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How To Route Streaming Music From iPad 2 to DAC?

I am about to purchase an iPad 2. Amongst the other things I would like to utilize it for is streaming subscription based music to my Bryston BDA-1 DAC in order to route it to my preamp.

I checked out the Cambridge Audio iD100 dock, which is priced right, at $299.00, but it only works with the original iPad. I haven't found anything else out there. I would greatly appreciate any information on what other options might be available to me to accomplish this. Thanks.

JC
nightfall
jcote
100 posts
 
My understanding is the airport express only streams music through the optical port. I don't believe the USB port will allow streaming.
nightfall OP
188 posts
 
05-09-11: Jcote
"My understanding is the airport express only streams music through the optical port. I don't believe the USB port will allow streaming."

Thanks for the clarification. When I looked at the enlarged photo of thhe airport express it showed only an ethernet connection, the USB and an audio mini-jack. Apparently, the minijack is both analog and optical.

JC
rdavwhitaker
173 posts
 
JC, the mini-plug is indeed a combination analog and optical. You will need a TOSLINK cable with a mini-optical plug (or mini-optical adapter for a standard optical plub) on one end. You can link the iPad 2's iPod application directly to the airport express, and from there the TOSLINK cable will take the signal to your DAC.

The sound quality is quite good, incidentally, especially if your music files are in AAC or Apple Lossless formats.
Post removed 
jcote
100 posts
 
Just be careful on the AppleTV...I'm not sure on the original but the new ATV2 has a fixed output of 48KHz which for purists will be an issue on upsampling/desampling by the ATV itself and prior to the DAC receiving the signal. This may result in noticeable signal degradation due to the multiple processing and interpolation.
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