Mac Mini sound reproduction - bass

[canonlon]

I recently purchased a Mac Mini and began to rip CD's in 16 bit, 44.1 KHZ wave files using iTunes. In iTunes I turned off enhancment, equalize, sound check, set volume full, turned on error correction. I'm using digital optical cables from the Mini and from my stereo CD player into the same external DAC. I compared ripped files played through iTunes and the CD disc played through my stereo CD player. I found that the CD player gave a fuller, deeper bass response. I wouldn't consider the bass response from the Mini as bad but it lacked some low frequency punch. Mid range sounded spot-on. Highs seemed a slightly harsher through the Mini when compared to the stereo CD playback. When listening intently I found the CD played through my stereo system is warmer sounding. But, overall I'm happy with the sound reproduction from the Mini. I'm not sure if I can better the bass response with software changes or if it's a hardware issue. Any suggestions for better bass reproduction would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[flatmap]

Definitely, you're now in a perfect position to try out some of the audiophile music players. You can get better sound, overall, compared to what you're getting with iTunes. IMO.

 

[j.SoundLabs]

I would actually try a USB to SPDIF converter before I used a third party player. It should have a bigger impact on sound quality as the optical out of any Mac is not of the highest quality. A asynchronous USB to SPDIF converter should afford a great improvement in sound quality.

 

[wgscott]

The optical cable has been mentioned and might be the culprit. I would borrow a USB to Coax converter first before spending money on the problem, and see if that is the issue.

 

Also, does the CD player (and its interface) somehow color the music (jacking up the bass?) via DSP?

 

In other words, how do you know which is more accurate?

 

I can get plenty of bass with my optical cable out my mini, fwiw.

 

[tmornini]

Or are you ripping them first, then playing them from file?

 

[canonlon]

"you're now in a perfect position to try out some of the audiophile music players"

> could you name some software applications?

> also, if the songs have already been ripped into wav files using iTunes, will another software application improve sound quality or will the albums have to be re-ripped with the new software to gain improvement?

 

" A asynchronous USB to SPDIF converter should afford a great improvement in sound quality"

> Thanks for the recommendation.

 

"does the CD player somehow color the music (jacking up the bass)?"

> quite possible, I'm not sure > but when playing the CD in my stereo CD player, to my ear, the bass has more natural sounding resonance than with the wav file played via iTunes from the Mini > I have other CD decks and I plan to hook them up to compare results

 

Again, I don't consider the low levels from the Mini to be horrible sounding > but it's something I'd like to improve upon to get a fuller sound from top to bottom.

 

[eatapc]

Not that it should make a difference sonically, but I would definitely not rip to WAV on a Mac. The problem is that iTunes supports full metadata with AIFF, not WAV, so you're throwing away all the good database features of iTunes.

 

In theory, ripped files should sound better than the CD player, so it's entirely possible that you prefer the CD player's coloration. Dunno. It's also possible that, as others have suggested, you'll get better performance with a USB-to-s/pdif adapter. I've had great luck with the relatively cheap M2Tech hiFace. The next thing to try is Pure Music, which integrates seamlessly with iTunes but takes over the job of getting the digital signal out of the Mac correctly. It may or may not improve your sound, but it can't hurt, and it will make it easier to mix resolutions in iTunes if you get into high-rez downloads. Personally, I'm a big fan of iTunes as a database & player, so that's the last thing I'd experiment with.

 

Good luck with it! - Mark B

 

[canonlon]

I tried playback of the CD on a second CD player. I compared this to the file played through iTunes/Mini. Firstly, the bass more closely matched that of the Mini > for casual listening I am content with these results. The original CD player in my set-up seems to 'colour' the sound > though I sort of prefer it. When I listen very closely, the bass produced by the second CD player still has a slightly richer, more resonant level when compared to the Mini. I can hear and feel the difference. For deep listening session I might play the CD rather than through the computer. Anyways, next I'll try a different application and cables?

Thanks again for all the feedback.

 

 

[flatmap]

There are many choices out there; the ones I've tried are all clearly better than iTunes on the Mac.

 

Not meant to be a comprehensive list, but you can download free demos of Decibel, Fidelia, and Pure Music. Amarra is also popular, and perhaps the first, but I haven't tried that one yet. I don't think BitPerfect offers a free demo, but it is priced quite low and can be had off the App Store.

 

When exploring these you'll generally want exclusive or "hog" mode selected where offered. If you have a choice for integer mode (will depend on your dac, I think) that is worth trying. Likewise if you have the choice for memory play, that is the way to go. Some of these also offer oversampling... and that gives another flavor of sound you can evaluate.

 

No need to re-rip.

 

All of these can directly access your iTunes library -- so it's easy to compare.

 

 

 

[eatapc]

If indeed the first few CDs were ripped as WAV files, I'd re-rip to AIFF, or Apple Lossless if drive space is an issue. The best thing about computer audio and iTunes is the flexible, searchable database, which is wasted if the tracks are WAV.

 

As you said, it's easy to compare alternative players that tie directly into iTunes. There have been a few heated threads here in the past about the fact that the output of iTunes on a Mac is "bit perfect," so I don't want to stir up a hornets nest. My two cents: things can go wrong with Toslink, usb, s/pdif and even Firewire into various DACs, which use many different D/A chips and clocks and filter schemes. On some units, even asynchronous reclocking shows poor jitter measurements because it's implemented poorly.

 

Barry Diament has reiterated here that Firewire out of iTunes into his Metric Halo unit will null against his own original recordings, so iTunes can (at least at Barry's studio) be literally perfect without software add-ons. That's a long way of saying that third party players are not "clearly better" than iTunes, but your mileage may vary.

