[karotto1]

Hi there,
You could call me an audiophile. I am ripping my CDs not as mp3 but with Apple's losless codec vecause I can hear the difference. Still, when I hook up my Powerbook to my (great) sound system the quality is not very good. Reason is (I think) that the powerbook has a minijack output (which is prone to noise) and a cheap sound card built in. I would like to buy an external USB device so that the powerbook sends digital information to the device and the device converts is (very well) to an analog signal. The device can be hooked up via RCA jacks and not a minijack. So I don't need more than 2 channels or recording capability. Can anyone make a suggestion what device I could buy that fits my requirements and that gives pristine audio quality? Thank you very much. Kent

[ellrond]

I use something called a SqueezeBox. This isn't a sound card, but something much cooler.
It is a nice looking screen that sits on top of your hifi, and accesses the music that is stored on your computer.
Sound quality is great as it uses a Burr Brown DAC and there is a choice of either Gold plated RCA outputs or Digital output.
There is a wired (ethernet) version or a wireless (wifi) depending on your network setup and you can use as many as you like. Just dot them around the house.
The benefit of this system is that whilst the powerbook looks great, linking it up to your hifi will look a little cumbersome whereas the SqueezeBox is small, sleek and stylish.

[moose_n_squirrel]

Maybe one of the units closer to the bottom of this page? Some have RCA out. There's always the Griffin iMic, but you might not like the sound from a $50 device.

[jax]

does the squeezebox work w/ songs purchased from the itunes store yet?

[ellrond]

Sadly it doesn't unless you want to burn it to CD and then rerip it in mp3.
Its a shame, but it is more Apple's fault for not licensing its DRM.