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[ssabripo]

Guys,

i need a little help here...been reading the forum all weekend, and I don't think I've found the answer to such simple question 

Current setup
- Win 10, JRiver media 20, running WASAPI, usb out to musiland dongle, to dac...here is the setup:



because work has migrated to Macbooks, and I needed to return my laptop, and because I have a mac at home too, I need to migrate my JR Media setup to the Mac version.

However, I keep getting conflicting replies on how to set it up for bit-4-bit perfect output from the mac to the dac.  I have the following:

New Setup:
- Macbook Pro 2015 (with digital out from headphone jack)
- High Sierra OS, 10.13.4 (17E202)

Since the Musiland dongle doesn't have USB drivers that work well, and since my DAC is an older PS audio digi link III Cullen stage IV (Old, but I love it so not getting rid of it), I'm thinking of just going SPDIF Toslink optical from headphone jack to the DAC.

• Does Core Audio work in High Sierra 10.13.4 and JR 24?
• Should I be using integer mode instead?
• What is the correct setup to send bit-4-bit output via toslink from mac?

[Awesome Donkey]

Typically you don't need audio drivers for Mac (or Linux for that matter), especially if your device supports USB Audio Class 2.0. In fact, starting with the Windows 10 Creators Update which added native USB Audio Class 2.0 support, Windows doesn't actually need drivers either for sample rates above 96 kHz anymore either (unless you need an AISO driver for Windows or something like that).

1. Yes, Core Audio works with High Sierra 10.13.4 and MC24 (using both, works great).
2. If your device works (outputs sound) while integer mode is enabled, I'd recommend leaving it enabled, especially if your goal is bit-perfect output. There's some devices where integer mode doesn't work, hence that option to disable it, but for the majority it should work just fine.
3. Never tried TOSLINK, but using the Core Audio device for your DAC (with exclusive access) + integer mode should result in bit-perfect output, as long as you're not using some DSPs (e.g. volume leveling). But like I mentioned at the beginning about Mac audio drivers... if I were you, I'd check and see if the DAC works using USB first. You might be surprised.