iPod as a source 80 gig model, lossless

Hi Art,
The DAC is in the Apple TV (should be a Wolfson, like the ipod and newer Arcams). There are 2 choice: playback from the apple tv internal hard-drive or streaming. I use the Apple tv internal hard-drive, with my music ripped in apple lossless.

The apple TV does have a toslink (optical), but I don't have an external dac.

I can't hear any difference between streamed lossless and the playback from the hard-drive in the apple tv, but I know that the streaming can be tweaked to sound pretty good (some driver swapping, etc...)

Whatever doesn't fit in the Apple TV's HD, I stream from my computer. BTW, Apple Lossless is a very good format size-wise (about 300MB per CD, average).

Hope this helps.

I think the ipod is fantastic when you are not in your primary listening space. For this I am now using slim devices Transporter which is hard wired to my Apple G5 with CDs ripped in Apple lossless.

I got to get into this :-)

Can I keep my cd library on the Apple TV's HD?

I think that's what you were suggesting BCH but I'm not sure.

Art

Hmm... Seems to me there is confusion in this thread that may not be evident to all--the difference between an iPod as a source v. Apple Lossless as a source.

Even with good cables and Apple Lossless files, I find the iPod a pretty terrible source--hooking the iPod up to a stereo via a line out. The reason is that the DAC inside the iPod is, well, a DAC in a piece of consumer equipment that prioritizes size and cost. It is compromised.

On the other hand, you can get very good sound from Apple Lossless files that are sent digitally to a standalone DAC--Marco's solution with the U24, Drarmi's solution with the offramp. In those cases, the Lossless file is decompressed with a piece of software (e.g., iTunes, foobar) on a computer, then sent via (in those cases) USB to a USB to PCM converter, then into your DAC. That isn't really using an iPod as a source because you can do this whether you have an iPod or not.

Two very different kettles of fish that may explain the difference between good and bad results.

There are no real solutions I've seen for taking digital audio out of the iPod and converting to a PCM stream that can be fed to your DAC. There is one out there (I think), but I don't call that a real solution 'cos its like $2K. You can build a nice music server for that.

Just in case you don't share Edesilva's view on what's "real," here is a real solution for taking a SPDIF or AES/EBU digital siginal out of an iPod, so you can use an external DAC:

http://www.msbtech.com/products/iLink.php