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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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'.
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...
georgehifi said:
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...
Hi folks.
Ok. Now I got an impression about this device. Pretty cheap implementation.
What would you expect if Wadia sells these devices at that price level.
But if there is a 2705 inside, there is an I2S inside,
With a bit of reclocking it should make a very decent device. I mean - this has been done
a million times on the 1543 dac-devices.
Assuming the whole output is bit-perfect, a Sabre or a nice reclocker DAC should kill quite some jitter.
When it comes to capacity I think the 160GB Ipods will be big enough for having some fun.
Cheers
Ok. Now I got an impression about this device. Pretty cheap implementation.
What would you expect if Wadia sells these devices at that price level.
But if there is a 2705 inside, there is an I2S inside,
With a bit of reclocking it should make a very decent device. I mean - this has been done
a million times on the 1543 dac-devices.
Assuming the whole output is bit-perfect, a Sabre or a nice reclocker DAC should kill quite some jitter.
When it comes to capacity I think the 160GB Ipods will be big enough for having some fun.
Cheers
More reasons not to spend your hard earned bucks on this over priced docking station.
Quote>Synopsis: Best thing I can say about the 170i is it does pass bits; HDCD LSB code remains intact. First impression was, this is not going to hurt Wadia's high end sales, to put it politely. More directly, it sounded horrible! Pinched, granular, 2-D, not liquid, in other words, typical bad digital sound. As in, reviewers that liked this must either be deaf, or on the take. Maybe the cheap smps is too noisy?
Inside: Rev 3 board, qc passed sticker, 3 or 4 layer board, three 3 pins regs, a couple qfps, and a 28 pin ssop that is probably a 270x...12 MHz xtal at one end, hp outs other end, dout pin 5. Hmmm, the hp outs from the 270x go through coupling caps to a empty pads for a hp jack, and the analog out jacks on the back feed directly to the ipod. Likewise, the video outs go directly to the ipod.
So, the whole reason is to spew clean spdif bits, right? Maybe. The spdif out RCA jack traces directly back to pin 5, as in direct, no passives, no buffer, no cap, no xfmr. Huh!!!???? Confirmed, 0 - 3 v spdif at jack, DC at midpoint. Ermph? Shakes head. Not even impedance matched microstrip/stripline, as the 270x is on the far side of the board, not someplace sensible, like right next to the output jack.< End Quote
Cheers George
Quote>Synopsis: Best thing I can say about the 170i is it does pass bits; HDCD LSB code remains intact. First impression was, this is not going to hurt Wadia's high end sales, to put it politely. More directly, it sounded horrible! Pinched, granular, 2-D, not liquid, in other words, typical bad digital sound. As in, reviewers that liked this must either be deaf, or on the take. Maybe the cheap smps is too noisy?
Inside: Rev 3 board, qc passed sticker, 3 or 4 layer board, three 3 pins regs, a couple qfps, and a 28 pin ssop that is probably a 270x...12 MHz xtal at one end, hp outs other end, dout pin 5. Hmmm, the hp outs from the 270x go through coupling caps to a empty pads for a hp jack, and the analog out jacks on the back feed directly to the ipod. Likewise, the video outs go directly to the ipod.
So, the whole reason is to spew clean spdif bits, right? Maybe. The spdif out RCA jack traces directly back to pin 5, as in direct, no passives, no buffer, no cap, no xfmr. Huh!!!???? Confirmed, 0 - 3 v spdif at jack, DC at midpoint. Ermph? Shakes head. Not even impedance matched microstrip/stripline, as the 270x is on the far side of the board, not someplace sensible, like right next to the output jack.< End Quote
Cheers George
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