Well... with much curiosity I've swapped my DACMagic with Apogee Duet!

The sound quality I will say that they are about the same unless Duet require a bit of a 'burn in' time?

But there is a convenient of the volume control with the duet.

HOWEVER, I'm connecting my Beolab3 to apogee duet via 1/4 inch converter to RCA converter as provided. When everything is on but no music is playing. I can hear a light humming background noise from the speakers (in fact it is still there during the music is being played but it is just less noticeable. This happen even when I turn duet volume all the way down. It will only go away if I muted duet unit. 

The hum sound wasn't there when I were using the DACMagic which make me think that maybe DACMagic produce a clearer sound after all??

Is there something wrong with my setup? 

Usually when I've had any hum in my BL3s it's been cable related.  That's not to say that it couldn't be the DAC.  I'm not too familiar with the Duet (although I almost bought one this week)  but I know there are alot of settings in the software.  I sure wouldn't expect hum out of a DAC from Apogee.

If I use my Arcam8 Integrated Amp between Apogee duet and Beolab3 then the noise goes away. But it is a bit excessive. I should be able to connect speaks directly to it. This is the reason why I changed from DACMAgic to duet, so to have less equipments...

Any other suggestion is welcome.