Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

What's the thinking with the off-board DAC (I'm assuming audio interface - was it you with the focusrite scarlett/red?) not doing any DAC? Is the Mac optical out a bit shit?

Yeah that was me. I love little offboard DACs, having a dedicated piece of hardware for audio ringfences the digital signal generation and offers a more stable and higher quality output than the Mac mini’s standard optical out. More specifically, jitter and signal to noise are significantly reduced. I’m pretty certain I have more headroom too so it’s a win all round.

Just to clarify:
Mac mini with a Creative soundblaster G5 DAC -> optical -> hifi DAC -> pre-amp

Though if I had a better hifi DAC I’d just USB in to that.