If you get a secondhand Qutest in the interim you will lose nothing when you sell it. It is rather good. You might even keep it!
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Do such things exist?
Secondhand Qutest? A couple on the bay now. Ā£900 is about the mark.
Itās just a real shame Apple got rid of optical, an ARM based Mini with optical would be a great option. Iāve been dithering for ages contemplating an M1 Mini.
This looks interesting:
The question is whether or not you could use it on a newer Mac for Apple Music lossless/hi-res to feed a streamerās digital input.
Iāve needed a more modern Mac for some time, unfortunately killed my newest MBP which would have worked with Big Sur and had optical a few years ago - liquid damage 
Actually must see if Apple can repair it before deemed vintage/obsolete as it was one of the last with legacy ports and it would be very useful to have it working again, though I suspect sourcing a secondhand one would be cheaper. Other family members have more modern Macs but alas no optical on those.
Iām on the perfect laptop at this moment, still optical, but running 11.4, will run 12 too. The battery is dead, but who worries?
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Itās not exactly lossless although itās not lossy AAC. Your at the mercy of MacOs resampling to the system audio rate. AM does not have an exclusive mode so any changes in sample rate are not honoured and it will be resampled to the rate set in MacOs audio settings. It will not auto switch so you have to do this for each source not great for a mixed playlist.
Same goes for USB the only truely lossless way for AM is to use a phone or iPad and usb adaptor to a DAC as it is exclusive and rate switches automatically based on the source.
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Good thoughts. USB out from Mac currently goes out via the Cobalt DAC, which visibly changes rate as the track does. The Cobalt is very impressive and I prefer it to the Mojo.
Optical may not be perfect, but it does sound wonderful, even when I was using a very cheap ānā basic optical DAC years ago. TBH Iām not super purist, as long as it sounds good.
I always used to fix the sample rate to 192/24 on optical out on my MM 2012 when hooked to my Chord Hugo 1.
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You could, depending on how it sounds. Or you could simply buy a DAC and input straight into the NAIM system, bypassing a streamer?
I sincerely believe there will be a shake-up in the streaming market and at this moment your Mac covers all the bases fromApple Music, to qobuz, to Tidal. Once the market is a little more transparent, NAIM will know what needs to be fully supported. I was looking through Tidal just now and support from NAIM is currently only to HiFi level, not MQA. I completely agree with their stance, but it means that the only supported lossless streaming currently is qobuz and much of their music is really only CD level.
There is a lot of hype in the market currently and it is hard to gauge where to spend money. Over the weekend, I was looking through HiRes downloads from a few suppliers. When I saw tracks from 1970 being offered at 192/24, I gave up looking. I was a wee thing in 1970, but I do know that reel to reel recorders could not resolve 192/24, probably not even 44/16, so as usual, big money is being charged for snake oil.
Thatās a good option with a USB DAC like the Dragonfly, but it wonāt work into a Naim streamer.
Actually re-reading that quote, not sure I meant exactly what I wrote this afternoon 
Perhaps Men should not try to multitask?
I have now corrected it, so it makes sense. Thanks for the heads-up.
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I preferred mine to the Mojo too funnily. Donāt have one now though sold it in last year. Odd that you say itās switching as the app itself cant do this to me knowledge. I know iTunes doesnāt still on Windows and others have reported this on Music to on Mac.
I have one of those. It works perfectly on my 2018 Intel Mac Mini, iPhone 11 Pro Max and the latest 12.9" iPad Pro. I tried both the optical and coax and used Appleās standard adaptors. I also used a magic keyboard with the iPad so it could be powered at the same time. My Topping D10s, while working fine with the Mac Mini, had problems with the iPad and iPhone.
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Watching Amazon prime nine perfect strangers on 2017 27 iMac last night through itās internal speakers it seems Apple has tweaked sound, sitting 2ft from screen gives nice 3ish soundā¦sound of telephone seems to hang in space 1 foot to the side of the screen
What issues did you encounter with the Topping & iPad/iPhone ? Itās an option Iāve been looking at, so your experience would be useful intel.
I got no sound at all. Iām guessing that it required a bit too much power from the USB. A different apple adaptor and/or leads may solve it.
To update my reply, I have moved to a Chord Qutest DAC as of yesterday, having tired of being told by dealers that there was no news of Naim streamers coming into stock. The dragonfly Cobalt was good; the Qutest is stellar. Iām hearing instruments in familiar tracks that never existed before and my CD rips sound significantly better than the original, played on a Naim CD (admittedly an old one).
The Qutest is a tiny, but heavy, ābrickā that hides away nicely and I will never consider AirPlay 2 again. The difference is night and day.
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So you are Mac to Qutest to Naim streamer ?
No Naim streamers canāt be found right now, so Mac / iOS device > Qutest > SN3
Optical is the best input from Mac but iPhone via Apple USB adapter sounds impressive too.
Key is to ensure MIDI output is adjusted correctly on the Mac. On day 2 with Qutest, I was surprised how bad an album sounded, until I realised that output had reset to 44.1 - I set it back to 96, to match the track and made an instant difference.
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