Apple TV sound quality as a transport

Far,
I can vouch for jitter being destructive. My AirportExpress has such a high jitter signal that my DAC.....a Cambridge Audio CA840 (redbook player w/dac inputs) sometimes looses lock. And makes an awful noise in the process.

Is the ATV better? Is it internally clocked? The AE is not, being an asynchronous device.

Not sure about the jitter... Never had a problem my dac (Bryton bda-1) losing the lock.

I recently upgraded from ATV1 to the current ATV3 and I swear it sounds better into my Channel Island's VDA-2 Dac. Is this possibly because of the 16/48 upconversion? Placebo effect? Alcohol?

I use an Apple TV 2 and Netflix, Hulu, and DVD sound is fantastic.

Newer movie soundtracks are mostly High Rez 24 192 stereo!

I use a Sony Bravura into an ARC SP-14 line out, to a Son of Ampzilla 2000, into Magnepan MGIIIA speakers, 6 feet away, and am blown away at the quality.

For audio only, I use "Airplay" from an IMac (AAIF), and get CD quality out.

The "interface" on Apple TV 2 or 3, can not be beat.

Magfan, your AE might be defective. According to Stereophile review it produces respectable 258ps word clock jitter on digital output. Analog output is much worse. It receives compressed (ALAC) data and recreates clock. With my Benchmark DAC1 it sounds extremely clean.