Audiophile glossary
Last updated June 2026
Plain-English definitions of the terms that come up when you start caring about digital audio quality on a Mac. Each entry is short and self-contained.
Bit-perfect
Playback where the digital samples in your file reach the DAC completely unaltered — no resampling, no mixing, no OS volume scaling. On macOS it requires exclusive mode plus a matching device sample rate. Full guide.
Exclusive mode (hog mode)
When a player takes sole control of an output device, bypassing the shared macOS Core Audio mixer. This is the key step for bit-perfect output, since the mixer otherwise resamples and mixes all audio. How to enable it.
Integer mode
Sending audio to the DAC as integer samples instead of converting to floating point first. It removes one processing step and, with exclusive mode and rate matching, keeps playback bit-perfect.
PCM (Pulse-Code Modulation)
The standard way digital audio is stored: amplitude sampled many times per second at a fixed bit depth. WAV, AIFF, FLAC and ALAC all decode to PCM.
DSD (Direct Stream Digital)
A 1-bit audio format sampled at very high rates — DSD64 (2.8 MHz) up to DSD512 (22.6 MHz) — used on SACDs and hi-res downloads. It encodes sound differently from PCM. Playing DSD on Mac.
DoP (DSD over PCM)
A method of sending a DSD bitstream to a DAC inside a PCM container, so a compatible DAC receives the original DSD untouched without a proprietary driver. The standard way to play DSD on macOS.
FLAC vs ALAC
Both are lossless codecs that compress PCM with no quality loss and decode to bit-identical audio — they sound the same. FLAC has wider support; ALAC is native to Apple software. FLAC vs DSD vs ALAC.
Sample rate & bit depth
Sample rate is how many times per second audio is measured (44.1 kHz on CD, up to 192 kHz+ for hi-res). Bit depth is the precision of each sample (16-bit on CD, 24-bit for hi-res). For bit-perfect output the DAC must run at the file’s native sample rate.
DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter)
The component that turns digital audio into the analog signal your headphones or speakers play. An external DAC unlocks exclusive mode, integer mode and native DSD on a Mac.
Gapless playback
Seamless, sample-accurate transitions between tracks with no silence inserted — essential for live albums, DJ mixes and classical works. Gapless on Mac.
ReplayGain
A standard that stores a track’s or album’s loudness in its tags so a player can normalize volume across your library without re-encoding the audio.
Upsampling
Converting audio to a higher sample rate (e.g. 44.1 kHz to 176.4 kHz) before output. It doesn’t add detail that wasn’t recorded, but some listeners prefer how a DAC handles a higher rate.
Signal path
The chain every sample travels from file to DAC. A signal-path indicator shows each stage and confirms whether the output is truly bit-perfect or whether something (resampling, volume, DSP) altered it.
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