All things apple tv

after talking to the founder of computeraudiophile.com, he helped give me that little nudge to go with the MacBook.

I was experiencing shifts in imaging that really bothered me. the vocals also didnt have much shape or texture, even less than the squeezebox I was replacing. I was also concerned about the optical output adding too much digital jitter to the signal. Another issue was my desire to have a smaller screen to navigate the menu's compared to the 57' screen i was currently using. I like to listen to music in the dark and the big screen displaying the album art took me away from that a bit.

these are just my opinions, but I have spent the last few years trying to find a cheaper way to have a music server. i finally sucked it up and decided to do it right. if you are on the fence, go ahead and get a MacBook and a USB DAC of converter to use your own DAC, you will not regret it.

Mr. Holenneck,
If you used the Macbook via Thingy (AES) and Squeezebox (Coax) both into the same Dac (Anthem D2), (as well as Transport and Apple TV) then why should there be such an improvement in sound quality with the Macbook and Thingy, especially versus SB3?
I am trying to understand and very interested! (not critical at all)
Thanks.

Well, the squeezebox was hardwired to a desktop computer via a router. The Ethernet cable was 80 ft long and I could never get over the feeling that I was losing some resolution due to that. The other issue was, even though the SB has a good user interface, I have experienced the user interface of the MacBook and the Apple TV and it is much easier to use and much easier on the eyes.

Those things combined helped me make my decision to try and find something new. After all, it is in our blood to not stay in one place long, if I did that, what kinda audiophile would I be?

The end result is everything that I could have hoped for.

I'm not sure why the macbook, or imac or any mac for that matter would have better imaging and detail then the apple tv. Does the macbook have a higher quality dac? I am definitely not impressed with the audio quality of the apple tv but I wasn't expecting much. For $299 I am extremely impressed with the interface and ease of use. The movie rentals from itunes are as good of quality or better then cable on demand. The photo archiving and playback via screensaver are very neat. I do intend on adding a bel canto dac 3 for the audio quality.

Perhaps there isn't a reason for the Apple TV to not sound as good as a Mac computer, but it didn't. If you lived in my area I would certainly invite you over to experience the difference. For whatever reason, the music did not sound as clean and controlled with the ATV as it does with the MacBook. I just don't think the digital outputs on the ATV are implemented that great. The HDMI and optical outputs both are guilty of higher levels of digital jitter than other digital outputs. That could be part of the reason the music sounded inconsistent at times. Maybe the product isn't ready for primetime? I have also read many negative comments concerning the quality of ATV's audio and video. I can say that the HD video quality was quite poor. Downloading HD content is far from being able to compete with hard disk material. I would say that HD movies downloaded from Apple are only slightly better than the same movie on a SD DVD disk. For some people, these issues may not be as apparent or as bothersome as they are with me. I really wanted to like the ATV, but in the end, I didn't have faith that it was as good as I could do.