IPOD & WADIA dock - Anybody ?

[soundcheck]

Hi folks.

Anybody tried the "Wadia Dock" and an Ipod. (Digital out!)

I am thinking to feed my Twisted Pear Buffalo DAC via Wadia-Dock and an Ipod Touch.

Theoretically it should be a very nice setup, if running lossless material.

Anybody around running this setup? Experiences? Tuning potential?


Cheers

[georgehifi]

These are my opinions on a product "Stereophile" alludes to is high end. The Wadia dock is full of compromises.

What's the use, even if you use a better dac than the one in the Wadia dock, which is cheap, your still at the mercy of the I-Pod itself.
A standard Ipod 3 gig, a cd is 700meg do the math, 4.3 uncompressed cd's fit on the ipod, anything else is compressed.
So a 3 gig ipod was $250aud the Wadia dock over $700aud and you need a better converter like your Buffalo, false economy I say, look how many there are for sale already on Audiogon and such, show's how long they lasting in peoples possession.
Cheers George

[cuibono]

I'm a little interested in the Wadia device too. I say check one out. Best, try listening to one sometime, and the ipod too, should be easy to switch in between. My ipod is 20gig, which by today's standards is probably below average. They go up to 120gig so far. That's about 30 to 180 uncompressed cd's, and many many more if compressed. Thats a lot in my book, and in a very easy to use and inconspicuous format. Just because its consumer doesn't mean it can't have good sound quality. And of course, like any format, it has its limits. The best way to find out is hands on.

[planet10]

I'm quite interested in this tech...

George, from his rant me thinks, didn't pay attention to what the iTransport is... and perhaps not thought things thru.

The Wadia has no DAC in it -- it will pass the iPod analog out, but the real point is that it will output a direct digital stream from the iPod. A 32 MB Touch will hold 100+ CDs in Applelossless format, and they'll just keep getting bigger.

This tech promises to be limited pretty much by the DAC you hang off of it.

dave

[Peter Daniel]

You can read more about it here: http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/i...topic=49277.60

[georgehifi]

Ranting moi???????? I think not, quoted by Gordon Rankin, I belive well respected?
Cheers George

Quote:Guys,
I can measure SPDIF directly on the Prism unit. For instance the new Wadia iTransport has RCA SPDIF output. It's really crappy considering Wadia made it. They take the PCM2705 SPDIF output via a resistor (i think 75 ohms) and cap couple the ground lead. The SPDIF output is a CMOS output pin not capable of driving stuff... Well as some of you can figure out if they are using the PCM2705 then the iPod is ouputing via USB ON THE GO Adapative Audio to the PCM2705.

Jitter at 44.1 (only available output sampling rate) was between 2900ps and 3200ps on the Prism via the Nirvana T2 digital cable and BNC to RCA convertor on the iTransport side.

The Prism also has AES and Toslink input testing. I am not sure how they do it but I imagine they are determing it via the Frame Sync.

~~~~~~

I agree with Pedja that even though the oscillator may have low jitter the system may have higher results.

Prism basically tests all computer units with a 10Khz -0dB signal. They stream this directly from their oscillator and you can see the results. You can also use their SPDIF output to the oscillator and check it that way or via disk for CD players or MP3 units.

~~~~~~

But in general I really find it hard to believe anything below 50ps from the hardware I have seen for testing. Below 10ps is a strech for the current state of the art units and only the Miller gives a real number. Both Ap and Prism won't even touch that they say it changes too much. Paul Miller says he averages over a really long period to come up with the number. Who knows... :Quote

Thanks
Gordon

_________________
Gordon
Chief Scientist
Wavelength Audio

[sek]

Hi George,

Originally posted by georgehifi
A standard Ipod 3 gig [...]

There's no such thing as a standard Ipod 3 gig. I think you confused '3 gigabyte' with '3G' as in 'third generation'.

The iPod Classic sports a 120GB disk, the flash memory based iPod models support between 4GB and 32GB.

Even using Apple Lossless this is a lot more music, as Dave and others also mention.

Cheers,
Sebastian.

PS: I've made the experience that people who can neither name (i.e. 'Ipod 3 gig' in contrast to 'iPod 3G', 'Wadia dock' instead of 'Wadia iTransport') nor spell (i.e. iPod falsely with capital I and lowercase P) the products they're talking about are usually hardly the ones who qualify as reviewers...

[Peter Daniel]

Originally posted by sek
Even using Apple Lossless this is a lot more music, as Dave and others also mention.

It's a lot of music and who said it needs to be kept permananetly; just downoald from your other hard drive whatever you feel like in a given week.

[georgehifi]

Originally posted by sek
Hi George,




There's no such thing as a standard Ipod 3 gig. I think you confused '3 gigabyte' with '3G' as in 'third generation'.

Oops I stand corrected, as for my spelling who gives a ratz.
As for them being rubbish, they still are, I'm with Gordon Rankin on this.

Cheers George

[Peter Daniel]

BTW, I just purchased recently Ipod touch 16gig and was also considering Wadia dock
not neccessarily as my main rig, but portable system I could use in a workshop.