wadia ipod dock-- anyone find faults?

Tobias, being a big fan of the Batman I can truly appreciate your simplistic explanation. Thanks.

Dreadhead, your excellent question clearly drove me...

Dreadhead
Your question was very very basic and you could easily find out the answer by searching the topic but I guess you chose to expose yourself by asking in the open forum.It is like going to a soccer game and ask the people around you,what is this game and how is it played?I am sure everybody will turn and look with raised eyebrows.Anyway now you know the answer and welcome to the audionuts club here.

Years ago when I was a graphic designer, a client was hanging out at our studio and he asked, "so, what is graphic design?" My co-worker and I looked at each other and I could see he was ready to stab. We almost beheaded this guy and stuck his skull on a spike in the hallway. Heheh.

But seriously, Dreadhead's question sparked my own question. Does the Wadia iPod Dock bypass the iPod's internal DAC? I didn't even know Apple offered a digital output on iPods. Or is it just like all the other iPod DACs? A fancy place to seat your 'Pod?

A few years ago I tried one of those iPod adapters from a respected audio cable manufacturer and thought it sounded pretty poor because it was still utilizing the DAC in the iPod.

I'm looking into the Empirical Audio Off-Ramp 3 Audio Converter so I can use the USB to I2S feature between a computer and an outboard DAC.

The key with the wadia is that it does bypass the dac in the ipod, allowing you to use your own dac (hopefully a much better one-which isn't difficult to do considering the dac in the ipod). You do need a dac; the wadia is the first to be given the propriatary info by apple to bypass it.

And...usb is NOT the way to go. Firewire blows it away. Can't believe it hasn't caught on yet.