ipod as source?

Try Digital site for this query, which I do not understand. What are you trying to accomplish?

Neal

i want the digital signal from ipod without using the internal headphone amp or dac that sounds less than stellar. i realize apple has the digital out coded and the wadia or decco or a european only toshiba or onkyo dock are the only tools to do this presently. just wondered if anybody knew some other way.....thanks

I think that's about it.

I went with an Apple TV. Think of it as a 160gb iPod with an optical output. Far easier and more fun to control too. If you don't want a TV in the room, use an iPod Touch or iPhone as remote.

thanks. lots of good ways to get around the ipod thing. i,m using a ibookg4 to stream. i,m sure one day soon someone will make a unit. the wadia is nice but i,d rather just buy more music than duplicate another source anyway. just like to use all the toys ha

There is a cable I purchased on Amazon. It has the charging, play plug on one end and a pair of RCA's on the other. It works with my Nano, but not with my Touch. I believe it uses the Dac in my receiver as it bypasses the internal volume of the ipod. it is definately alot better than using the headphone jack.

thanks i.ll try one

Shiva,

That cable doesn't bypass the DAC in the iPod. It bypasses the amp in the iPod. And yes, it should definitely sound better.

I gave my nephews cables for their ipods some years ago that bypassed the volume control and amp of the ipod, and even they (not audiophile hobbyists) noticed the sonic improvement.

As for bypassing the ipod DAC, I wonder what Apple is charging firms for the rights and/or hardware to control that. It does seem like any available components to do that are expensive.

Art

Tried both the Onk and the Wadia digital out docks. It is a giant myth that the iPod DAC is inferior. The headphone stage is inferior. Tap the fixed audio from the iPod dock connector on the bottom of the unit. Route this trough a preamp or good headphone amp and be prepared to be blown away assuming your files are not overly compressed.

took your advice and started using a dock and the sound improvement was great. not as good as thru my vdac and cd player but still much improved

I have an iPod cable from Ram Electronics similar to this, but without the USB drop. Wish I'd gotten it that way as it enables you to keep the iPod connected to AC power. Even so, this type of cable (and the RAM is a well-made cable) extracts the analog audio from the dock pinouts, thereby bypassing the iPod's opamp behind the headphone jack.

However, the best analog sound I've extracted from my iPod Touch is by using a Zu Pivot mini-to-RCA cable. The Zu cable is so much better that it trumps bypassing the opamp with a mid-level cable.

Pleased to agree with Johnnyb53. I use the Zu Pivot cable when I need to take my iPod as source for some type of auditioning or demonstration, sometimes paired with a Winsome Labs Mouse that I take along too, and it never fails to astonish music listeners. For this reason, that the headphone output stage is inferior is probably a monster myth too.

Grege - Are you saying that the reason my Onkyo iPod dock sounds like junk compared to my CD and SACD players is because I'm comparing lossless to lossy and not because of the iPod DAC? If so, I would expect to notice a significant improvement when I put my iPod on the dock now that I have Apple Lossless files that I can load it with. Is there something about the Onkyo dock that would prevent this from being the equivalent of using the basic cables to connect?

MSB makes an iPod that is modified so the DAC is bypassed. It's a very nice unit. Somewhat expensive though.