I set up this system for fun and convenience and I am astounded at how good it sounds!

I rip CD's to the MAC G4's hard drive, uncompressed, using AIFF. I use the computer's hard drive as a transport, feeding the digital signal to the Apogee DAC via the USB output from the MAC G4. The Apogee has balanced XLR analogue L & R outputs which I connect to the balanced XLR inputs on the Mackie HR824's. The Mackies are active, bi-amped. This system sounds incredibly good. There seems to be some synergy between these components and the active bi-amped Mackies eliminate the need for amplifiers or speaker cables reducing the signal path after the amplifiers to nothing, eliminating a set of interconnects while providing bi-amplification! I would recommend this system to anyone thinking of using his/her computer as a juke box. I've got this in a 16' X 20' room and it fills the space beautifully. It will end up in a much smaller room eventually. It sounds great up close or from futher away. If you can't tell, I am really pleased with the results. I would also recommend this instead of using a CD player -- this sounds better than $1,000 CD players I have heard (Yamaha s2300). I tried several other configurations, tried an M-Audio USB Audiphile DAC prior to the Apogee, but the Apogee is in a different league, several huge jumps in quality from the M-Audio. This is a seriously high quality DAC. And, I am amazed at these Mackies. These are used by a lot of recording studios because they are so accurate -- usually sold in pro-audio shops -- audiophiles need to become acquainted with Mackie!