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Motherboards with external DAC (ESS etc.)

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Aug 16, 2015
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Motherboard
MSI Z390 Gaming Edge AC
CPU
i5-9600K
Graphics
UHD 630
Mac
  1. iMac
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
Does ESS DAC works separately than Realtek or is it part of package? And DSD hardware decoding works on OS X?
 
check the DAC vendors for support of OSX, the mainboards and realtek chips have nothing to do with it. if you use a DAC you can disable the onboard audio chip in bios. if it is hardware decoding then it has nothing to do with OSX
 
check the DAC vendors for support of OSX, the mainboards and realtek chips have nothing to do with it. if you use a DAC you can disable the onboard audio chip in bios. if it is hardware decoding then it has nothing to do with OSX

asking because new Realtek chips have DSD decoding but doesn't work in DoP mode on Mac. USB DAC works as plug&play.
 
It's gong to depend on how good the audio circuits are implemented on your motherboard. I'm using a nicer MB with a dedicated power supply section for the audio and it the output is indeed clean. I'm just using the hack to enable Apple's default audio driver. It sounds good, good enough I put the Meridian DAC in a draw. Numerous people have commented on how good the audio sounds.

I'm using power studio monitors and a high subwoofer, the MB audio is doing just fine.
 
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