 

[cyclo]

ripping CDs with iTunes is akin to dragging and dropping the files from your mounted disc to your system drive via Finder. iTunes is not a good ripping tool!

 

XLD (X Lossless Decoder) is the best ripper for mac. Get it here

 

 

Great hydrogenaudio wiki on Secure ripping here

 

As far as audiophile players go I strongly (my fav) recommend Audirvana. It's free. And considered to be the best by many.

 

BTW - anyone who has developer tools installed on Mac can use the player included in "HALLab". The SQ of this player is quite good.

 

[wgscott]

XLD is better in the sense that it has more verbose error checking, but there is nothing wrong with ripping with iTunes, it is not akin to a finder copy operation, and once you rip to one format, you can use XLD or afconvert to convert to any of the other needed formats, losslessly.

 

It does no one any good to spread disinformation.

 

[cyclo]

sorry triple post!?

 

[cyclo]

sorry...

 

[cyclo]

iTunes ignores errors and doesn't take optical drive read offset into account. It's also a one pass only ripper. How do you know your iTunes rips are error free? XLD is the better ripper.

 

 

And that's not "spreading disinformation".

 

[wgscott]

I agree XLD is the better ripper. However, iTunes, last time I checked, is not a single-pass ripper, and it is not the equivalent of a Finder copy (or command-line cp). In every case where I have compared, the tracks (when converted to wav) are identical. I've only had iTunes rip a file with audible errors once, and that CD was so badly damaged most disk players would not even try to play it.

 

XLD will still rip tracks even if they "fail", and in those cases I never found what was wrong with the file. It is very conservative with the warnings, which is a good thing. I typically use it to rip scratched or otherwise compromised disks for this reason.

 

 

 

[Paul R]

Just my $0.02, but I very much doubt the rip has much to do with it, WAV or AIFF.

 

I really suspect the DAC you are going into is sensitive to the amount and type of jitter induced from the Mac Mini optical port. I would seriously look at an Async. USB output from the Mini as the best immediate improvement, followed as others have suggested, by a more sophisticated music player.

 

I have not had good look with optical connections from the Mac, even when using rather ridiculously expensive optical cables.

 

-Paul

 

 

[4est]

My first thought is the optical connection. It is known as the highest jitter implementation. As jitter is lowered, bass gets much better, not just the highs. It has more impact, clarity and continuity. I feel those whom push optical connections are missing something. I will only use optical for TV or background music.

 

[canonlon]

I have a Cambridge DACMagic. I've read that this DAC produces better results with optical than USB. Regardless though I'll try USB and find out for myself.

 

Since I'm new to Apple computers, what is the advantage of aiff over wav files > because I've tested both and sonically find no difference.

 

[Akapod]

Lossless should be lossless.

 

But my understanding is that iTunes handles meta-data better with AIFF or ALAC, which is my preference. I get to save some space on my hard drive, and many third-party players first send the music file to memory, to avoid any issues involved with expanding the file.

 

As for ripping CDs, I would recommend turning on error-correction in iTunes and that's about it for any passably maintained CD. If you have some real dogs, XLD will help you know if your rip is OK, or it you need to pony up and get a new copy.

 

Finally -- what model of Mini do you have? And are you running Lion?

 

[Paul R]

Slow down just a second - what I said was Async USB. The USB port on the DacMagic is - well - poor enough that it is best not used. That is why people say the optical or coax ports are better.

 

If you put something like a Musical Fidelity V-LINK between the DacMagic and the Mac, you will most probably hear a really big improvement, even over the optical connection.

 

Or if you were to change to a DAC with a really good USB implementation, of which there are dozens.

 

 

 

[eatapc]

Canonlon wrote: "I've read that this DAC produces better results with optical...."

 

I think John Atkinson in Stereophile measured substantial noise internally unless Toslink optical was used. It's unusual, but it does happen with some DACs.

 

[eatapc]

You wrote: "Since I'm new to Apple computers, what is the advantage of aiff over wav files because I've tested both and sonically find no difference."

 

As I said in my first post, there is no sonic difference between WAV and AIFF, but you're throwing away all the metadata capabilities of iTunes if you rip to WAV. I can't think of any good reason to use WAV on a Mac. You're not taking advantage of what makes computer audio so convenient and fun: namely, having all your music in a flexible, convenient, searchable database with dozens of useful data fields.

 

And by the way, iTunes is a bit-perfect ripper. It rips as fast or as slow as it needs to get a perfect rip. Several engineer friends have tested this and confirmed it with null tests. If a disc has major damage, sometimes a third-party ripper can do better, sometimes it can't.

 

However, I recommend getting an external Blu-ray (backwards compatible with DVD and CD) burner to do the ripping. The internal optical drive on a Mac Mini sucks -- it's pretty slow. That's why I don't mind Apple dropping it entirely in the latest models.

 

[canonlon]

Update:

I downloaded the trial verion of Decibel. I compared Decibel & iTunes to my CD player. The bass produced by Decibel is very close to that produced when playing the CD in my stereo system CD player. Which is an improvement over playback through iTunes. I admit that I was impressed with Decibel's sonics. Thanks for the suggestions that better sound can be obtained by using different cables, interface and/or DAC. But, with the gain I've noticed from using a different playback application,for now I'm interested in trying other software programs to test. Also, I agree that it makes sense to rip in AIFF using a Mac rather than WAV > thanks for the tip.

 

[davidR]

Power supply. First and foremost. That stock supply doesn't have the juice.