and use your ears when you tune in the active subwoofers. Listen for the tunes that the bassplayer is playing, it shall be a clear pitch and not boomy. Good luck

Most of that has gone over my head. When it comes to Hz, kHz, crossover frequencies, etc., that's where I get lost. I wish I could take an audio class at school. I'm going to look into that and see if they offer audio classes lol that would be so cool. Thank you for all your help. I really appreciate it! Can't wait to try out the stands!

One more question regarding a DAC. I was looking at the Topping Dac's and I'm wondering, would I hook the sub(s) up to the DAC as well? OR would the sub(s) remain hooked up as they are through the speakers?

 

[NiagaraPete]

Klipsch speakers, I would probably entertain those speakers. I will have to try and get my money's worth out of the speakers I have now first.

Kind of a waste of time.

 

[sam_adams]

I've got a pair of Klipsch R51PM powered speakers,

The R-51PMs have a built-in 24bit/96KHz DAC. What it is and how it measures is unknown. However, if you are going to limit yourself to Apple Music streaming services, you only need to connect the iMac to the R-51PMs with a USB cable and you can start streaming.

 

[dave_32]

The R-51PMs have a built-in 24bit/96KHz DAC. What it is and how it measures is unknown. However, if you are going to limit yourself to Apple Music streaming services, you only need to connect the iMac to the R-51PMs with a USB cable and you can start streaming.

Oh nice. I didn't know that. I listen to more than Apple music. It's basically all being streamed though. For some reason I feel that hooking up two subs through a pair of speakers couldn't be the most efficient and effective way. I thought if there was some sort of amplifier or receiver I could hook everything up to, I thought that might perform better. Both in sound and efficiency.

 

[Marc v E]

1) make sure the speakers are a the same distance relative to you.
2) getting a speaker stand lifting the speakers to ear height.

(Probably not what you want to hear....If it was my money and time I'd sell all and buy a pair of white or black Genelec 8030C and topping dac/preamp. Knowing myself as a mac owner its the only way I would ever by completely satisfied.)

 

[Tangband]

Dave 32 : Your Klipsch loudspeaker might sound good, I havent heard them . But they are not, as one can believe when there is amplifiers built in, real active speakers. They are passive loudspeakers with a passive crossover.

Amirm has reviewed the little brother, also a passive loudspeaker but without inbuilt amplifiers. Klipsch r41m.
Maybe a clue of the sound quality from r51PM. Or not.

Klipsch R-41M Bookshelf Speaker Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Klipsch R-41M bookshelf speaker. I bought a pair from Amazon for US $149. The retail cost is US $229 but I suspect no one pays that. I always say speaker business is 80% marketing and Klipsch nails that with look and branding of this series of...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Katji]

Most of that has gone over my head. When it comes to Hz, kHz, crossover frequencies, etc., that's where I get lost. I wish I could take an audio class at school. I'm going to look into that and see if they offer audio classes lol that would be so cool.

google--->wikipedia-->google-->wikipedia+whatever but avoiding any audiophile blogs/etc.

 

[sarumbear]

Because a Mac dont destroy the sound as a Windows machine might do, it might be good enough and you dont need a separate dac.

Any proof about what you said, especially when most Macs use the same chip most Windows computers use?

 

[Tangband]

Any proof about what you said, especially when most Macs use the same chip most Windows computers use?

Its a software problem . Tons of info on the net. Microsofts SRC and limiter is really bad . But one can use Foobar instead , much better .

As a recording semiprofessional, I cant use a Windows machine because of bad sound and unreliability . Everything must work at the recording event.

 

[sarumbear]

What is Microsoft SRC?

 

[Tangband]

1) make sure the speakers are a the same distance relative to you.
2) getting a speaker stand lifting the speakers to ear height.

(Probably not what you want to hear....If it was my money and time I'd sell all and buy a pair of white or black Genelec 8030C and topping dac/preamp. Knowing myself as a mac owner its the only way I would ever by completely satisfied.)

This is probably where real improvements is about to happen. Changing loudspeakers to another better pair for 400 dollar gonna give you only slight improvements .

 

[Tangband]

What is Microsoft SRC?

24/44.1 = High Definition ???

MP3 is already compressed. No point trying to zip it. Except that sending a dozen individual files to people is annoying, and sending one file is convenient.

www.audiosciencereview.com

SRC Comparisons

src.infinitewave.ca

 

[sarumbear]

24/44.1 = High Definition ???

MP3 is already compressed. No point trying to zip it. Except that sending a dozen individual files to people is annoying, and sending one file is convenient.

www.audiosciencereview.com

SRC Comparisons

src.infinitewave.ca

View attachment 209450

But what has Sample Rate Conversion to do with audio quality between platforms? Why convert the sample anyway to listen to it? You should listen at the original setting anyway.