The OFFICAL Apple TV thread

Jastorg1 -

I have not tried the USB input on the Rega DAC, and have not heard the USB on the rDAC, so no opinions from me. I don't want my computer tied to my system, hence the reason why I went with the Apple TV gen 1.

The only way to find out if a laptop would be better than the AVT2 would be to try it out. No one can tell you what you'll hear, then can only tell you what they hear. If I listened to what people told me I'll hear, everything would sound great and horrible at the same time!

PCM is a digital signal, not analog. I may be wrong, but I think PCM is basically a 2 channel digital signal, whereas DSD is multichannel. Someone will probably rightfully refute that.

Kops,

As Yioryos was speculating, the ATV 2 has an optical digital output, which bypasses the internal DAC.

Kbarkmian,

Yup it's true I need to try it myself. ANyways, I believe ATV1 has a hard drive so we are different.. ATV2 completely streams audio via wifi or a connected LAN before going to whatever it is that is in your system..

Well actually the Apple TV Generation 2 does not have an internal DAC, since the only way to output audio is via a optical out. An optical out must be fed to a DAC if you wish to make music. :-)
The first generation Apple TV could output both in optical or analogue.

Just some thought.

I have an ATV2 and in the process of ordering a DAC. I'm streaming music from ATV2 through Airport Extreme from Macbook Pro and have two thoughts.
1) Does wifi signal affect sound quality? (for example 802.11a/b/g/n)
2) I'm thinking of replacing the airport extreme with the time capsule which has a built-in hard drive. Can I save my entire itune music to the time capsule so that it is more direct streaming than from the Macbook Pro?