Arcam rDAC and ipod touch

[jacobmorrison]

I'm probably being dense but does the USB input on the Arcam DAC take digital information straight from the ipod in the same way as the Onkyo NDS1 dock? I was planning on upgrading my dock to an NDS1 and adding a DAC in order to play apple lossless files. However if I could run the ipod directly into the Arcam it would be a neater solution. Am I on the right track?

 

[Superaintit]

When I saw your mail, I thought I'd test it on my Rdac. However the usb on the Rdac is of the B type, ie the square type in stead of the flat one. I don't have any cables of the usb B to ipod, only usb a to B.

I also checked the Rdac manual but this doesn't mention this functionality either. It would be great if it did work, but my best guess is that it doesn't.

Maybe someone from the What Hifi team or Arcam themself can shed some light on this?

 

[manicm]

Firstly the Arcam rDac is a DAC and absolutely not an iPod dock. Its USB is an implementation for computers only, and will not extract music files digitally off an iPod. You cannot compare it to the NDS1 - apples and oranges.

Secondly Arcam replied back to me directly some months ago, much to my disappointment, saying they have no interest in digital docks - indeed I was very surprised to hear that the rCube indeed uses the iPod's built-in DAC, unlike a B&W Zeppelin. This to me logically implies different iPods will yield different results, unless the electronic processing is designed to mitigate this.

 

[Anonymous]

Then they must have changed their mind as rDock has been available for some time now.

 

[manicm]

areluc:Then they must have changed their mind as rDock has been available for some time now.

No, they have not changed their mind. The rDock, its successor the irDock and the rCube are all analogue docks in the way they extract the audio from the iPod.