DACs: Airport Express vs waveterminal vs mini-dac

Hey all,

Newbie here..so bear with me.

I'm currently sending musci from my older G3 PowerBook laptop to the Airport Express unit, and than out of the AX unit via mini-optical to toslink into my HT receiver (Onkyo 502).

This sounds pretty good at this point in time, but I'm interested in how I could improve the sounds.

After looking at products like the Waveterminal, it seems that I have to power that unit via USB. Since the whole point of this (for me) is to be wireless, that's not an option as I don't want to run a USB cable from my laptop to the Waveterminal device.

Can any of you guys recommend an entry level solution that would be able to take the toslink optical output from the AX and convert to digital coaxial, and also hopefully allow me to improve the final sounds quality coming out of my Onkyo 502?

As a further fyi - for speakers (not that it really matters) I'm using a 5.1 system with Polk 35/25RTi for the front and back, a Mission center and a HSU sub.
Thanks for any help!

Chris

View the following thread:

http://www.AudioAsylum.com/scripts/t.pl?f=pcaudio&m=891

Is there any consensus regarding this question? Which is best and why?

"I tried the Transit on two separate Apple systems myself, and had several friends come to the same conclusion on different systems.
....the music sounded like it was castrated."

I heard back from M-Audio and they have verified that "in order to match levels of the MAC to PC, the MAC digital out must be set to +8."

I recently tried the comparison of MAC to PC using my Off-Ramp at CES, and initially it really sucked, but after turning off all of the DSP functions of the MAC, it got a lot better. The dynamics and loudness was lower though. I think the +8 setting explains this. M-Audio said that the driver fro the Transit for MAC is actually superior to the PC version.

In looking at Gordon Rankin's website discussion of setting up his Cosecant USB DAC he recommends setting the internal volume control on PC's at 50%; but on MAC's he recommends setting the volume control to full output. Seems the PC will add gain to the input signal but the MAC does not.

Perhaps setting the MAC to full output and turning off all DSP functions will help the sound quality of the MAC - Transit (or "Off-Ramp" for Audioengr) - DAC sound quality match that achieved on a PC - Transit - DAC system.

Anyone able to try this?