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The Airport Express is limited to 16-bit/44.1khz audio out of it's optical jack, so getting an expensive 24/96 DAC will do you very little good. iTunes (the only software that will will stream your music to the Express, doesn't even support 24/96 audio). If your receiver accepts optical in, I would skip the separate DAC all together and plug the optical cable straight into your receiver - your file will play "bit perfect'. But then if you're an audiophile and want to stream 24/96, then I question why you would use an Airport Express in the first place, and not something like a Linn streamer.

How many people have 24/96 material to stream? Unless you've ripped a bunch of DVD Audio discs, there isn't any source material available at that bit depth and sample rate.

Many receivers have optical inputs, and those would be more than adequate.

The DAC will certainly improve the sound, but I think it's more for people with stereo amps who don't have the option of a digital input. Otherwise, a receiver would be a good option.. but just wouldn't get the wireless...

PS: Squeezebox also outputs 16-bit/44.1khz, FYI, so this same logic would apply there.

You can skip the adaptor mentioned above and use a nifty mini optical to Toslink cable from Monoprice: http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10229&cs_id=1022902&p_id=1557

6ft for $2.23!

@spoon: I didn't think iTunes and Airport Extreme's supported streaming FLAC content at all; so you're limited to Apple Lossless.

That may be an important consideration for those who prefer to avoid proprietary formats. It's certainly has been one for me. I won't take the rather painstaking step of encoding all my audio into Apple's format and then be stuck with nothing but Apple (or Apple approved) products going forward.

Anyone know if I stream to the PS3 via Tversity or PS3 Media Server that the music will get transcoded to a lower quality format? I think it gets changed to PCM, but I'm not sure if that maintains the audio quality from my lossless rips.

@ekoshyun:
Unless you are streaming from TVersity to the PS3 in a recognized (supported natively on PS3) format, then the content will be transcoded on the fly. I'm not a PS3 owner so I can't tell you what formats it supports, but a quick search should tell you that.

Transcoding is inherently lossy. Unless the bits at the start of the chain (on the hard drive) are the same at the conversion to analog (Digital Analog Converter) you will lose some of the original quality.

Honestly you should trust your ears. Does it sound as good?

the format apple use AAC can be played on any device capable of playing MP3 music, unless you've an incredibly old MP3 player.

AAC is an open format, supported by Sony (PS3, walkman, SonyEricsson phones) Nokia, Wii and so on and so on and so on.

Hell even the cheap chinese knock off's these days support AAC format.

The only reason people know about AAC these days is because of iTunes.

iTunes doesn't support FLAC however it does support WAV files which can easily do CD quality and better.

People shouldn't make half arsed comments when they don't know what they are talking about.

Hey Ben- last time I checked there wasn't an argument here until you arrived. Maybe save your comments for youtube.

@Ben: Where did you read a references to AAC in any of these comments?

Perhaps you aren't clear on the difference between AAC and Apple Lossless (ALAC)? AAC is a lossy codec. You are correct that it is supported by most in-market playback devices.

This post, and these comments are regarding high-fidelity playback. In this case specifically, Apple Lossless. ALAC encoded files are larger and sound better. However outside of the Apple ecosystem, they are unusable.

Thus while you can encode at this higher quality in iTunes, and you can stream your high-quality content over the air to an Airport Express, the digital bits seem to stop there.

Apple has not announced support for licensing ALAC, nor are there any third party devices which have implemented the open-source playback hack that allows VLC and MPlayer to play back the content.

If you want an open, lossless format your best solution is FLAC. Sadly, Apple does not support playback natively in iTunes. While there are workarounds for playback and streaming, it's a total kludge.

This was the point of my comment above. Note the words 'Apple Lossless' in the first sentence.

To read more about lossless (high quality) encoding and a comparison of the current formats you can check out the FLAC site.

Actually, transfer from the computer to the Airport Express and on is bit-to-bit true. Stereophile tested this thoroughly, with comparison of files before and after transfer, and found a 100% match when they pulled the signal out of the Toslink optical of the Airport Express. (The same minijack connector supplies a line out and an optical out signal).

However, the DAC (digital to analog converter) inside the Airport Express is not top notch, which means that when you're using regular analog line out from the AE you're getting a reduction in signal resolution.

I like the convenience of iTunes and AE. All my favourite music is sampled at Apple Lossless or in a very few instances uncompressed AIFF or WAV (which iTunes recognizes). Music I enjoy, but wouldn't sit down to listen to attentively, I sample at 320/192. This helps me get room for more on the harddisk.

@ekoshyun:

Ever worry about what you'd do with all those Apple Lossless files if you wanted to use a different player or streaming solution?

I can absolutely tell the difference between 320 bit and lossless encoding, but so far I've decided to live with the compromise knowing I have freedom of choice going forward.

That said, I really do wish there were a viable non-proprietary solution for streaming lossless files through airtunes.

You can stream lossless FLAC files from either WinAmp or MediaMonkey to an AirPort Express using the Remote Speakers Output plugin.

http://emilles.dyndns.org/software/out_apx.html

In fact, you can stream anything WinAmp or MediaMonkey can play, since the Remote Speakers Output plugin takes the program output and automatically streams it losslessly to the AirPort. It will not stream the output of other programs though - like the assorted beeps and borps Windows makes - which is a good thing unless you want to stream Pandora or something. Then I'd recommend Airfoil, although it's harder to setup, configure and use in my experience.

There are several facets interacting here.

1. quality of the digital stream. If you're playing mp3s or aac or some other compressed version, spending money on a DAC won't hurt, but probably won't help.

2. DACs output line-level signals, so you'll need to hook it into an amp before your speakers.

3. Speaking of speakers. If you want to improve the quality of your sound, this is where $600 can really help out. The difference between good speakers and bad speakers is /much/ bigger than between a good DAC and a bad one: just like there is a difference between a good amp and a bad one, but you need everything else to be pretty good before that difference is noticable.