wadia ipod dock-- anyone find faults?

Kmelancon, I probably sound like a broken record on these posts, but it is my opionion, and I am not alone, that if you are hearing a difference where you prefer your CD over your copied file, it has something to do with the gear itself, not the files nor do I feel there should be any real noticeable difference between Apple Lossless vs. .wav.

Whether the iPod is a viable option for someone is independant of each person.

I save files in Apple Lossless and have all my music on a 160g iPod with a lot of room left yet, others may have much more music than me.

Using a laptop, as you suggest, has many pluses to it and this to will become more and more popular.

--Brian

Take a few minutes and record some wav files onto your ipod. Do an A / B / A comparison between them and your lossless and let us know if you get the same results that I did.

I did do this Kmelancon. When I first recieved my iPod, I read many comments online about it, and then tried it for myself. I did Apple Lossless, .wav and .aiff; I spent some time playing these over and over and over and I could not distinguish any difference between them. (Knowing more now, I do not I think I should.)

I take comfort in the fact that people smarter than I have also concluded the same. I cannot understand why you have different results.

Here are some comments I posted on another thread about why Apple Lossless is just that, "lossless", if I understand it correctly.

Chrissain, I am not sure if your exaggeration comment was meant for you or others, mainly Dave and I. I have no reason to exaggerate, I had kept my CDP on hand until I fully compared everything; if the Wadia combo wouldn't have performed well I would have sold it and posted my experience as so.

Nonetheless, my results basically mirror Daves, which also mirror three published reports I have read. I do not doubt your results just question why. Dave has posted his questions trying to determine if the compare was done as apples-to-apples as possible.

There are so many ways to compare, not only are there the formats, there is...the iPod/Wadia/output types/DAC vs. CDP or iPod/Wadia/using your CDP as a DAC, which is the closest to comparing against your CDP. I tried them all.

Lastly, if anyone feels there is any major difference between Apple Lossless and .wav, it is my opinion you are deceived.

These are just my opinions, people can do with them as they like.

Brian

Dave, either I am confused or you are, maybe both! :)

But (to me) the sound card has nothing to do with ripping CD's, it is just for sound playback on a PC; you can rip all you want without a sound card.

Furthermore, as I already stated as about as clearly as I can, which may not be saying much, when making copies of your CD's, the only reason they wouldn't be bit-for-bit copies would be because of defects (scratches) in the CD, and if that is the case, your transport will also have the same (error) issue.

When a CD is read on a CD transport it is read one time and sent to the DAC. The benefit of using error correction when making the copy is it reads many times to get the best accuracy, meaning the "copy" being read can have the potential of being read better than the CD copied from.

Stereophile had a very good article months back on digital and talked about it staying the same as long as it stayed in the digital domain, as it should, it is when brought into analog where the issues can ocur.

Your issues of having the re-rip some CD's is rather odd to me as well; I have not had to do this at all. I also ripped many CD's prior to turning on EC and I have no issues with them nor do I hear any diferences with those.

maybe the cd2 is just a very synergistic match with the dac 3, they were made for use with each other.

I don't see why this would matter. Like I say, I haven't a clue of why you guys had the results you did, all I can say is this differs from others, for what it is worth.

Thanks for the clarification on the exaggeration comment; I wasn't clear on the intent. I am aware of the exageration(s) we 'philes can make, but for me there was none. Like in your case, I brought over another set of ears who agreed that he could no way tell a difference in our comparisons. (In some intances, like comparing the CD to the iPod combo, I could switch inputs with a touch of the remote, with the inputs being level matched; neither of us could accurately pick a source.)