Is it possible to plug an Ipod with the USB cable to an USB DAC? Will sound go via the USB cable and then to the DAC?? not sure, I whant to buy a DAC or something to swich between my amp and a MP3 device, such as the Ipod and a Sony. But I have the impression that it will only work via minijack...
Can any body help please with this issue? I was planing to get a lampucera board.
Thanks
Can any body help please with this issue? I was planing to get a lampucera board.
Thanks
Buck has it exactly. You can hook a USB DAC up to your computer, but the only way to hook it up to your iPod is through a docking station with the special Apple decoding hardware. There are by my count about five of these out there now (Onkyo ND-S1, Pure i20 and Wadia, plus a couple of higher-priced products). None are portable or designed to be.
Thanks!! I've been searching and arrived to same conclusion: now confirmed. If it's not the wadia is the onkyo and pure. I'm surprised that chinese haven't discover it yet. I thought ebay would be full of these docks, but nope. I'm looking other docks that may use this same digital out put without D to A conversion. Pro-ject and creative may have some similar docks too.
the "handshake"
AFAIK, if you purchase an item that states "made for iPod" whatever the iPod looks for is there. Then access the pins. You can purchase new cable sockets cheaply.
I have a YBA "designs" iPod dock. It is "made for iPod". If I can add a few wires and take them to the correct pins, then I should be able to digital out. So far it has eluded me.
AFAIK, if you purchase an item that states "made for iPod" whatever the iPod looks for is there. Then access the pins. You can purchase new cable sockets cheaply.
I have a YBA "designs" iPod dock. It is "made for iPod". If I can add a few wires and take them to the correct pins, then I should be able to digital out. So far it has eluded me.
no, that is not correct and that is why its not working for you, in order for this to work, the ipod must be slaved to the dac, the ipod cannot act as a USB audio host as the standard protocol requires the host to provide power to the slaves transceiver (and dac if its usb powered) and being portable devices with limited battery life and limited current capability as host, this option is not enabled.
there is already 2 semi portable devices which do this around for a bit over a year. one is called the CLAS (Cypher labs Algorithm solo yes they spell it wrong) which is just a dac only (Wolfson) and has spdif output also, not cheap and from reports doesnt measure so hot, but sounds decent; another is by Fostex, who also have a number of new recording/live performance solutions using ipod or ipad. the portable unit, which is a bit more compact than the CLAS is called the HP-P1, but this contains an AKM dac and built in headphone amp, as well as some ability to set pcm filter settings. both of these devices act as both USB and i2s master; it is unclear whether the transfer is synchronous or asynchronous, but strangely it would appear the former rather than the latter.
the ipad is a slightly different story, you can use this with the apple camera connection kit to connect to certain usb 1.1 and 2 dacs, as long as the transceiver and dac/amp is either self powered and sets this register, or has a transceiver that has sufficiently low current draw as to stay within the current limit set by the ipad. it will of course not work with any dac that uses a driver that is not the native USB audio codec.
hope that helps. none of this is written out for the general public, so there is probably some details i've missed or are perhaps incorrectly stated broadly. much of the above info has been discovered by trial and error over some years by those like myself who are involved heavily in high quality 'portable' headphone audio (inverted commas because some of the rigs are not pocket sized and come under the heading transportable audio)
fostex HP-P1
CypherLabs CLAS
it is true that the idevice dock contains several accessory enable pins that will enable connection to a raft of different devices including chargers. it uses a system of pullup/down resistors to set registers. but that by itself this will never enable connection to a dac
for home there are several solutions as already mentioned and with ipad you can likely use the camera connection kit depending on the usb input of that dac. you can also access the lineout (analogue) via the dock at the bottom, the exact pinout for enabling the lineout will vary depending on the model ipod/ipad
there is already 2 semi portable devices which do this around for a bit over a year. one is called the CLAS (Cypher labs Algorithm solo yes they spell it wrong) which is just a dac only (Wolfson) and has spdif output also, not cheap and from reports doesnt measure so hot, but sounds decent; another is by Fostex, who also have a number of new recording/live performance solutions using ipod or ipad. the portable unit, which is a bit more compact than the CLAS is called the HP-P1, but this contains an AKM dac and built in headphone amp, as well as some ability to set pcm filter settings. both of these devices act as both USB and i2s master; it is unclear whether the transfer is synchronous or asynchronous, but strangely it would appear the former rather than the latter.
the ipad is a slightly different story, you can use this with the apple camera connection kit to connect to certain usb 1.1 and 2 dacs, as long as the transceiver and dac/amp is either self powered and sets this register, or has a transceiver that has sufficiently low current draw as to stay within the current limit set by the ipad. it will of course not work with any dac that uses a driver that is not the native USB audio codec.
hope that helps. none of this is written out for the general public, so there is probably some details i've missed or are perhaps incorrectly stated broadly. much of the above info has been discovered by trial and error over some years by those like myself who are involved heavily in high quality 'portable' headphone audio (inverted commas because some of the rigs are not pocket sized and come under the heading transportable audio)
fostex HP-P1
CypherLabs CLAS
it is true that the idevice dock contains several accessory enable pins that will enable connection to a raft of different devices including chargers. it uses a system of pullup/down resistors to set registers. but that by itself this will never enable connection to a dac
for home there are several solutions as already mentioned and with ipad you can likely use the camera connection kit depending on the usb input of that dac. you can also access the lineout (analogue) via the dock at the bottom, the exact pinout for enabling the lineout will vary depending on the model ipod/ipad
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thanks 
its something of a black art still, the required info is only available officially under NDA and license agreement that covers both the hardware/software, but also because you are exposing the digital stream, copy protection for the music.
