Merry Xmas, saw the posts talking about Topping DAC. I have an M4 pro mini and an AT-LP60X turntable (new in box) and want to pair it with some bookshelf studio? speakers but I am quite new to this speciality of DACs.
I explored some inline DAC converters from grey market sellers on Amazon and was so surprised at the poor availability of high bitrate music on Apple/Tidal/Amazon digital libraries. Their marketing about high resolution audio is misleading. I had no idea how hard this would to find as those providers do not provide anyway to search by bitrate. You have to go to an external site to find the 2000 or so albums that are higher resolution that 44kbps and even then, that only lists the US Apple Store. Similar challenges exist for all three services and the actual amount of hi-res content is quite small. I am looking for new sources, recommendations welcome.
I want to be able to support output to a pair of speakers. I could go the full Atmos setup with Samsung Q990D sound bar and triple-direction wireless rears for an 11.4.1 arrangement but then you hit the issue of Apple spatial only being supported on Apple headphones let alone the quality of this audio system. You even have to be careful with Dolby Atmos albums as it will not output this to the speakers I mentioned above! I've tried without much luck and the albums that do appear to play in atmos to this soundbar are part of the ATV catalogue rather than the Apple Music. It's a minefield out there, likely because I am time poor and not understanding this field well.
Getting off topic.. back to this discussion which is M4/AT -> DAC -> AMP? -> Speakers. Note the turntable is analogue. Regardless I want great quality output from the M4/AT to go into a set of reference/studio bookshelf speakers. I figured powered would save me an amplifier unless you think that's not a great idea. Please note I am not an audiophile but do enjoy the purest experience I can reasonably afford without paying thousands. For headphones I am content with the AirPods Max over wireless, imagining the sharp intake of "sacré blue!" from the audiophiles as I say that.
I explored some inline DAC converters from grey market sellers on Amazon and was so surprised at the poor availability of high bitrate music on Apple/Tidal/Amazon digital libraries. Their marketing about high resolution audio is misleading. I had no idea how hard this would to find as those providers do not provide anyway to search by bitrate. You have to go to an external site to find the 2000 or so albums that are higher resolution that 44kbps and even then, that only lists the US Apple Store. Similar challenges exist for all three services and the actual amount of hi-res content is quite small. I am looking for new sources, recommendations welcome.
I want to be able to support output to a pair of speakers. I could go the full Atmos setup with Samsung Q990D sound bar and triple-direction wireless rears for an 11.4.1 arrangement but then you hit the issue of Apple spatial only being supported on Apple headphones let alone the quality of this audio system. You even have to be careful with Dolby Atmos albums as it will not output this to the speakers I mentioned above! I've tried without much luck and the albums that do appear to play in atmos to this soundbar are part of the ATV catalogue rather than the Apple Music. It's a minefield out there, likely because I am time poor and not understanding this field well.
Getting off topic.. back to this discussion which is M4/AT -> DAC -> AMP? -> Speakers. Note the turntable is analogue. Regardless I want great quality output from the M4/AT to go into a set of reference/studio bookshelf speakers. I figured powered would save me an amplifier unless you think that's not a great idea. Please note I am not an audiophile but do enjoy the purest experience I can reasonably afford without paying thousands. For headphones I am content with the AirPods Max over wireless, imagining the sharp intake of "sacré blue!" from the audiophiles as I say that.
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