New Macbook Pro 15 inch touch bar 2017 - internal DAC only 48khz?

[Jay-dub]

15 hours ago, foodfiend said:

That was a change in DAC chip. In the iPhone 7, the really tragic fact is that a better DAC sits in the phone for the speakers, but cannot output to analogue headphones without the headphone jack. Instead, we are saddled with the poorer DAC on the adapter, or to use Bluetooth (with its limitations) for wireless transfer.

You can still use the camera adapter to connect it to almost any USB DAC, can't you? That's an acceptable situation, IMO.

[Jay-dub]

On 8/11/2017 at 11:25 AM, Musicophile said:

Tried Audio/Midi set-up (wow, haven´t used that app for a LONG time), and again, only 48 khz. Looks like Apple is moving backwards.

My mid-2013 Macbook Air goes up to 96kHz sampling, but the thing is its builtin analog lowpass kicks in right above 20kHz, so it doesn't have the bandwidth you'd expect based on the sampling rate. The benefit of playing 96kHz files on that headphone jack is extremely marginal, much smaller than on an outboard DAC with full bandwidth.

 

You might say that limiting the playback sample rate to 48kHz is a more honest approach than supporting higher rates while incorporating a design that negates their advantages.