Audio Quality from Mac Book Pro and Xbox

[atchudy]

Does anyone know how the quality of the audio is from a Mac Book pro? Are there any settings to maximize the settings?

How about the quality from XBOX 360? I like to use the interface for connecting my iPod

I have mine connected right now at 100% volume playing from iTunes and id swear it makes my speakers sound better than ever.

[Hdale85]

It wasn't to good out of my Mac Mini. Xbox 360 is pretty poor as well. Best bet is to get a USB DAC to use with the Macbook. If it's just for movies and stuff then the stock output is fine.

[dknightd]

mac book pro output is OK but easy to improve on. Pretty much any external dac will sound better than what comes out of the headphone jack. You might find the difference small, or significant, depending on what you use, what you expect, how critical you are, and what you have downstream. Luckily the macbookpro has usb, firewire, and optical toslink output so your choices are wide. If you
have an AV receiver with optical input you could just try that.

I recommend turning off crossfade and sound enhancer in itunes.
For serious listening I turn off Sound Check, but for casual shuffling I find it handy,
and, if you use Audio MIDI Setup to specify 24 bit audio the volume
adjustment is pretty much transparent. Turn sound check off and set itunes volume at max to get bit perfect output.

Don't know about the xbox. My son uses one and he is happy. Sounds like crap to me, but his speakers are crap so that might be it.

[littlesaint]

Same assessment here. My MacBook analog out is not very good. The optical out (headphone jack doubles as optical out) is as good as any other optical connection, as well as Firewire to my M-Audio DAC.

I've heard that other than certain iMacs which have pretty decent Wolfsen DACs (see posts by Jon Marsh), the analog performance isn't very good on Macs.

[atchudy]

If i connect an ipod to the USB port of XBOX, and then use an optical out, and I really getting a digital signal from the ipod?