Mac Audio - my Hackintosh based Music Player

[kiwisincebirth]

Hi MacTester, just went through your build again, good work as usual, A couple of questions.

I see from the pictures you have an internal USB device to drive the two RCA stereo sockets. What is the device? and why this over the motherboard audio. I also believe the 3.5mm jack also drives optical digital output wouldn't this be the best output?

Secondly, have you finished yet? I don't see the iPod touch up front.

Kiwi.

 

[rehpotsirhc]

If you could post anything about your little amp that would be great, it seems like an interesting project in its own right.

 

[MacTester57]

Hi MacTester, just went through your build again, good work as usual, A couple of questions.

I see from the pictures you have an internal USB device to drive the two RCA stereo sockets. What is the device? and why this over the motherboard audio. I also believe the 3.5mm jack also drives optical digital output wouldn't this be the best output?

Secondly, have you finished yet? I don't see the iPod touch up front.

Kiwi,

Thanks for the praise. The internal Audio device is the following DAC: http://www.ebay.ch/itm/Hifimediy-Sa...ltDomain_0&hash=item20d29fe49b#ht_1117wt_1265

I bought it to compare its sound quality with the integrated optical audio out (connected via a V-DAC to my DIY AMP) on the DQ77KB. The integrated green analogue audio out on the MOBO is not suitable for HiFi. The result is, that the Sabre DAC is not bad, but not as good as the connection via V-DAC. I think, I will not use it in the final build and use it as headphone DAC instead.

The front plate is not yet finished. At the moment, I'm in the process of moving the Windows 7 installation (and the CAD) to the cube, because I intend to use it as my main system...

If you could post anything about your little amp that would be great, it seems like an interesting project in its own right.

Some informations about the AMP can be found here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85932998/TA2024 Amplifier/Archiv.zip

MacTester

 

[MacTester57]

Very small update:

My only Windows 7 license is now moved to the cube. Because this is the 3rd computer which does run with this Windows 7 SSD, I did a new installation from scratch. Everything is running fine now.

I hope, that I will find some time to finish the CAD design of the front plate this week.

The wireless mouse and keyboard work with the Bootcamp drivers in Windows7x64, but the additional wheel-mouse is needed for the CAD gestures.

The "MacAudio" (with its unfinished front plate) is running fine since weeks and even my wife is happy with it.

MacTester

 

[MacTester57]

Today, I have some more news

After I've finished the CAD design oft the front plate, I milled and assembled the front plate today.

The milled cutout for the iPod:

The iPod fits perfectly:

Milling finished:

Tapping several M3 on the back side:

Test fitting the front USB port:

The iPod on - off button: Its realization was a bit tricky, because the iPod's power button has to be pressed sideways!

Front views of the assembled front plate:

…and a back view!

MacTester

 

[MacTester57]

...and a quick shot along with my DIY Amp. The OS X desktop is displayed on the iPod via VNC and the App "PocketCloud". The orange LED is not definitely. There will be two blue LED for power and HDD.

MacTester

 

[ersterhernd]

Absolutely outstanding!!!!

 

[iCubeFan]

Congratulations on another masterpiece! You rock

 

[rick26]

Wow this is really awesome work mactester!

 

[minihack]

Absolutely beautiful......stunning work.