Logitech Touch vs Apple TV

Pros. Cheap, works great, can use also for renting movies etc.

Limits.. Will only stream from iTunes, none of the software like pure music works with it. Has toslink audio out only.

Without reclocking, the Touch sounds better, although they are evidently discontinuing the line. With reclocking they all sound the same, and better.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

For $99, AppleTV is a steal. You can rent/watch movies from iTunes and Netflix and Hulu, and stream your iPhoto collection to the TV set. And the icing on the cake: with the next upgrade of Mountain Lion, you will be able to do full on mirroring of your MacBook or iMac.

Seems like a no-brainer.

Buy an older model that has a hard drive and streams. Why they went to a stream only model is baffling . A guy on ebay sells up to 1tb drives that he will install on your apple tv or sellsalready done for something like $4-500 I went with a 160 gb that i could install on my own. It went great . The Absolute sound magazine used to list the older model in their yearly best . Only downfall is the need for a display . Also if you use a dac even better sound .

Steve,

Can you explain what is involved in reclocking apple tv? Also, have you ever compared the performance of the latest Sonos P-90's coaxial digital out with the Touch's digital out into a decent DAC? I've been told the Sonos digital output is quite good. I love the Touch, but I wanna find a reasonably priced alternative to feed streaming sources to my DAC.

You can use Airfoil to stream to your AppleTV or Airport Express from any application you chose.

"Can you explain what is involved in reclocking apple tv?"

Sure. Just add a second coax or toslink cable and connect it from the ATV to a reclocker, such as the Synchro-Mesh. Then your good coax or toslink cable goes from the reclocker to your DAC. Simple. See:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/empirical4/1.html

I dont know anything about the Sony.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I've not done the comparison myself, but others on the forum say the newer/streaming ATV sounds better than the original one.

The audio on ATV3 is very good on Netflix films!

iTunes music library audio is acceptable and very versatile.

I am using a Sony HDTV through Audio Research SP-14 and Son of Ampzilla 2000 into Magnepan IIIa's.

The ATV3 for $99 is a no brainer!

Thanks for the explanation on reclocking, Steve.

Hi Steve,
I have AppleTV feeding to my Electrocompaniet ecd1 dac. I recently added Oppo 95 and find that using its USB input with flash drive improves the SQ in details, tonality (except midrange) and most significantly soundstage. Obviously Oppo's 32-bit sabre dac plays a major role. One big drawback is I hate Oppo interface and ease of use is not even close to AppleTV.

Do you think adding a reclocker between AppleTV and Electrocompaniet dac would improve the sound to the level on par with oppo or close to in soundstaging, resolution and dynamics?

Thanks in advance.

I have had the appleTV since they released it and have all three versions. At first I didn't like it when they made the switch to streaming away from hard drive but I bet it had to do with cost. I can't remember how much the first gen with 160gb cost but I think it was close to 300, maybe more. 160gb won't hold all my digital copies I have on iTunes, heck even 1 TB won't be enough, I had to upgrade my home computer to 3TB to hold all my iTunes files and still have room for more.

So I have come to like the streaming, I do not mind streaming off my home computer but I would not like it if I had to stream thru the Cloud. I have never had any issues with AppleTV streaming, it always works smoothly for me.

The one thing I hate about the AppleTV is the Optical out as the only audio output. I wish it was coax. Of course eventually I think HDMIs for Audio will be more widely available as a digital input on D.A.C.s in the future. Like the new NAD D.A.C.

I also use my AppleTV to watch TV via NetFlix. I do not like most of the newer shows on TV so spending a chunk of money each month on cable was a waste, know for just a few dollars I get old TV shows to watch when I want to watch them, yes it may not be HD but who cares, it's TV. If I like it that much I will buy it on Blu-Ray or DVD anyway.

I do not use the AppleTV to listen to music, when I want listen to music I spin vinyl.