Looking for a DAC that has..

Kz - The Synchro-Mesh has 30-day money-back guarantee, less shipping and any fees.

"What is the preferable interface cable, optical or coaxial?"

Coax is generally better, but you have to spend some money on it. A cheap glass Toslink is usually better than a cheap coax.

"With synchro-mesh being able to output (24/96) max, is it safe to assume there aren't any audible difference? My understanding is optical cannot handle sample rate higher than 96."

There will be audible differences in any cables. Toslink supports 192.

"At the moment I use Audioquest Cinnamon optical cable ($65) from AppleTV to Electro-ECD1 dac. I will need another cable when Synchro-Mesh is added to the system. Any recommendation??"

As long as this is a glass cable, it will be fine. A $500 coax cable will outperform it however.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Hi Steve, appreciate for detail answers. Just ordered Synchro-mesh today. :) Can't wait!

As mentioned before I'm also thinking to move ECD-1 dac. It seems on this forum a lot of people like Metrum Octave or Eastern Electric dac. What would be your recommendation for use with Synchro-mesh+AppleTV? Will I be able to hear improvement over ECD-1 dac?

Btw, I essentially put the dream dac mentioned in the original post on hold, at least for now. I think my current Pass XP-10 pre should be up to the task for whatever addition I make in the coming weeks.

I think you're making some good moves and are heading in the right direction. I was intrigued by the new Metrum DAC (the HEX) myself, but some guy on the whatsbestforum is suggesting they are probably using a 16 bit DAC chip (TI DAC8580) which is obviously an issue if you do high rez (it will chop off 8 bits from 96/24 material). Not officially confirmed (Metrum does not disclose what DAC chip they use), but a red flag nonetheless.

"It seems on this forum a lot of people like Metrum Octave or Eastern Electric dac. What would be your recommendation for use with Synchro-mesh+AppleTV? Will I be able to hear improvement over ECD-1 dac?"

Yes, the Metrum or even a W4S DAC2 will be an improvement over the ECD-1. The D/A module in it is dated.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Hi Edorr, a lot of thanks to you and Steve. If we hadn't had this thread, I'm not sure how much time and money I would waste more. Can't wait for the Synchro-mesh and during the meantime I'm thinking of acquiring a dac for comparison with my ECD-1 dac.

Regarding Metrum Octave, I read somewhere it uses 4 chips for analog conversion. Two 16-bit DAC equals to a single 32-bit DAC, no? Total of 4 chips for 2 channels?

Or someone with Octave can easily detect in their listening while playing 24/96 material? Chopping off 8 bits seems like a lot.