Music server quality.

I tried the MSB Tech IPOD system at dealer today. Basically a docking station hooked up to an external dac, IPO reconfigured so it outputs digitally, and wireless from IPOD to the docking station.

The main system hooked up was unfamiliar to me so I can only comment on the context of relativities: MSB Tech Platinum DAC, Moon Audio CD & amplification, and Wisdom Audio speakers.

I compared a) CD vs b) IPOD in the docking sation vs c)IPO in hand?data sent wireless to the docking station.

c) was quite good but when switching to b) the difference was immediate: bass got tighter and imagining better defined, sound staging improved. Moving from b) to a) was much less of an improvement, but I did think CDs had better solidity to the notes, if u know what I mean. The diff from c to b was far greater than b to a.

This may support the previous talk of Wavelength PC etc vs some wireless solutions...the diff in sound quality may well be more about wireless vs wireline as opposed to PC based vs music server based etc.

However c) does offer a lot of convenience in that the IPOD becomes your remote control. Accessing playlists for example become a cinch and one can quickly move from track to track for example.

I would have liked to do a side by side comparison of say Sonus or Squeezebox wireless vs the MSB but could not. My hunch is that the latter is better but just hunch as I could not do any sort of direct comparisons.

Thus it seems to me the MSB IPOD system which costs circa US$2500 (including an 80G IPOD reconfigured so that digital output is possible)...is niche product with the following value add

1. For some homes.places....wireless thru out the house is difficult due to inteference, type of walls: in such cases a room by room approach is required.

2. IPOD user interface is familiar, u can charge it, and most of us have one anyway for portability...so nice way to integrate things

3. If need be and you don't need to keep switching tracks and prefer better quality, you can play it with the IPOD in the docking station which probably beats most if not all wireless solutions.

4. IPOD is much smaller than a notebook!

But also the strengths also mirror its weakness: remote...nothing beats Sonus. Capacity limited to 80GB, no multi room capability....etc

I am interested but still will continue to think thru and investigate options...may come back to this however.

Hope that helps

Henryhk- Great info. It would be interesting to compare the
MSB Tech IPOD system to a MacPowerbook feeding the same DAC
via it's built-in digital output.

You say "nothing beats Sonus," I guessing you're referring to
the Sonus display remote, but how does the Sonus sound quality compare to Mac set ups, and is the Sonus software as easy to use as iTunes?

Thanks to all for the responses so far. I didn't realize how little I know about this topic. For that reason I'll sit on the sidelines for a while, and let others with more knowledge do the talking.

Hi- yes wireless can potentially always be an issue - very prone to interference and not much can be done about it. A wired approach will always be more robust.

For me a $2,500 iPod misses the point of what's going on in the marketplace. First, a totally tricked out Squeezebox is a lot less and does a lot more.

But more importantly - at least to me - is that the whole PC thing is all about using widely available, mass market, highly standardized products to drive prices down without compromising quality. Put another way, when a 500Gb hard drive is $139 an iPod for $2,500 is nuts.

"the diff in sound quality may well be more about wireless vs wireline as opposed to PC based vs music server based etc. "

I'm not sure that a finding regarding the implementation of wireless in the MSB iPod product should be generalized to, say, laptop or desktop based systems.

"yes wireless can potentially always be an issue - very prone to interference and not much can be done about it. A wired approach will always be more robust."

My own wireless front end doesn't suffer from any robustness or interference issues, or sound quality issues, for that matter. It's Apple based: iMac G4 with external drives in the study functioning as the server, a wireless iBook in the living (music) room providing iTunes control, and an Airport Express providing AirTunes to S/PDIF conversion. Sounds as good as wired configurations (leaving out the AX) I am able to set up with my system.

I used to have an issue with occasional dropouts in the signal. But when I finally replaced my 801.11b router/wireless-access-point with an 801.11g unit (due to a free upgrade in my DSL service), that issue disappeared. I should have made that change earlier, but I really didn't think that bandwidth would be the limiting factor.

So, no doubt wireless is not going to be successful in all environments, but I don't think audiophiles who might be interested in the great convenience of wireless should automatically write it off.