NEW - Wadia 170 iTransport
 

What do you guys think of this new product from Wadia?

"The 170 iTransport is the first high-end interface to extract TRUE
digital output from an iPod, sending SPDIF data to your DAC."

For $349.00 looks like it would be fun to try :)


YouTube video

I think this has HUGE potential. These are the 1st guys to pay Apple for the secret codes that lets them get at the digital stream before the iPod DAC. With loosless files this should bring an iPod up close to mega-buck transports and sound quality will be limited by whatever DAC you chose. The only thing i can see it missing is an IS2 output. There might even be room inside to mount some of the diy DACs.

dave

Megabucks transports are slaved to the DAC clock and that's possible because they don't use S/PDIF (or they have a clock line coming from the DAC). Considering this uses an S/PDIF connection, I don't see how it can compete with these ultra-low jitter systems.

In regards to jitter, measurements from the 2003 Stereophile review show:

-The Miller Analyzer performs a narrowband spectral analysis of a
player's output signal, then searches for symmetrical sideband pairs
around the 11.025kHz fundamental.-

"The overall result is superbly low, at 225 picoseconds peak-peak."


of course there's a new generation of iPod out now, and they may
measure differently. If anything the Wadia and a 160GB iPod would
make a convenient playback system, that will probably sound very nice,
Although i will admit, no very DIY at all :)

Are you going to DIY your own transport? I figure this opens up available transports for those DIYing their own DAC.

dave

225 ps is low? You must be joking, this kind of jitter reaching the DAC chip is too high even for 16 bit audio.
Even worse for 24-bit audio, where you need a fraction of a picosecond to actually achieve 24 bit resolution.

I don't know much about the nitty gritty, but i see test figures for seriously good kit measured in this range... and i don't think anyone has made any commercial product that does much better than 21 bit resolution (at least from all the actual measured results i have seen). I'd be very interested to know different.

dave

Anagram have, with multiple DACs and noise-shaped dithering between DACs, showing about 22.5 bit linearity:

http://i26.tinypic.com/2e31tzc.png

On another forum jwb told me that the 0.2 ps jitter clock (from 10 Hz and up) I'm looking at is only good for 22 bits and one should use an ovenized clock for more. Of course, I don't need more so I'll stick with the cheaper clock.

clearly, i was just posting what John Atkinson had written in his review
of the 2003 iPod - i see no reason why he'd be joking.

If i can get a hold of one of these iTransports i'll give it a go in my system
and report back on how it sounds.

With a 160 GB ipod i could have a huge selection of music available
in a very small footprint - that's dead quiet - and easy to access...

and may sound swell to boot :)

Well you don't understand S/PDIF very well. The Stereophile measurement was made using the analog outputs of the iPod. Using an S/PDIF will necessarily add jitter due to the poor design of the interface itself. That is why two-box solutions (transport + DAC) lost popularity in recent years.