What DAC do you use?
Until my new NAIM streamer arrives, an AudioQuest Dragonfly Cobalt.
Any reason?
I have a Nova and use Apple Music and Qobuz, but havenāt yet tried the Apple hi res. And I really donāt understand this stuff. lolā¦When I finally figure out what to buy and how to hook it up Iāll try it. Or wait until Apple makes streaming hi res possible. I listen to Qobuz for the sound quality but itās a pain. Apple Music is so easyā¦fun evenā¦
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Iām not a Qobuz fan. I was beta testing their software too for a while but they are very hard to deal with, so I have jumped back to Apple.
So here are options for playing Apple Music to NAIM:
Streaming via AirPlay2, but music is down-converted to compressed 44/16
From older Mac via optical cable if your NAIM accepts optical in. This is lossless and sounds wonderful. Generally Macs before 2015 had hybrid optical/ headphone out sockets.
From current Macs & iOS devices, the key is to bypass the low quality headphone output, so USB out, into a DAC or a NAIM streamer with built-in DAC. This ensures lossless files reach the NAIM and if quality is greater than CD, the full quality file is played. Many Apple lossless files are 88/24 or higher.
DACS are a huge and very subjective topic, so Iāll avoid that discussion here.
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NDX 2 with Qobuz is easy and works without any issues at all. Not sure why anyone would have any problems.
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I decided to check if Apple Music sounded any better in the latest beta and can easily tell Deezer sounds better than Apple Music over AirPlay. I actually like Deezer a lot but they have a 2000 album favorite limit in place right now. I believe Spotify has no limits anymore. Not sure what Apple and Qobuz have. Think Iām back to waiting for Spotify.
When I was on vacation, I had to use the native Qobuz app and its not that great. They finally added a personalized playlist but itās only one that comes out on Fridays, doesnāt have a ton of songs and didnāt look like great matches for my taste.
I have a 2011 Mac and a Nova, can I connect the two to stream lossless AM via the headphone out of the Mac?
Yes, that should work fine if your Mac has the combined optical/analogue out. Obviously you would control everything (except volume) from the Mac or the Apple Remote app rather than the Naim app.
Easy enough to try, Toslink cables are cheap.
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Most Macs of that era had the hybrid minijack/optical socket, so you need a Mini TOSLINK to TOSLINK cable to make the connection.
This will work fine with music that you have stored locally on your system. Note that Apple Music only gained the ability to stream their HiRes audio with the Big Sur version of OSX. This is made more complicated by the way that Apple have reduced the connectivity of their computers over the years. My iMac has the optical out but canāt update to Big Sur, so has no HiRes capability. My MBP does HiRes audio but has no optical out, at some point I am intending to faff about with adaptors and cables to connect it to my DAC via USB to do an A/B comparison.
For me vinyl is my primary serious source, and I use digital to fill in the gaps and casual listening so I am not looking for the best possible SQ from it.
Apple Music has a lot going for it, particularly when I get it for free with my phone deal, and the ability to control the library remotely from the phone is very convenient (once you have Home Sharing set up on everything which I found a bit frustrating at first).
Well, for one, with the Nova I need to access Qobuz through the Naim app because it lags using their app. Using the Naim app, when I open āArtistsā it lists a handfull, you scroll down and click more. Then you click on āA-Zā and then click on āTitleā if you want to see an alphabetical list of your artists. And, when you do that, sometimes it comes up top A-Z and sometimes Z-A. If you are an OCD idiot such as I am then you need click again on āA-Zā and āTitleā to reverse the listings. Clumsy. Maybe thereās an easier way that I am ignorant of. But Apple music isā¦wonderful. Plus lyrics. Plus play anything and set it to continue with like music. Or play randomly your music. (I have 1400 albums so random play is pretty fun.)
-another great thing about Apple Music is touch the upper right corner of the iPad screen to adjust volumeā¦
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We are talking of very different things.
Ok. So, my understanding is I need the lightening to USB 3 camera adapter. Thenā¦oyā¦what is best? Or is there a different adapter for a differentā¦oyā¦what I really need is a simple āDo thisāā¦
Iām hopefully wrong, but isnāt Big Sur or later required for the lossless/hires Apple Music playback. My 2012 Mini wonāt run Big Sur (officially anyway).
The issue is likely to be that you wonāt be able to install a new enough macOS supporting Apple Music with hi-res/lossless audio. Older iTunes flavours donāt support the options as far as I can see.
Minimum Specs for Lossless Music are MacOS 11.4 (BigSur) for which you need:
- MacBook (2015 or later)
- MacBook Air (2013 or later)
- MacBook Pro (Late 2013 or later)
- Mac mini (2014 or later)
- iMac (2014 or later)
- iMac Pro (2017 or later)
- Mac Pro (2013 or later)
So there is the sweet spot of a machine that is young enough to run 11.4, but old enough to have hybrid optical / headphone out.
Alternatively, it is a newer / younger machine and USB > DAC
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Thought as much, unfortunately my Minis are too old unless I try an unofficial route to install Big Sur.
Iām probably getting lossless via HDMI-ARC from the AppleTV to the Nova but as the Nova doesnāt display the bit rate/sampling rate itās hard to know exactly what youāre getting!
Sorry, this was written too quickly, makes little sense!
To get started with minimal cost, but good quality, do this:
Buy the Lightning to USB 3 camera adaptor for iPhone / iPad and use it to connect this small DAC:
It also works with Mac and comes with a USB to USB-C adapter if you have the latest iPad or Mac.
It is a great headphone Amp / DAC for $250-300
Then you meed a 3.5mm (headphone plug) > NAIM cable (RCA or DIN) into your NAIM system.
Hope this helps? As a solution for portable audio, this is superb and makes an enormous difference to simply pluging into the headphone socket on Phone / iPad or Mac. I have been using this solution for a while, but since the arrival of my SN3 Iām trying to move up a notch for living room streaming.
Unofficial updates for more powerful computers like the old MacPro towers can work well, but MacMinis are fragile beasts and heat kills them, so it may not be worth the time. Can you find a used, but later model?
It doesnāt have to be the Apple Lightning to USB camera adaptor which I find rather large. I use a slimmer alternative with my Dragonfly Red for headphone listening. (Have MacBook Air and Chord Qutest for Apple Music in the system).
The big advantage of the Apple adapter is the ability to power the iPhone / iPad while playing.
Thanks for reminding about the Qutest; it may be a sensible interim alternative to a NAIM streamer until there is native support for Apple Music. I already have Audirvana 3.5 on the Mac for FLAC files. nDACs seem to be very scarce.