Ipod or CD player?

[coolaboola]

fatboyslimfast that's ingenious(.A £10 wifi palm off ebay).There was me thinking I had to save for an iphone.I really want to shift my laptop out of the listening room with remote access to avoid that buzz.Was it difficult to set up??

 

[v1c]

I can only personally speak for the ipod dock fatman itube and think that loading up the ipod and sticking in a dock that looks retro cool and gives an analog sound to digital music and has stoked a fire of music passion in me that i've never had before in my life (43yrs) is easy , convenient and a quality for price i don't think i've come across before. On your budget you could make a great sounding secondary system. Mines just the base model they do others right up to a £5000 mothership. Even on the base model there are two line outs so you can connect another source. The negatives i have are two power connections one normal plug and one like a phone charger and the fact i can't get a picture out on tv as stated but i think this maybe down to apple rather than the fatman. They are only minor niggles but as i listen too music on it i don't care about the tv out. Looking at the replys you have had Q1 ÿDAC and amp sounds best. Q2 Wifi has come along way and is much better now so i would think your bad experience was a while ago ? If it was try again now it should be much better if not cann't help. You also mention the Chordette gem in Q2 this sound like an excellent choice if you have the funds.Q3 you don't have to have a separate DAC for a dock and as i said my fatman sound great to me.Q4 yes.Q5 can't help on that one. Sound to me like you can have which one you want so good luck in deciding.ÿ

 

[RobGardner]

The Wadia i170 is a large sized dock that allows you to access the music files on your iPod in their digital form, ie it by-passes the iPod's built in DAC which is more than adequate for portable use but somewhat lacking in a Hifi context . The Wadia i170 dock has conventional analogue outputs for music and video but also has a digital co-ax socket. When I first heard an iPod (my wife's as it happens as my pre-video iPod does not work on this dock) I was not at all impressed with the sound quality. However once I had started to save music files on iTunes in the highest quality mode and then played them back via the dock the sound quality was very nearly as good as my Cyrus CD8se. It may be once the dock has had a bit more use that the sound quality improves a bit more. The advantage of the Wadia i170 is that you don't have to have your PC near your hifi, the big disadvantage is cost, the i170s are about £350-£400 plus you need a late model iPod to get the most user friendly experience (reputedly the iPod nano has the best sound quality of all ) and a decent digital cable (I use Chord Signature, but Wireworld Gold Starlight 5 is cheaper and better). I suppose that compared to a high-end CD player this is relatively inexpensive (yes it really is that good when you use the highest recording modes). If your hifi is next to your PC then a DAC plus hifi would be the most economical method provided your PC has a digital out facility. I have used by PC as a direct source through my Cyrus DAC-XP using a 5m sub-woofer cable, and as you might expect the sound quality varied according to the sample rate of the music file, truth is if I had thought about it sooner I would probably not have bothered with the Wadia i170. The advantage of the i170 is it somehow seems more casual in use than a PC and there is no back-ground noise from PC cooling fans and noisy hard-drives. I've not yet tried wireless streaming but my experiences of using a PC based source is that it's less casual than docking your iPod or spinning a CD, but that is more a refection of how I use my PC than anything else. The new Cyrus integrated amps will have built in DACs but will have a significant hike in price over the current models so you try and see one at the Bristol show.

 

[v1c]

After looking about a generally being interested in your search for a new system (sad i know) check out

ripcaster.co.uk

note that the linn sneaky ds is advertised as a cd killer in what hi back pages and also

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and

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Hope you find them useful.