iPod Digital Output

[Negotiableterms]

Monitor audio and a couple of other companies claim to be able to extract the digital stream from an iPod and use their own DAC to get much better results. Does anyone know how this is done?

I'd love to be able to plug the little unit into a doc and have a real DAC do the honors.

[House de Kris]

Monitor audio and a couple of other companies claim to be able to extract the digital stream from an iPod and use their own DAC to get much better results. Does anyone know how this is done?

I'd love to be able to plug the little unit into a doc and have a real DAC do the honors.

I have a Cortex HDC-1000 that does this. This is a DJ controller (no, it doesn't control the DJ, nothing can do that) and has pitch control that actually works with the iPod as well. The HDC-1000 is a USB driven device, and it talks to the iPod via the USB connection. I think it has the limitation that you cannot play two songs simultaneously via the iPod. Other USB based devices are no problem playing two at once. I'd have to check this to be sure. Oh yeah, this device only plays MP3s and WAVs, so any songs on the iPod stored in either Apple coding scheme (lossless or lossy) will not work.

Other downside is that this controller doesn't sport any digital output, so you are stuck with their 24-bit DACs. Ah, but the future may hold more promise.

[Duffinator]

I'd love to be able to plug the little unit into a doc and have a real DAC do the honors.Interesting idea and I'm sure somebody must be doing it but I don't know how. Using the digital connection you are able to extract the bitstream so an external DAC should work if you had the proper connection. But I'm sure there will need to be some sort of conversion as there is no way Apple would make that easy. :no:

[Johncan]

I think it utilitizes the docking part of the Ipod (the connector on the bottom of the Ipod that connects to the docking station and/or to the cable that connects to the USB or Firewire charger). I believe that connector is a digital connector (passes 1's and 0's) to and from your PC or MAC when you are transferring music. I think their docking stations pull the digital out of the Ipod and converts it to analog on their docking stations. The Apple docking station has its own DAC in it as well as the DAC inside the Ipod going to the headphone jack. I know the Apple docking station jack is line level and you can't control the volume from the Ipod.

I hope I am making sense.

[blownsi]

I couldn't figure out how to do it so I ended up with an airport express/airtunes box. It sends signals from itunes on your computer to the unit itself which has a digital out. It then goes to my number cruncher.
Also my pc is in the attic and my stereo is in the living room so I added a rf remote to change songs. Works great.

http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/

[Eunomians]

Yeah, the Airport Express does work great. I've got my laptop streaming to my main rig. Very nice.