part of my business (actually a pretty large part) is making bespoke compact/low profile LODs (Line out docks) to gain analogue line level for portable headphone amps and in the case of the 2 devices mentioned above, USB digital audio. that along with headphone mods and recables forms the core of my every day business, but i've begged and borrowed all the info to do this, I dont have 'made for ipod' status, but rather a custom niche one man business that started out as a hobby.
its something of a black art still, the required info is only available officially under NDA and license agreement that covers both the hardware/software, but also because you are exposing the digital stream, copy protection for the music.part of my business (actually a pretty large part) is making bespoke compact/low profile LODs (Line out docks) to gain analogue line level for portable headphone amps and in the case of the 2 devices mentioned above, USB digital audio. that along with headphone mods and recables forms the core of my every day business, but i've begged and borrowed all the info to do this, I dont have 'made for ipod' status, but rather a custom niche one man business that started out as a hobby.
The ipad -> usb source is something I've wanted to try for a while. Have you tried it? Did it work? Was there any problems with say playing files with different sampling rates etc? I'm thinking of when you say watch some video content that would usually be encoded at a different sample rate to audio files. I've not had a chance to read up on this scenario but it's on my 'future searching/reading list'.
Its worth noting to avoid the iBias
D) that Android 4.0 (ICS) and 3.1 (Honeycomb) source code supports the requisite USB audio codecs. I haven't had an opportunity to try this out yet either. I believe being able to access this is still hardware dependent so not every device having the necessary software can enable the connection. In the same way as iOS version is not an indicator of compatibility of an iDevice, for reasons described by qusp.
yeah it works fine, ive actually got a spare camera connection kit if you want to borrow it? it does depend quite heavily on the dac. Actually now since a recent revision in iOS and the UAC2 codec, 24/96 is available using some third party player apps, being that with the advent of UAC2 24/96 is backward compatible with UAC 1.1 which doesnt have the bandwidth for higher than 24/96 like 4 x 32/384 or 8 x 32/192, but will support 24/96 just fine. the wind must be blowing in the correct direction and the stars in alignment for this to work.
i've actually hacked open one of the camera kits i have here and plan to spin a pcb with a UAC transceiver and i2s convertor with the correct register set and self powered. ideally i wanted to have this done for the portable sabre, but i may add it later at some point. the ubiquitous Ti PCM270X series works reliably with the correct setup, i would like to isolate ground and splice in power for the receiver by use of the ADuM4168, which has been proven to work with the 270X with other designs.
I will say though, that although it works, the transmission line termination, connectors and clocking scheme needed to achieve this is not ideal and doesnt always sound that great depending on the dacs USB implementation, but sounds pretty acceptable with titan and the ackodac
seems to work fine with movie rentals from the itunes store, but i havent played extensively with it, as my primary portable transport is an iriver iHP 120 (compact flash modded to 32gb SD) which avoids all this, but is limited to 16/44.1. plus i love the wired remote! because it means i only need access to that clipped on a shirt pocket with the rest of the rig in my manbag
i've actually hacked open one of the camera kits i have here and plan to spin a pcb with a UAC transceiver and i2s convertor with the correct register set and self powered. ideally i wanted to have this done for the portable sabre, but i may add it later at some point. the ubiquitous Ti PCM270X series works reliably with the correct setup, i would like to isolate ground and splice in power for the receiver by use of the ADuM4168, which has been proven to work with the 270X with other designs.
I will say though, that although it works, the transmission line termination, connectors and clocking scheme needed to achieve this is not ideal and doesnt always sound that great depending on the dacs USB implementation, but sounds pretty acceptable with titan and the ackodac
seems to work fine with movie rentals from the itunes store, but i havent played extensively with it, as my primary portable transport is an iriver iHP 120 (compact flash modded to 32gb SD) which avoids all this, but is limited to 16/44.1. plus i love the wired remote! because it means i only need access to that clipped on a shirt pocket with the rest of the rig in my manbag
Well i'm geting lost here... I only wanted something to connect an Ipod to the amplifier with its original digital data an giltered with a DAC. As far as I understand this can be achieved with a dock like wadia or pure Or onkyo. Then a DaC. And then to the amp via rca cables.
If I could do this with other mp3 players like the sony NW HD5 it would be perfect. I like from this player the lossless ATRAC files.
By the waywhat is this dac I2s USB from kqtc?
If I could do this with other mp3 players like the sony NW HD5 it would be perfect. I like from this player the lossless ATRAC files.
By the waywhat is this dac I2s USB from kqtc?
Well you're on a diy forum so people are suggesting diy solutions.
You asked about plugging usb from ipod to a usb dac, this is different to going via a dock.
I honestly have no idea what commercial solutions there are out there.
To paraphrase qusp's earlier post: digital out of an ipod is exceedingly rare, digital out of an ipad is far easier via usb.
I have no idea what output options may be available from the sony you mention.
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