Best Dock , DAC

Well it's a far cry from $1500 but the little Pure i20 dock/dac ($100) has turned my ipod into my preferred source. It has a built in DAC which to my ears sounds pretty good and is a far cry from the ipod's DAC. Or if you prefer, it will extract the digital signal only if you want to try adding a different DAC for even higher performance.

Thanks for the feedback ( Polarin ) . Glad to hear the pure i20 is an improvement . That does tell me something .
I think I now have it narrowed down to two units . Arcam has a dock-Dac the DRdac , for $325, that looks worthwhile , Krell also has the K.I.D. for $2000 . It's also a preamp but doesn't have any other inputs .

The ONLY way to do this and get great sound quality is using a digital dock, not using the analog outs from the iPod.

I second the Pure i20. I have one and its amazing for the price. The analog outs from it are fantastic,but can be bettered by taking the digital out and reclocking with a Synchro-Mesh. Then drive to a good DAC like a Metrum Octave or maybe the new Mytek. Total outlay about $1700 including S/SDIF coax cable and even less if you buy the DAC used.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Teac AH01, under $200 with Dac.

Pure i20 (x3) It is an amazing piece for the money!

Arcam drDOCK, a great dock.

Steve ,, where do you take the digital out from, from a dock or from the I-pod itself ?

Tm - the digital out sources from the iPod, but its through the special docking station that it is accessed. These stations usually have S/PDIF coax and Toslink outputs. There are 3-4 docking stations like this, including the Pure i20 and the Wadia 170. They also have remote controls with volume, but it is best to leave the volume at max on these and use either a DAC or preamp to control volume.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Thanks Steve . I'll give it a try .

How much Volts does the Pure i20 put out through RCA? Wondering if it will work with my TVC.
Thanks!

Mil - It is standard analog 2-2.5 VRMS, just like most DACs.

The real question is what kind of drive does it have. Undoubtedly an op-amp output stage at fairly high output impedance. Not great for a TVC....

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Well , I took the first step , I've had an Arcam I-dock running in the garage for the past 30 hours . It does have a SPDIF digital output so a decent DAC will likely be next . Although , from the onset the sound was quite good , tinkering with some higher end RCAs that had been lounging around in a box for far too long , I heard one that was a match made in audio heaven , a pair of Vandenhul's . My yap was agape for three or four songs . I can't recall hearing a component that was so changed by interconnect's .

Should have said Arcam drDock .