Well plans for a computer hub for music took a down turn today. I embarked on some critical listening. I imported Big Buds "Late Night Blues" in a brand new user account on the mac. I imported the CD in Native AIFF format, WAV format and AAC compressed format. All were routed to the HIFI with standard maplin leads via the standard anologe outputs on the mac. The mac was all set to maximum volume, however the EQ was turned off in itunes. The whole lot was through a tape loop on the 52, the orginal CD was then put in the CDi for comparison. Firstly AIFF. Sounded good but very wooly. The sound was bloated and overly warm. I had the CD running the same track at the same time, switching between was bloody obvious. WAV. Sounded preciesly like AIFF, and again wooly and ill defined. The girlfriend described it as flat. Very good description, it sounded a bit like it had travelled many thousands of miles and was feeling tired! AAC. Rubbish. So here I am back to square one, if the AIFF sounds crap, bearing in mind its the original format and without compression where do I go. My original assumption was that it would all osund broadly similar, so I could sell the CDi and invest in the optical/dac route. My fear now is that I can;t do this without first hearing what the outcome will be. I am not confident that a DAC etc will improve the sound by 200% which is what I believe is required. The only problems I can invisage are the leads, they equal around 6 metres. BUt are in four parts, stereo mini jack to phono converters>phono to phono>phono to phono> femal doubles>phono to din. Now I am not a believer in cables philosphy as you all well know, but such a long distance might benifit from a single run, which I am investigating. So all in all dissapointed, where too now? One bonus, I found an excellent programme which hits amazon and my itunes folder to created a website with all my music on with the covers. I then click on it to get the music started. This is really nice. Imagine the future, I am sat in the bedroom, fancy hearing something, click on to the web goto my site, select the tune and route it through to the bedroom from the sitting room. Tidy.