wadia i170 meassured jitter level

Where are these measurements? I am not saying the statement isn't true, I just have never read anything published. Your DIP experiment does raise legit questions.

I located where I had read this and it was from Gordon Rankin on Audio Asylum who measured the jitter. Atkinson also stated in the Stereophile review that the jitter was high but didn't specify a figure.

The sound I now get also matches my "reference" sound and that's more than I expected!

What ever the case is the wadia i170 or the ipod it still has a very high measured jitter from the digital output. I just wanted to know how much. The jitter affects the sound quality of the transport, the lower the jitter the better. Just like in a cd transport. I don't if the wadia has any buffers or clock that lowers the jitter in the unit. Even if your dac does a good job of lowering the jitter its still better if its done in the transport. Most everyone will agree that the wadia ipod transport is good for the price. I think their will be better ipod transport out sure they will cost more but you will get better sound quality. Msb has their ipod transport the ilink and its so much better than the ipod. This unit has fifo buffers and clock for a jitter of 7ps. Now i have both the wadia i170 gns co mod and msb ilink. Their is no question the msb ilink is far better than the wadia i170 gns mod. It has taken my wadia 521 gns co modded dac to a new level in bass, mids and highs. Now i like my wadia i170 however if you want to get the best sound out of your dac via an ipod the msb ilink is the way to go. For me i am happy for the moment, i wanted to share my views.

USArmy, I don't think anyone is questioning your results, but there are many variables here, probably even far more than I know. Maybe your DAC doesn't reclock, maybe it does, maybe this, maybe that...

You say, "Even if your dac does a good job of lowering the jitter its still better if its done in the transport.". I disagree. While the obvious thing is that no jitter anywhere is best, but lowering jitter at the DAC is better. If jitter is dealt with at the transport level, jitter can be introduced again down the line vs. addressing it at the DAC just before it gets converted to analog.

Brian

What ever the case is the wadia i170 or the ipod it still has a very high measured jitter from the digital output

This may not be a reflection purely on Wadia...it seems that ALL digital interfaces suffer from it to some greater or lesser degree. This is WHY it is so important to use a DAC which has some effort made at reducing jitter other than the old and to basic PLL method (various schemes exist form buffering to asynchronous upsampling etc. etc, - pick your posion)

Talking with one reveiwer in the past he mentioned comparing a couple transports, one expensive, one not, while using a DAC that reclocks and could tell no difference.

I recommend reading Martin Colloms review in HiFi Critic. In a 4 page long review, he compared the Wadia iTransport to several, "regular" transports and CD players, and was SERIOUSY disapointed by the results he got.