New Mac Mini Outputs

anyone have thoughts on the sound quality of toslink over usb. i am buying a used maci mini as a dedicated server. found an old msb link dac in my basements 24/96 pre usb of coarse but it does have toslink which I always was not the connection of choice. I'd run it into my Mcintosh mx132.
Have been buying hdtrack hi-rez files.

Famoej, I haven't listened critically to the mini-Toslink vs USB, but I have used both of them on the same computer. I switched to USB because my toslink connection at the computer became unstable and would frequently result in a transient static-like sound with minimal movement of the computer or Toslink cable.

Again, I haven't done a critical A-B test, but to my recollection they sounded at least very similar, save for the little glitch with the Toslink connection itself.

Since your DAC can handle both, it won't cost you much to hook up both and see what works best for you.

Hope that helps.

Michael

I prefer optical, but I'm a minority.

IME, Optical with a good cable will beat USB unless you are going into a very good USB DAC or into a very good USB-SPDIF converter. Toslink out of a Mac will do 24/96 if your DAC will, but the USB inputs on most DACs will not accommodate the hi-rez stuff.

thx all- my dac does not have usb- i am trying to cheap out on this one with a used mini. ill buy a better dac down the road but my experience, at least when i bought it from MSB years ago was +. the dacs in my old Ovation 8 and my mcintosh sounded better to me so I banished it to the basement. Ill bring it back into service until the time comes when my wife does not notice me spending money on stuff. the link dac is 24/96 so if toslink allows that level of signal, it will be a good start