iPod directly into amp

Thank you all for the feedback. So, the concensus seems to be integrated amp.

I do in fact own a docking station from Apple, so line out wouldn't cut into my budget.

I'll join the chorus here and recommend a dock for the iPod going to a good quality integrated. I've used that setup with both Creek and Audio Refinement Complete integrateds and been very happy with both.

You can get good information about docks by going to http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/accessories/.

The one I bought worked well. It has a line-out connection, charges the iPod and has a nice little remote for changing songs. It's this one from Kensington.

You'll definitely want a dock for your iPod that goes into the amp. This is the one that I currently use, but at an amazing price that I just saw on a deal site:

http://www.onsale.com/shop/detail~dpno~564547~descr~Kensington-Stereo+Dock+for+iPod.aspx

It works amazing, doesn't use the headphone jack, and has a remote. The only tricky thing is that when you first plug it in you have to use the remote (not the ipod or the amp) to turn the volume all the up for the the output of the dock.

If your music is encoded at a high enough bitrate, you will enjoy this immensely.

I believe (seriously) that Dave Wilson used an ipod directly into some parasound power amps to demonstrate some new speakers and to show that the speaker is the most important link in the chain. I don't have an ipod, but I would imagine the only way he could have done that would have been to use the headphone jack.

Just a thought: why not sell the speakers and buy powered monitors? For a while I had my ipod running through powered monitors and the sound was decent.