Music from hard drive better than CD?

Henryhk: I have heard good things about the McIntosh (thought it is priced at around ($5500). Yamaha has a hard disk player coming out soon (HD 1500 -- I think) that will cost substanitally less than the MAC (under 1K). They have one out right now as well (HD1300, I think -- it is referenced earlier in this thread).

I am still trying to decide between a computer based system and a hard drive system like the Yamaha.

Okay, I think I figured out what I am going to do. I am going to use a Macintosh Powerbook as my interface and drive, and add a firewire hardrive to store my music in a lossless format. The only thing left to consider is, how do I connect the computer to the pre-amp portion of my integrated, with good D/A conversion in between? Thus far the Apogee mini-dac with USB seems like the only (and possibly best) way to connect straight from the computer into my pre-amp while maintaining a very high quality of sound. Any other ideas?

Pardales, my quick check of i-retailers indicates the Apogee mini-DAC will set you back about $1.2K. I use a Waveterminal U24 ($160). If you went that route, it would leave you a cool $1K to find a good DAC that could also be used for other things... $1K on the used market almost gives you a Theta Gen Va, for example, or a Birdland. I haven't A/B'd my Waveterminal/dCS set-up against the Apogee, but I still think the U24 route gives you more ultimate flexibility. The USB input of the U24 will let you put the device right next to the DAC and limit the length of your coax digital interconnect...

Pardales - There are also the two USB DAC's offered by Wavelength, The Cosecant and The Brick, as well as the Grace M902. Of those, the Apogee is certainly the least expensive. I'm pretty sure there are a few others as well.

Marco

Thanks Edesilva and Jax2. I might go with the inexpensive wavelength to begin with and see how it sounds. This is all a bit of an experiment to see if I even like interfacing with my music in this way. If I like it I may then go for a more serious DAC.