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fhood
715
Mar 21, 2018
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First let me address some misinformation I am seeing. "Headphone out can't drive high impedance headphones " A DAC is not an amp, and has literally nothing to do with the ability to drive high impedance headphones.
It's kinda complicated, but in general no. If you are willing to spend >$200 on a good DAC then yeah there might be an improvement, but to be honest the built in DACs on newer (I know they were good as far back as 2014) mbps is phenomenal compared to the competition, and it will very likely out perform almost any sub $200 DAC.
I learned this the hard way. I bought an external DAC and as a test I tried a couple of "pick out the higher bitrate tests". I was better at it while using the internal DAC across the board.
Here is the thing. Apple cares very deeply about the audio quality of their devices because musicians are one of their primary targets. As a result they put in very, very good Dacs.
Mar 21, 2018
tyll
98
Mar 22, 2018
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fhoodi can just disagree, when apple designs there laptops they have to follow a certain budget, so the apple engineers have to ask themself: "do we put the 60 cent dac/amp or the 2 dollar dac/amp in it?" the 2 dollar one would be much much better, but there still going to choose the 60 cent one, because if you scale the prize up to all there laptops it makes sense from a business standpoint. No hate to apple all companies do that. (writhing this on my 2016 macbook) I had a little schiit fulla 2 (100 dollar dac/amp) and i fed it through the macbooks headphone jack and the usb c port and you can hear the difference and its not a small one. im sorry if you had bad experience with cheap dacs but its just a fact that apple uses the same schity ones as everybody else.
Mar 22, 2018
darwin
90
Apr 22, 2018
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tyllYou are wrong and have terrible spelling and grammar.
Apr 22, 2018
tyll
98
Apr 22, 2018
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darwindang, thats a compelling argument, really factual, btw sorry for that i guess, but english isnt really my main language. But your invited to tell me where im wrong, id love to learn from you.
Apr 22, 2018
sbandyk
14
May 18, 2018
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tyllYou're making an argument that's more appropriate, and likely more informed by PC manufacturers. It holds less often with Apple hardware from my experience (I've been supporting the platform for going on 20 years... sheesh I'm getting old).
Apple actually designs quite a bit of custom silicon. They design the CPUs & GPUs in iPhones. They design custom controllers for Macs. Heck, they helped design the PowerPC CPUs with IBM and Motorola. I'm typing from a Gen1 MacBook now and the audio (output) hardware's manufacturer is reported as "Apple" in the System Profiler. That said, OS X isn't particularly clear about what they're referring to in the Audio output hardware section but I wouldn't be at all surprised if Apple designed the DAC themselves.
There are numerous examples of Apple doing anything but skimping on components. There's actually a reason why Apple computers generally cost more than what most people consider to be comparable PC hardware. They tend to pack more tech in that most PCs that they get compared to.
Going back to a new MacBook Pro.. is Apple skimping on components? the chipsets in every MBP models support NVMe drives that are on par with the best from Samsung, They support multiple USB-c & Thunderbolt3 ports, and even with the ATI mobile graphics (I'd prefer Nvidia) the laptops have the IO and ports to run two 5K monitors and two TB3 RAID cabinets simultaneously. Recent MBPs might not have the types of ports most people still prefer (USB type A), but they provide superior IO in terms of the number of high-bandwidth ports and total available bandwidth than any business-class laptop I'm aware of (I'm not particularly up on hot-rodded Gaming laptops though). They don't skimp on their other controller silicon and I doubt they're undercutting the quality of their DAC designs to save a few transistors and the few pennies (or fractions of pennies) on per-chip Fab costs.
And... yet it seems the latest MBPs now support lower bit-rate output than previous Apple DACs. I'm wondering if that's a software limitation (I've seen threads complaining about similar issues with older laptops when they had early dot-releases of new OS relases installed), or if it's a hard limitation of the new hardware. Apple's been getting worse with the quality of their major OS updates over the years and, though I would HOPE that we'd have all the major issues worked out of Mac OS 10.13 by 10.13.4, I wouldn't rule that out as a still-yet-to-be-addressed issue... or that what people are seeing is an App limitation, not a system limitation.
Still, if the new Apple DAC is hardware-limited to Lower sample rates, that'd be disappointing but it's unlikely that's because Apple wanted to save pennies on a cheaper mass-made DAC chip... It'll be because someone figured that's as much silicon as they wanted to run for their laptop DAC but they probably still spent a good amount of effort to make it a great sounding DAC at that rate.
May 18, 2018
tyll
98
May 18, 2018
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sbandykjeah, your totally right, Im more a windows person, I build my own gaming tower, but i do have a 12inch macbook and ipads and had an iphone in the past. Im collecting headphones and amps since quiet some time now. I had all kinds of cheapo 100-300 dollar amps and more expensive stuff, since now, all my small dac/amps easily beat the onboard dac of my macbook and 350 dollar asus motherboard, which gets praised for their sound quality, in volume as well as soundstage and just overall quality. i dont wanna argue, whether apple cares more about their customers experience then the other companies, i like my macbook, its fun, but if the dac of a 1600 dollar laptop gets smashed by a 100 dollar usb stick called dragonfly, or a shiity fulla 2, then i just feel like they cut corners at their sound quality. And everybody i asked to listen to both told me the same.
May 18, 2018
sbandyk
14
May 18, 2018
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tyllI wrote a LONG post in boredom last night (knew it at the time and posted anyway) so PLEASE don't read that as me being overly combative. I could rage about a litany of things Apple has done over the years. I don't hold Apple up as an ideal organization. That said, I generally have faith in their overall commitment to making best-of-class hardware. I think they're ultimate driven by the work of a lot of individual engineers who have the best intentions in mind.
