Esoteric Players: No Digital Input. WTF?

Playback Designs is another great player with several digital inputs. I love it and plan to use it later with a server. For now, I use a Wadia 170i iPod dock to use my iPod Classic 160G as a mini-server. The Wadia bypasses the iPod's internal DAC and the PD's DAC upconverts the 44.1hz signal to DSD, applies an alogarythm or two and produces great sound from lossless files ripped with error correction.

I wonder sometimes is Esoteric and Emm are worried about cutting into their separate DAC and clock sales. It's just something that pops into my mind as I consider various CD/SACD player options. When you're spending lots of money it's nice to get complete functionality out of all the parts.

Dave

11-25-08: Tarsando said:
"Very, very few players have digital in. It's digital out that makes the most sense. Connect your ipod directly, wtf?"

Actually, you don't connect your iPod directly, instead you use a Wadia 170i to bypass the iPod's DAC and then run it into the digital-input of a high quality DAC. The results are amazingly good.

There are plenty of players with digital inputs. My thought, particularly when you get into the high-bucks range of Esoteric, Emm, Playback Designs, etc. I want to be able to use the included very nice DAC for a wide range of sources.

Dave

Eactly my point Metralla, a DAC2 is a DAC, not a CDP. We're talking about expensive CDPs lacking digital inputs.

Dave