How to connect macbook AIR to my W4S Dac2

Sushant Sharma

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Hello FMs
I have recently bought an Apple Macbook air late 2017 with high Sierra as OS. I am new to the macbook.I downloaded all the requisite drivers for Mac from the wyred4sound website to pair the DAC.
I am unable to see the drivers show up on the laptop. It should be possible to connect this DAC with the laptop right? read up a bit of feedback about apple and proprietary issues.

The DAC connects to my old windows laptop just fine but not the apple macbook.
need some inputs and help please. many thanks.
 
Send your problems here. The queries regarding wyred4sound will be answered during EST working hours.

 
Send your problems here. The queries regarding wyred4sound will be answered during EST working hours.

Thanks Saikat. Message sent to W4S.
 
So folks at wyred4sound recommend either an upgrade on the DAC or buying a w4s uLINK spdif convertor. I now see on the forum that a lot of folks know how this works and have been doing it. I am a little late to the party.
Any more info from the members will be welcome.
 
So folks at wyred4sound recommend either an upgrade on the DAC or buying a w4s uLINK spdif convertor. I now see on the forum that a lot of folks know how this works and have been doing it. I am a little late to the party.
Any more info from the members will be welcome.

I'll get one spdif reclocker someday as my digital transport has only digital spdif coax output. As per specs uLink upsamples/downsamples all signals to 96khz. I'll try to get something that either supports 192khz or be bitperfect. Now whether my dream spdif reclocker will be better or inferior to uLink that is a question. The other way around could be - upgrade my transport so that the inbuilt clocks are better and a reclocker is not needed at all.
 
I think the W4S Dacs dont have drivers for the newer Mac OS. The solution is to go back to an older version of the OS if you want to use the USB output from your Mac.

However that said, the headphone outputs of Macs also double up as an optical out (a secret many Mac users are not aware of). You can use your headphone out to extract the digital signal via optical and send it to your w4s optical in. You can get this blue rigger cable, which works like a charm and is cheap. The optical cable supports 24/192 files i think. Hope this helps.




Cheers.
 
I think the W4S Dacs dont have drivers for the newer Mac OS. The solution is to go back to an older version of the OS if you want to use the USB output from your Mac.

However that said, the headphone outputs of Macs also double up as an optical out (a secret many Mac users are not aware of). You can use your headphone out to extract the digital signal via optical and send it to your w4s optical in. You can get this blue rigger cable, which works like a charm and is cheap. The optical cable supports 24/192 files i think. Hope this helps.




Cheers.
Thanks Harry. I think you are right about the w4s drivers being incompatible with the new OS of the mac. Have been using the headphone Jack to connect directly to the integrated amplifier bypassing the DAC completely for time being.
Can you say with certainty that the toslink cable suggested by you will help the DAC come into the equation and secondly you seem to have faith in this brand of cables and I like the price point too. any other suggestions besides the blue rigger? or is it a good cable.
thanks for your inputs.
 
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Thanks Harry. I think you are right about the w4s drivers being incompatible with the new OS of the mac. Have been using the headphone Jack to connect directly to the integrated amplifier bypassing the DAC completely for time being.
Can you say with certainty that the toslink cable suggested by you will help the DAC come into the equation and secondly you seem to have faith in this brand of cables and I like the price point too. any other suggestions besides the blue rigger? or is it a good cable.
thanks for your inputs.
Blue rigger is a good cable to start with. Very good in terms of its price and the general tonality.


There are other cables also eg micca premium optical which are little expensive than blue rigger but worth it. Once you hear micca, you will not go back to blue rigger.

It sounds strange and hard to believe, but optical cables though digital, have their own sound signature just like rca analog cable.
 
I have been using this cable for the past 2 years with my w4s Dac2, The cable has a good price point to start with and will get your Dac up and running through your Mac.

Like Amit pointed out , there are many kind of cables out there. I am a firm believer that cables make a difference, the difference can be just noticeable to huge depending on the resolution of your system . You can experiment with other cables later when you want more out of your digital files.(Keeps the upgraditis bug alive:):))

Cheers
 
Pardon my ignorance Harry , sushant and others
I had read in many sites that Mac does not need any drivers for a dac upto a certain bitrate which is mostly 24 / 192.

In that case the DAC should have worked for sushant .

Am I missing something here ?

Never used a Mac
 
Mac does not need driver. If you connect even with USB, mac will spot the dac in the music software. You can connect with usb or optical. Wont make a diff in spotting the dac.

Reading your original post - you are writing - "I am unable to see the drivers in the laptop." Don't know what you mean by this. But just go back to your music player software, preferences, and you will see the DAC listed there along with Apple internal speakers etc. Select here. You will also see the DAC in system , preferences, sound, but ignore this.
 
Rikhav Gerry The Merry
The Macbook Air 2017 will not read my DAC (which I connected via an hdmi cable to the USB port on the mac and USB port on the DAC) and it doesn't show up anywhere on the mac as also in the places suggested by you. That was the whole problem. When connected the same way on the windows laptop, everything works just fine.
Pardon if I used confusing terminology.
 
You mean you used a USB cable to connect Mac to dac

Issue is now clear to me but don't understand why it won't even play lower bitrates for which ideally Mac does not need a driver

Can you do one thing. Am not sure if it works for a Mac or not
Uninstall any driver you installed . And then connect dac and let OS choose it's own drivers.
See if that helps in any way
 
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