My Denon AVR is NOT Roon Ready. I’m looking to buy a Fiio K13 R2R Dac for my Mac mini for headphone listening. Can I then connect this to my Denon with cables to give a lossless feed so I can listen lossless on my living room speakers, instead of lossy AirPlay?
If you connect the DAC to your Mac Mini, this will offer lossless audio. The only option available using this setup is to connect the AVR using the line output from the DAC. This is an analogue connection, so the DAC and AVR need to be in close proximity.
If the AVR has a digital input (S/PDIF, USB etc.), a better option would be the addition of a Roon Ready network streamer, e.g. FiiO SR11. Note that this only offers 2-channel audio.
Thanks for your reply. The AVR and the Mac are in the same room. A cable run would be 2-3 metres. I can, using HEOS, get the AVR set up with Tidal/Qobuz connect, and I can use Elmedia player to send FLAC files via DLNA to the AVR, but Elmedia doesn’t do DSD (I have a sizeable library of those). Pine Player for Mac does DSD, but has no DLNA option, so only good for local Mac playback.
Um, if the cable run is only 2-3 metres, why not connect the Mac and the AVR using HDMI? That would give you both lossless and multichannel audio…
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I have one of those small hubs connected to my Mac mini via USB-C. That has an HDMI port on it. Would connecting an HMDI cable to that and to the AVR give me that lossless audio? The HDMI port on the Mac is already being used for the monitor.
Not sure - you could always try it to see what happens?
Two or three metres of line level cable is not recommended, so go down the HDMI route.
Note that many devices support DSD at the input only, and convert to PCM. It’d be helpful if you state the Denon model.
It’s an S760H. Denon PDF says: The AVR-S760H features premium 32-bit D/A converters allowing for high-resolution audio decoding with multiple lossless file types including ALAC, FLAC and WAV at up to 192kHz/24bit. It is also compatible with 2.8/5.6- MHz DSD files (the audio coding format of SACD)
You have these inputs:
Composite x 2, HDMI x 6, Optical Digital x 2, RCA Analogue x 2, RCA Analogue (Phono (MM)) x 1, USB-A x
Your DAC doesn’t have any digital outputs, so HDMI is probably your best option if you want multichannel. The AVR is Roon Tested, too.
Whilst it accepts DSD on the input, an AVR is doing lots of DSP, so everything will be concerted to PCM. May as well let Roon do the conversion.
It’s still going to be an an inprovement on AirPlay though?
If the HDMI path doesn’t work, you can get an USB-C to Toslink Optical cable/adapter for $25. I tested using a WiiM Pro optical out to Denon AVR-A1H before the Denon got the Roon Ready HEOS update. I also used the HDMI path directly from a Nucleus One…just because 
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I would proceed with your headphone DAC/amp purchase, and then run quality interconnects at line level from it to the Denon. Up to 3 meters/10 ft is probably the very max for this, but unless you are in an excessively electrically noisy environment you will be fine with decent cables.
You indicate that you have a good number of DSD recordings. Even though the specs say the Denon can play DSD64 and DSD128, it can only do so when playing from a network share or connected USB storage device and not over HDMI, your planned DAC will do DSD256. Roon can translate/down sample to 192 PCM so you can use an HDMI connection to get lossless PCM.
Another option is to use Roon Extensions and then broadcast to Heos which is way better than Airplay. However, it requires some setup and I’m not sure about running VMs on Mac.
The separate DAC is of a higher quality than the DAC built into the AVR, so use it for what it does best and pass the decoded sound to the amp to let it do what it does best. This seems to be the simplest and highest quality solution for your circumstances.
I went down a similar route with a Marantz AVR which is functionally the same as the Denon. Whatever you decide to do to get off AirPlay will give you miles of instant improvement.
Let us know how it goes!
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There is a device called the Primare NP5 designed specifically for the use case of connecting legacy gear like an AVR. It can sit atop your kit, receive Roon wirelessly and pass what it receives via a short digital interconnect. Mk1’s should be available on the second hand market at reasonable prices.
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I would like to say thank you all for your help. I spend the atrocious amount of twenty quid, and got a 5m HDMI cable. On the back of the Mac Mini there’s only one HDMI port, but I had a small Anker hub, that also had an HDMI port, so I made sure that this hub was plugged into the correct USB-C port on the rear of the Mac, and connected the monitor into this hub, I conencted the new HDMI cable directly to the Mac and the other end to the AUX 1 HDMI port on the rear of the Denon S760H. Voila! Lossless everything, except DSD, which is converted to PCM, but still higher quality than AirPlay. Oh, finally, I set the Denon AVR up into Core Audio in Roon audio setup, and dleeted the AirPlay.
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If you are concerned about high fidelity do not run an amp off a headphone signal. A headphone amp,s headphone jack is a low impedance output because headphones are a low impedance load (2 to 8 ohms). This match gives headphones good volume control, and “maximum power transfer” to the headphones. You may google maximum power transfer. Without impedance matching, and adapting to maximum power transfer, the sign wave into the headphones distorts. This is because an impedance mismatch causes a lag or lead in time between the current wave from, and the voltage wave form. Speakers and headphones turn power into sound. It is not the voltage alone, or the current alone, it is the power, the watts, that make the sound and when they shift power drops and the power wave form distorts. A stereo amp’s Line In is different, it is not a power device like headphones. It is only the voltage signal that is used, not current signal or power signal. An amp input impedance is high, and expects the output of the device connected to it also be a high. High impedance systems are designed to eliminate a variety of different concerns to maintain signal integrity throughout the various manipulation that the signal must be subjected to ,like gain, balance, … If you mismatch the source and load of the signal, you will be introducing distortions into the signal. You can expect differences in amplitude and waveform shape depending on the frequency. The signal will be measurably different. Always match high impedance output devices with high impedance input devices, and low with low.
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The Fiio K13 has line out, but OP chose to use HDMI direct from a Mac Mini to the AVR.
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That works.
I haven’t yet got the K13. Yes, I am running the HDMI direct from the Mac. I have a Topping DX1 here, that has a line out. i didn’t use that as it’s the other side of the room, and line level runs are not a good idea if a few metres, as I read above. I use the Topping, when I want to listen via headphones. I can plug them into the Denon of course, but I get a lossless feed to the Topping from the Mac, and makes sense to use that when I’m sitting at my computer desk.
A word of warning when running an external DAC into an AVR. Nearly all AVRs will take the analogue signal from a DAC, convert it back to digital, process it digitally, and then convert it to analogue again via the internal DAC. You need to make sure that the AVR is providing genuine analogue pass-through. Otherwise the external DAC becomes redundant at best. If the sound from your AVR comes out as 2.1, or if room correction has been applied, then the signal has been digitised.
I tried setting up a Yamaha AVR with analogue pass-through and high-level pass-through on the subwoofer. I didn’t like the resulting sound at all.
If you are happy with the DAC inside the Denon, then you simply need to pass a lossless digital signal to the AVR. Use an HDMI cable as suggested or use a streaming device. A Raspberry Pi using USB, or fitted with a coax or optical HAT, would be entirely sufficient. There are plenty of streamers available these days though.
Q. Do you want streaming only, or are you looking to use a better DAC as well?