Apple TV

Much has been written about Apple TV. -- Google it. I will say that it is an excellent transport, both from usability and from sound quality -- I gave up my Theta David for it. The David sounded as good, but the transport was noisy. Apply TV is dead silent. Also, the other features like movie rentals, youtube, and streaming my photos are very cool. As an aside, my Apple TV, using its internal DACS, sounds pretty good with a musical cable like the Acoustic Zen Matrix Ref II. Of course, with a high-quality external DAC it can sound even better.

It works well.

See:

http://www.psaudio.com/newsletters/7-08.asp

Apple TV has no place in a high end audiophile system. I have tried it, and it is awful. My system is a custom-built 3-way active system using Japanese drivers from TAD. Each channel consists of an 18" bass driver, 2 x 15" mid drivers and a 1" compression horn, all individually amplified and crossed over actively using a Marchand XM-44. I spent $20k to have this system built and it FAR outweighs the Wilson Grand Slams. I challenge anyone to the A-B comparison. But I digress. Listening to Apple TV audio (full resolution CD-quality audio in WAV and Apple Lossless) does not even come close to a CD transport. Both the CD transport and the Apple TV are connected via Toslink to a Krell HTS 7.1. The imaging for audio is very poor indeed. It sounds like a wet sheet is in front of the speakers and there is no definition. I do NOT recommend this thing for serious listening. Put it in your kid's play room so he or she can watch cartoons. That's all it is really good for. Anyone else have any workarounds to improve sound on this thing? The convenience would be nice ...

Obviously your Krell HTS 7.1 is sensive to jitter.

I have my Apple TV loaded with AIFF files, it feeds my
digital processor via an upgraded Genesis Digital Lens and it's plugged into an RSA Haley.

No problems with imaging or definition.

The Apple TV only has Toslink digital out, but why would use Toslink on a high end CD transport?

BTW- The Wilson Grand Slams are no longer Wilson's top speaker. See:

http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/wilson_alexandria_x2_2.htm

I've been using it with an outboard DAC for over a year and enjoy it a lot - where else can you find such a versatile transport/media server for only $200?

The thing is very fun and easy to use. I've spent spent several months ripping a thousand mostly jazz CDs but my 8-year old has hijacked the thing - imagine hearing over-compressed youtube videos of Weird Al or van halen through a tubed pre-amp and joseph audio speakers....

I know there's a lot of people upgrading the hard drives and modding the software. But I wonder if anyone's able to mod the TOSLINK into a Coax. I've got about 300GB of Lossless (so far). Be nice to have a TB of storage and a decently clocked Coax output... and a cherry on top.