Thank you for all of the suggestions. I picked up the Pure i20 and am greatly enjoying both the convenience and the improved sound quality. The onboard DAC on that little guy is quite good---at least to my ear. Someday in the near future I'd like to try running the pure into a stand alone 'real' DAC but for now, I'm enjoying the iPod. Thanks again for the suggestions.
iPod as source
OK, first off I will admit that I'm lost. I'm old school and prefer to use CD, LP as source but the kids these days (I know, it's not just the kids) have so much material on digital formats, namely iPods, pads, macs, etc. and I'd like to listen to it with some semblance of quality. I've tried the headphone jack to RCA into my integrated Musical Fidelity A5.5 and, as expected, the results were not good. Better would likely be 30 pin to RCA to use the level line out feature of the iPod to bypass the headphone amp. Should I expect improvement? Lastly, since the A5.5 is equipped with a USB 'b' input, I've considered purchasing a 30 pin to USB b cable to utilize the A5.5 onboard DAC. However, the MF manual states that "the USB input is a USB DAC converter, not a host controller. It therefore does not support streaming from USB players/media drives etc. It only functions with a computer attached." Really? Why is that? Maybe someone can enlighten me before I spend 50 bucks on a 30 pin to USB b cable.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks for your time.