DAC v Dock

[admin_exported]

Hi,

I really need a bit of help of playing of digital files, I seem to get a lot of conflicting advice!!

I've recently bought a Cambridge Audio iD50 docking station as a primary means of playing my iPod through my CA 650 amp. The quality is good but not fantastic. I know the limitations of digital files but having abandoned my CD's I'm toying with the idea of getting rid of the iPod doc and hooking my PC upto the amp via a DAC.

I'm all quite new to this so wanted to know if the external DAC route will give me a significant improvement and if it would should I spend the money and get a CA DAC magic or would something like a Fubar II give me a decent sound for the price.

Any help gratefully appreciated.

 

[caddyhound]

You are using the DAC in the ipod at the moment to feed analogue into your amp so won't sound that great especially if files are in mp3 on the ipod.Lossless files will definitely improve the quality particularly if you go for pc into DAC.I believe you need to connect your pc by usb to the Dac to bypass the computers sound card ,or use a better external sound card so I would recommend a DAC with USB input.

A better dock which takes a digital feed from your ipod ( Wadia or Onkyo) still requires an external Dac to use the digital output ,although the Wadia can give you an analogue output as well so can go directly into your amp.Still needs lossless files though to be worthwhile.