I used a hotrodded x-fi. I actually burned my first one trying to change the opamps and to put a blackgate bipolar capacitor of the size of a lighter. Here is the tutorial I followed about four years ago:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/226975/hotrodding-the-x-fi-a-layman-s-guide-no-56k. In the end the mod worked and I indeed found sound improvement as the sound became sweeter. After that I shortly used them with a Russ Andrews DAC 1. When I bought my Sennheiser 650 I realised what good music reproduction means. After using various speakers, my speaker journey has ended when I realised where this fine line that separates good music reproduction from art relies, with these marvels: http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/tidal/piano.html
I can understand that most of the people find them tremendous, as I did when I bought them. Most of the people that buy them though are not aware of really good sound reproduction. They just compare them with their previous $20 desktop speakers and it's logical to rave for their quality. It is a rule in sound reproduction that until one hears something better, one believes that nothing better exists. The truth is that these speakers are expensive because you pay for the 5.1 (most of the times useless after a couple of years) decoder and the huge sub. Not to mention the branding and the packaging. For half a grant you can find much much better music reproduction if you don't need a) Insanely loud sound, b) Bass that will set a wind turbine in motion c) 5.1 decoding.
Also the price you are mentioning in your previous post is really extreme. You can find them for far less:
http://www.jmartdigital.co.uk/item/...ia-home-theatre-speaker-system-505-watt-total
For a good and cheap 5.1 system I suggest a basic used decoder from ebay and a set of 5 used two-way shelf speakers with good drivers (Dayton, Scanspeak, e.t.c). From the point that you enjoy yours though, I hope you continue to enjoy them for a long time. Just use the optical out of your macmini with any cable. Forget about the crappy crystalliser. The only thing it does is to add distortion to the sound. Because your speakers don't have tweeters, you think they sound better. In reality what it does is to make the treble more prominent with some psychoacoustic algorithm it uses, making the sound overall thinner and unrealistic. Just try to listen to lossless and HR music if you want further improvement in quality. Now, if you are desperate to listen to distorted music, you can always use the special effects of hear: http://download.cnet.com/Hear/3000-2170_4-191094.html It is a good alternative to crystalliser.
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