Regarding Audioengr's comments if they were intended for me, I actually was bypassing the Kmixer on the PC and was well aware of how to set it up through months of screwing around with it and researching. I was running FLAC with ASIO drivers and it was true bit perfect on the dell laptop.
Regarding 16 bit versus 24 bit, I'm not certain, but I thought I heard you mention sometime back that if someone has a dac that upsamples to 24bit, don't upconvert at the source (i.e. the computer), as you're just throwing more "garbage" down the line (i.e. USB cable) to the DAC itself. Anyways, in both setups (MAC and PC), I definitely prefer the 16 bit sample rate at the computer and just let the DAC up-convert. It's crisper, punchier and seems to provide better separation/definition, both with the dell laptop and the IMac. The 24 bit sounds broader and more "blended", but doesn't give you the dynamics of 16 bit settings from the computer.
Every computer/setup is different I imagine, but in my case the IMAC is clearly beating out the Dell laptop (which has FOOBAR and a 750gig external drive feeding FLAC). The IMAC provides more detail now that it's been up and running for a few days and the higher frequencies aren't as harsh though the PC wasn't necessarily bright to begin with (the IMAC seems to work in better tandem with the DAC1).
Throw in the functionality and definitely I'm not regretting switching to MAC at all.
Regarding 16 bit versus 24 bit, I'm not certain, but I thought I heard you mention sometime back that if someone has a dac that upsamples to 24bit, don't upconvert at the source (i.e. the computer), as you're just throwing more "garbage" down the line (i.e. USB cable) to the DAC itself. Anyways, in both setups (MAC and PC), I definitely prefer the 16 bit sample rate at the computer and just let the DAC up-convert. It's crisper, punchier and seems to provide better separation/definition, both with the dell laptop and the IMac. The 24 bit sounds broader and more "blended", but doesn't give you the dynamics of 16 bit settings from the computer.
Every computer/setup is different I imagine, but in my case the IMAC is clearly beating out the Dell laptop (which has FOOBAR and a 750gig external drive feeding FLAC). The IMAC provides more detail now that it's been up and running for a few days and the higher frequencies aren't as harsh though the PC wasn't necessarily bright to begin with (the IMAC seems to work in better tandem with the DAC1).
Throw in the functionality and definitely I'm not regretting switching to MAC at all.