New Mac Mini's Internal DAC

[dochungwell]

Hello All,

I am a newbie to this forum and digital audio is relatively new to me.

My question is, the new 2012 Mac Mini appears to have an Internal 24/192 khz DAC, will I need to have an external DAC to decode this, or can I simply just connect this into the RCA input of my ancient ADCOM pre-amp lacking a Toslink and benefit from the new 24/192 internal DAC upgrade, without the need to purchase an external DAC....(is this too niave of me).

FYI I am contemplating re-encoding my music CD's to AIFF files, and I am listening through rather large home made electrostatic speakers ,and DBX crossover and a velodyne sub.

And lastly I am aware that iTunes will need an add-on such as Pure music D, or something of the sort.

All suggestions will be welcomed!

Thanks
Doc

[Pano]

The new Mac Mini had a combo 1/8" mini jack for analog audio and digital output as well as HDMI, right?

As CDs are 44.1/16, the internal DAC should have no problem handling that. But most SPDIF outputs (like the mini-jack) don't handle more than 48Khz sample rate. That's OK for CDs, if you are not resampling them in software. I think the SPDIF output via mini is optical, so that would not go right into your ADCOM DAC, nor would the HDMI output.

There are others here who can tell you more about the audio flow on the Mac, but if you can get your ripped CD AIFF files out in their native resolution (44.1/16), as coax, your old ADCOM should be happy with with.