wadia ipod dock-- anyone find faults?

Kmelancon, I probably sound like a broken record on these posts, but it is my opionion, and I am not alone, that if you are hearing a difference where you prefer your CD over your copied file, it has something to do with the gear itself, not the files nor do I feel there should be any real noticeable difference between Apple Lossless vs. .wav.

Whether the iPod is a viable option for someone is independant of each person.

I save files in Apple Lossless and have all my music on a 160g iPod with a lot of room left yet, others may have much more music than me.

Using a laptop, as you suggest, has many pluses to it and this to will become more and more popular.

--Brian

Kmelancon, be sure to use error correction when ripping to Lossless and wav. I'm using the Wadia 170i with the internal, upconverting DAC of my Playback Designs MPS-5 CD/SACD player, using an iPod Classic 160G as the transport. The results are stunning, with undetectible differences between the RBCD playback and the iPod via Wadia/Playback Designs..

There are a few files on my iPod that don't sound quite right and I suspect that I recorded them without error correction, or the files got corupted some other way. When I'm certain that the file is correct, then the performance is excellent.

The Bel Canto DAC 3 reclocks doesn't it? If so, then I'd think that you'd get good results. Are you running the CDP into the Bel Canto when doing the CD vs. iPod comparison? If not, it's possible that your CDP's DAC is better than the Bel Canto (generally unlikely, but possible).

Dave

Brian,

I was really hoping the Lossless format would live up to it's name "lossless". But it just didn't. I'm no expert but anytime you compress something I'd be surprised if you didn't lose something from that process.

Your right about fitting more music on your ipod if your using apple lossless but it's still not quite 3 cd's per gb. Which would be getting closer if you weren't taking a significant hit in the quality of your sound.

Take a few minutes and record some wav files onto your ipod. Do an A / B / A comparison between them and your lossless and let us know if you get the same results that I did.

Dave,

I did record my lossless files with error correction.

Have you tried the comparison between lossless and wav yourself?

There are 3 of us here in Minneapolis that have all tried the same test and all of us came out with the same results. With 2 different systems.

80 cds @ 500mb per cd could be stored on a 40gb ipod. Have found that they average about 400mb per cd or 400 cds on 160gb ipod.
I have 40gb of music on my ipod and doubt I will ever fill it. And yes they are Wave files.
The difference in soumd will be in the digital to audio conversion and outputs used. I have three types of outputs-analog, tube and opamps. Each sounds slightly different but the differences stem from the output not the input.