You would take a digital output from the headphones-connection of your MacBook Pro using a TOSlink to mini TOSlink cable, and connect this into the optical input of the DacMagic.

As for controlling the volume, this wouldn't be done on the Mac, as the Mac's volume control is disabled when the digital output is used.

You have two choices here, one is to opt-out of the DAC route and go for a seperate sound-interface which will take up a USB or Firewire port on your computer, and the other option is to go for a hifi pre-amp.

Without wanting to undermine Soundproof's advice, I would personally opt for the sound-interface, and go for an Apogee Duet. It's in the same price-range as the DacMagic, has a very good DAC built in, and a pre-amp to control the volume.

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No problems there, Alex, there are several good DACs on the market.

A couple of points, though. The DacMagic does accept both toslink optical spdif and USB from the MacBook Pro. I've had the opportunity to try a Duet, and that's another excellent option.

More importantly - as to volume control.
It's QuickTime which controls playback on a Mac, iTunes is a music organizer with a control interface, but it is QT which does the actual playing.
In earlier implementations of QuickTime, you had to keep the volume at maximum in order to avoid degradation of the signal. If you reduced the volume, then you would be processing the signal inside the computer.

Starting with Quicktime 7, this problem was solved. As Benchmark (another manufacturer of an excellent DAC) say:

The volume controls in iTunes versions 7.X and 8.X will not cause significant distortion. The user should not hesitate to use the volume control in iTunes v7.x and 8.X
http://extra.benchmarkmedia.com/wiki/index.php/ITunes-QuickTime_for_Mac_-_Setup_Guide

I control the volume using my iPod Touch or iPhone. For background listening, I even use volume equalization of random playback, to avoid the volume jumping up and down between different recordings (set in iTunes preferences).
For in-depth listening when I'm in the sweetspot, I disable that function, of course.

A tip when it comes to the on-screen volume bar on your Mac, you can set that in smaller steps:

Press Shift+Option and you will find that each white square in the volume bar gets subdivisions, allowing for a more precise setting, particularly valuable with the BL3s connected. You don't have that option from the iPod Touch/iPhone, though.

Ooooo, nice tip on the volume control. Never knew you could do that.

what about jitter with a usb dac's?

Matthew Bramble, the technical director of Cambridge, had a comment to Stereophile's rave review of the DacMagic concerning jitter.

He commented that there's a significant difference between using the battery and the power supply - but the DacMagic's jitter suppression is able to handle both.

Jitter is a strange issue - a Letter to the Editor of The Absolute Sound made a fun analogy, as there are audiophile reviewers who claim to hear incredibly small changes in jitter, one had claimed he could notice a difference of 7 picoseconds' jitter. In ordinary digital circuitry (the kind you get from a plastic cd-player) jitter is down well under the 300picosecond level, and often down to where we can't measure it at all. The analogy was that if one said the distance around the Equator represented a second, 7 picoseconds of jitter represented less than half a millimetre ...

In the most recent issue of TAS, one of the writers has turned against USB, finding that spdif is better (Google Alan Taffel and The Absolute Sound and USB) -- that caused a lot of comment on the internet, and the writer had to retract some of his findings. The truth is that there's a lot of confusion as to which format is better, and that this confusion is due to psychoacoustics and wishful thinking. The audio industry is desperately looking for a way to make money in the digital age - it had a cushy time of it splitting up the signal path from source to loudspeakers through a lot of components and interconnects. Today you can send a digital signal straight into BL5s or Meridian's speakers, and you won't need all those boxes.
So enter jitter - a problem you can measure, but really can't hear (I swear - it's a boondoggle). It's still a problem that some are willing to spend fortunes on though, on external clocks, jitter suppression circuitry, etc.

To illustrate the degree of confusion. Positive Feedback Online asked ten industry lights about the best strategies for getting the best digital audio. All ten companies answered the same questions. If you have the time and patience, you should read all the responses (look at the bottom for the others). You won't become any wiser, as there's no industry-wide agreement on anything, but you'll relax!

So if I go down the route of DACmagic. Any recommendation for the volume control interface then? i.e. any particular brand/model? And any recommended retailer in surrey or online for DACmagic? Thanks for the advice so far!

Hi Wowmix,

I've recently bought a DACmagic and found the use of fibre optic TOSlink cable to be superior to the USB. USB definitely lost some of the clarity particularly the bass. You can get a TOSlink to mini-TOSlink on the web fairly easily but on the high street it proves a bit tougher. Thanks Apple for putting the optical output on as well as analog, a really nice feature 🙂 Maplin sell a cheap TOSlink cable with an adapter which works okay but the quality felt a bit iffy so I opted for an IXOS cable.

I primarily use the DACmagic on with my Mac-mini to feed my B&O system via a BeoPort and the results have been truly stunning.

However, I have also run it from a new MacBook and it also worked well, with the output being taken from the RCA jacks to a good hifi amp and Mission Speakers. I've found the best results from having iTunes and Mac on full volume into the DACmagic and then using the amp volume control.

Full volume on Mac and iTunes also works best for the BeoPort.

Also, make sure before quit iTunes and go into the Audio Midi Setup utility to set the 96KHz 24 bit output before restarting iTunes.

The unit takes a few days to "burn-in" this is really the case and the sound just gets better and better over the first week, so leave it on and keep listening, the results are really very rewarding 😁. I can't believe more people aren't shouting about these units from the rooftops!

Richer Sounds are the only UK dealers I know of so best to find your local dealer on http://www.richersounds.com/ 

I hope you get one soon!

Best

Rob

I have an old Arcam Alpha 8 Integrated Amp: http://www.wired4sound.net.au/amplifiers/arcam_alpha8/arcam_alpha8.html

Will this be suitable to use with DACMagic as the sound control?? Or am I better off getting the Apogee Duet to get a better sound quality?