wadia ipod dock-- anyone find faults?

Nice follow up Chrissain. That would explain a lot. Thank you very much for continuing to pursue what you heard and reporting to us.

That may also explain why I don't hear a difference, my DAC does the upsampling, not the transport. The Playback Designs MPS-5 uses an really fine Esoteric transport, but the upsampling to DSD is done in the DAC section, so my iPod/Wadia benefits the same from upsampling as my CD transport does.

If you still had the Wadia you could test further by using another CDP as a transport to feed your DAC and compare to the iPod/Wadia. I suspect that the difference would disappear. In your system, now that we know what's going on, it's easy to understand why you'd prefer the upsampling CD transport to the iPod.

Dave

Cerrot, thank you - at last, some aspects of this debate are starting to come into focus.

Some time ago when I was trying to be a pioneer with USB into USB compatible DACs, some pro audio guy looked at my like I was asking for 78 RPM records, saying that firewire was the only way to go, and the pro audio guys abandoned USB a long time ago.

Interesting that a year or two later, the new trend in "high end" audio seems to be USB direct into DACs.

I have had some success using USB but also experience drop outs as mentioned by Cerrot and a certain cloudiness to the sound at times.

If firewire is the way to go, then what computers/notebooks and/or software is that fastest way to achieve this?

In the meantime, I think I will sell my brand new, unopened Wadia dock....

Thank you,