Audiophile sound from iMac?

you need a good d/a converter and a good headphone amp. the benchmark DAC-1 has both.

Apogee Duet

Superb sound and great integration with Garage Band/Logic.

On sale for $1275???

That is insane.

Also for the OP, is the source of your audio going to be good enough for going to sound like crap on your expensive audio equipment?

xparaparafreakx said:

On sale for $1275???

That is insane.

Click to expand...

why? it sounds good.

if you don't need the USB, it's about $300 cheaper. i've gone mine hooked up through s/pdif.

I don't know why so many people cite these phones as such zeniths of sonic excellence, but Shure SE5xx's equate at best to midrange professional monitoring headphones (which cost nowhere near $500) in terms of the quality of sound they deliver. I use the SE530PTHs as my beater commuters.

You don't need to throw a whole lot of money behind it for it to sound reasonable. The Bithead to me wasn't such an amazing leap over very low-budget pro soundcards (which you can turn to at the low end, say the M-Audio Transit), and I'd point you to a decent $400-level soundcard as being able to max out the Shures in terms of sound quality, and also give you an in into music making as well. The Duet mentioned above is also a very nice solution although it's more like $500.

Beyond that it just depends on your budget and level of uncompromising (or deluded, depending on the solution / point of view) audionerdiness. The sky is the limit: What I do headphone and speaker wise is regarded as extreme lunacy by some - I own a Sennheiser Orpheus headphone and that's just for starters - but very good results can be had from any highly regarded midrange soundcard with most headphones.

For most equipped with very high quality headphones and willing to spend a decent amount, the likes of the abovementioned DAC1 or the Grace M902 should be more than sufficient for computer-based use.

Sesshi said:

I own a Sennheiser Orpheus headphone

Click to expand...

lunacy!

;-)