You can remote control with your BEO4 the MAC volume with the Beorevox interface!

Regards

Beofan53 wrote:

Hi,

I'am using a HRT Streamer II for playing music from my pc (iTunes) to a pair of BL4.

Excellent sound quality, and using the volumecontrol of the pc.

In my workroom I'am using the HRT iStreamer, connected to a BM2400. Great sound! Not tried using the volume on my iThings, but will test this later at the day.

Banix wrote:

I have been reading on this excellent forum for a while now but never posted anything until now. 

I recently purchased a pair of Beolab 8000s MKII

welcome and congratulations on your speakers !

Banix wrote:

sound quality was even worse when connected directly to my iMac/Powerbook/Powermac (background humming being to loud).

the humming is caused by the power supplies etc inside the various Macs you have - in the archiveforum there are lots of discussions and explanations over this issue (do some searches from the link)

so the general consensus has been to use optical connections to an external DAC

On the other had, I connect an analogue cable from my Macbook and my Macmini to a BeoPort which then drives my speakers.  This seems to provide enough "insulation" that I don't hear any humming - one I used the right powerlink cables (mark III) to the speakers.  

The advantage for me of the BeoPort is that it is controllable by a Beo4 for volume, skipping tracks, playlists -- although now I tend to use touch interfaces for title/artist searches.

But the BeoPort does not contain a DAC.

An approach others have used is WiFi Airplay to an Apple Airport Express -- this cuts out the electrical interference, but does not provide a superior DAC.

What I now use (for 50% of my rooms) is HDMI connections, either from the MacMini or from Apple TVs -- which then lets me leverage the DACs inside the BeoVisions

You might want to look at the new B&O PlayMaker as a potential solution (putting to one side the debate on this site about its aesthetics!)

I thought I would reconnect with my experience with the external DAC. 

I first purchased the HRT Music streamer II+. The sound was good but extremely loud. It does not allow the use of the Macs main volume controls (the ones on the keyboard or in system prefs) but the volume controls inside various applications such as iTunes/VLC do regulate the volume. However the lowest volume in iTunes (even with the iTunes software preeamp set on minimum) is still VERY loud. It is intended to be used with an amplifier which has a dedicated volume control unlike the one in the BeoLabs 8000. Therefore I returned the HRT and tried the DAC Magic +

The DAC Magic+ also sounds very good and with the onboard volume control the volume can be set at a normal listening level. It has solved all my problems with the humming noise now eliminated. The volume can also be regulated inside iTunes (the Macs main volume control is turned off, but volume can instead be regulated with the onboard control on the DAC Magic+). I am very satisfied with this and finally everything now works as I wanted. I have now started thinking about adding a BeoLab 2 to the setup... 

If using for music, consider BL11 or wait for the new sub-woofer.