"Rich Teer" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 25 Oct 2011, wrote:
As I write I am listening to Los Indios Tabarajas "Jungle Dream".
Source is an Ipod playing through my Quad Esl63/Gradient based system.
I have to admit it doesn't sound half bad and am wondering what would
it take to make the Ipod a truly High End source. Is it even
Two things would be required:
1. The use of uncompressed or losslessly compressed files. If you're
using MP3 or AAC, you're wasting your time. Use WAV or AIFF insteadx
(insert rant here about why Apple should support FLAC on their iDevices
and iTunes), at the highest possible word size and bit rate.
2. Connect your iPod to an external DAC using a digital connection.
The iPod's internal DAC is a piece of crap, so bypassing it is a must
for decent sound quality. Use the Wadia i170 transport or similar
(just plugging your iPod into a regular dock will no doubt use the
crappy internal DAC).
There's quite a bit of evidence that none of the 3 or more different
internal DACs that have been used in the vaious submodels of the top model
of the iPod have been anything but sonically transparent.
Even Stereophile's test of an early generation iPod shows nothing to
complain about
:
http://www.stereophile.com/mediaservers/934/index.html