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.