Opinions on Apogee Duet performance

Rrboogie, I haven't placed it in my main system but I would not be surprised if it compared very favorably to my Resolution Audio Opus 21 CDP, which in and of itself is a great CDP.
The headphones I use for listening are Audio Technica ATH-W1000.
I used to listen through a Red Wine Audio modified Ipod and Ray Samuels SR-71, both excellent products and truly portable but the Apogee/Mac combo beats it. It really is that good. If it were to be produced by an audiophile company you could comfortably triple the price.

I am even more eager to hear one now! I have emailed apogee with some technical questions and if I can make it work in my system this will be my next dac.

Thanks for your reply!

I love my Duet. The price is right, set-up is pretty much plug and play and it sounds great. Just remember it's not a stand-alone DAC. It will only take digital input via Firewire and only from a Mac. That means you will have wires going from your laptop to the Duet and from the Duet to your stereo. You will need a big enough hard drive to hold all your music. Also, you can't use the Duet with another kind of transport or with a wireless streaming setup like a Squeezebox.

I didn't like the break-out cable so a friend built me an interconnect. It has just a d-sub connector on one end and a pair of Eichmann bullets on the other. It sounds better, I don't have to use adapters, and I don't have all those extra wires and connectors to deal with.

Just some things to keep in mind.

Sue

I need to have two sets of single ended outputs for my system. Can I use a Y cable for each channel to achieve this or is there another way to do this? From what I have read you have to switch output from either the headphone output or the breakout cable but can't output from both at the same time.I read something about aggregates or something that would allow you to output out of both but I need more info on this. I am sending one pair of outputs to my integrated and another pair to my HT receiver which gives me remote control of my subwoofer and option of mutichannel playback.

There is only 1 set of outputs on the break-out cable, single ended only, using 1/4" microphone type jacks. However, you can use the headphone jack at the same time or mute one or the other using Maestro (included software). I just plugged in my headphones and I'm getting sound from them and my speakers. (The headphone jack is 1/4".)

So you should be able to hook your integrated to the break-out cable and your receiver to the headphone jack or vice versa. Or you could use y-cables to see if that sounds different.

What you can't do is set the line out and headphone volumes independently on the Duet. The Duet FAQ says they run together.

You can set up Aggregate Devices from the Audio tab on the Audio Midi menu bar but I don't know what that does or how to set it up.

Hope that helps.

Sue