Wed Jul 11, 2018 5:52 pm
I think the output you are referring to is the optical digital audio output jack. I have no experience with the system you have or with digital audio outs, but I may be able to help. Right now it sounds like you are feeding your speakers through the headphone jack to a 1/4 inch splitter. You would have to get a digital audio cable and a converter to convert the audio to analog anyway, to connect to your speakers using the digital audio out. If the converter has a better DAC you might notice slightly better quality, but the Mac has pretty good digital audio conversion already. A cheap converter would probably sound no better and maybe worse. Digital audio outs are mostly to connect to a home theatre system, I believe, which aren’t the best for Hauptwerk. If you want better sounds, I would recommend a USB or FireWire audio interface (though again, may not be better depending on how expensive it is, and what kind of DAC it uses).