I honestly think that decisions like any made around the on-board DAC are driven by more practical matters than shaving a few pennies off the bottom-line.. particularly when we're talking about the Pro lines. I suspect they'd take into account that serious users (like Audio Engineers) would connect their devices to superior external hardware anyway and that would factor into the calculations, but I don't think they'd cripple the on-board hardware just to save a few pennies, or even a dollar or two, on a $1500+ (average retail) laptop model.
Cheers, and my apologies if previous comment came across as harsh or defensive... Steven
May 18, 2018
tyll
98
May 19, 2018
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sbandykI got you bro, it's easy to get carried away, if you talk about something your passionate about. I'm also sorry If I sound a bit hard. And there on-board dac might not be bad, but it also obviously isn't the the endgame some people see it as
May 19, 2018
Nonyabuzi
7
Dec 25, 2018
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fhoodSo i have iem up to $3000. I can tell you my 2015 15inch mbp sounds phenomenal. I don't need an external dac unless it's something like the Chord dave. Mbp outperfirms my lg v10, v2o and v30. Whoever says the mbp has too much noise or isn't as good as a $100 external dac is just rediculous.
Dec 25, 2018
bootster1
61
Feb 22, 2019
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tyllYou are arguing with a cult here. Be prepared for more insults and phenomenal arguments that defy useful logic. We all know what is going on with the MAC computers, and it's just a fact that what you said is true. In it's prime, MAC computers were better equipped to compete with the lack of competition it enjoyed, being able to custom tailor software to it's own liking, as everything only had one customer to satisfy, and that was apple itself. Windows, on the other hand, had to make designs and software that was able to work with thousands of different companies who were writing software to compete with other vendors. Steve Jobs had a manufacturing genius that allowed apple to gain a very large following of computer enthusiasts. He only had one, in house manufacturer to satisfy, and it enabled him to put quality components in his engineer's designs. For a while there, apple was the shnitz when it came to product designers and audio/video developers, as he was meticulous in his ability to produce a very fine product. It's just that the current apple/MAC products have completely lost the Jobs flair. It has become a disappointing change that some people still defend to this day. I'm a grammar policeman, but your grammar is far more tolerable than some of the inane posts that try to defy logic and sound reasoning. It's just a fact that the MAC audio output is inferior to the modern day available options.
Feb 22, 2019
tyll
98
Feb 22, 2019
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bootster1thanks for your words, couldn't write it better. The other day there even was a thread about the wonder of engineering which is the apple headphone dongle, its a complete joke. and i do like my macbook 2016, but its just a joke that they still dont have touchscreens, especially since they plan on streamlining there appstore over the ipad, macbook and iphone. And i would trade my macbook in a heartbeat for a surface pro.
Feb 22, 2019
bootster1
61
Feb 22, 2019
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tyllI have two Surface Pro's. My wife has the SP 4 and I have the one from 2018. I love those things. I haven't had to compare the sound output, as I have no need to listen to it as a HiFi device. It sounds fine for what I am using it for, however. There's a new model out, but I don't see the changes to it worth upgrading to me. Get one, you won't be disappointed.
Feb 22, 2019
tyll
98
Feb 22, 2019
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bootster1i wouldn't worry about the headphone out either, I have a good portable. But i need to sell my macbook first.
Feb 22, 2019
bootster1
61
Feb 22, 2019
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NonyabuziMy gut can't handle that kind of laughter. :) Thanks for the laugh. Oh, and you must really be hooked on LG phones to have three consecutive models and still not be able to discern the difference between a V30 and a 2015 macbook. You say that the Chord DAVE beats your $3,000 unit? Why didn't you just get the Chord DAVE and save some money? I'm curious as to what you spent three grand on and still like your holy grail macbook better. Take your time. : )
Feb 22, 2019
bootster1
61
Feb 22, 2019
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tyllWhat do you mean by a "Portable"? You mean like a cell phone that is capable of scanning a barcode on any package to see who sent it? Something like that? You've got to love new technology. : )
Feb 22, 2019
tyll
98
Feb 23, 2019
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bootster1good one. But no, I mean a little Bluetooth dac amp for when im on the go.
Feb 23, 2019
sbandyk
14
Jun 24, 2019
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bootster1"I'm a grammar policeman"... Sorry, I can't help myself. ;-P MAC is an acronym for "Media Access Control". It refers to a (generally) hard-coded identification assigned to networking hardware. Also known as an Ethernet Hardware Address. An Ethernet MAC is comprised of 6 sets of 2 hexadecimal digits. Common formats: {00.11.aa.bb.22.cc, 00:11:aa:bb:22:cc}. Some vendors also format as 3 sets of 4 hexadecimal digits. E.g. 0011-aabb-22cc Mac is an abbreviation for "Macintosh". All Macs have had MACs for at least 25 years. All modern PCs that I'm familiar with have MACs, but they haven't all had MACs for as long as Macs have. This is because Networking hardware was not standard on PCs for as long as it has been on Macs. :-)
Jun 24, 2019
Gvarsity
1
Jan 20, 2021
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sbandykI do miss the optical out on the older Macbook Pros. I still have a 2015 MBP as a listening station to send FLAC via optical to a DAC/AMP tower and the sound quality was outstanding. I suspect there just weren't enough people using that functionality to merit keeping it in the newer models. Still that 2015 MBP is completely usable for most basic use and for most PCs of that era you would have likely replaced it 2x by now.
Jan 20, 2021
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