ipod and dac?

The iPod is an excellent means of accessing music when on the go. Unfortunately, it's not really an audiophile product because it doesn't offer a digital output and the built in D/A is adequate, but no better. Despite that it's still an excellent product well worth the $300-500 dollars they sell for. I use a 30Gb model and after experimenting with uncompressed AIFF files I eventually settled upon AAC 192kbps mono files as my preferred file format. It works wonderfully in the car with no sense of compromise in such an audio-adverse environment.

I believe some of the iRiver products have digital I/O.

If price is an issue, there are other companies, like CREATIVE, that have hard drive players like the i-pod that cost less. As far as Hard Drives failing, I have had a lot of lap-top computers and have been working with external hard drives over the last few years. I travel around quite a bit and always take a lap-top with me. I've never had a hard drive fail.
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The Holy grail will be when you can get a digital out from your i-pod and/or your computer. Are you listening, Apple?

This is an excellent thread! Great points both pro and con.

As a daily working Mac pro, it's amazing that I've totally missed out on this. Probably from being overworked and not watching TechTV enough! You guys have given me much to think about. It'll be interesting to see how the tech trends develop and what the next CES Macworlds reveal.

Thanks for educating me!
Dean

How do you connect an iPOD to an external DAC?

On some of the headphone sites, where they spend alot of time talking about portable audio, people seem to say that the ipod is not the top of the group in sonics. One that is purportedly better is the Rio Kharma, which holds 20 mb and can be had for $250 if you look hard. It doesn't have the industrial art of the ipod, nor quite as good a navigation system, but still rated as pretty darn good.