Is an IPOD hi-fi?

If you play lossless files through the line-out connection, then through an external DAC with good jitter control...

You would actually need a digital output to do this. Line out is analog.

I actually listen to the I-Pod over the holidays. Not for me junk in junk out. We can thank Steve Jobs once again for corrupting the music. Bottom line he has managed to sell a crap product to the masses and get even richer for it. I was hoping it was going to be much better than it was,its not, but Steve Jobs is happy camper. Caveat Emptor or something like that. But if it floats your boat and you want Apple to get bigger and bigger and bigger go for it. What I heard was akin to dragging your finger nails across a chalk board.

In a couple of previous issues of UHF magazine, they've been investigating using iPods, Squeezeboxes, and similar devices as a music sources. (You can find partial reviews on their website in their "Reading Room"). It's turned into a continuing project for them. Indeed, they've purchased an iPod to add to their reference system for further investigation. Their results to date are that they've been pleasantly surprised at how these things can be a very good source. When you are able to bypass the internal DAC and feed the signal into an outboard DAC of higher quality, they are very impressed. I'm not sure if you can do this with iPods as of yet, since I don't have one and don't know their capabilites, but with other devices you can. So using an iPod as a music source is certainly something worth investigating, even more so if and when they make them with a digital out. Perhaps I'll have to buy one for the kids as "present" and play with it myself.

My 80gb iPod playing uncompressed files sounds awesome through the Grado SR60 'phones when I listen to it at work and it sounds even better with my Senns HD-580 at home.

Ferrari, I would not call it a complete junk.
If the files are uncompressed(I use .wav for the stuff that I like the most) it sounds very acceptable.
However, I tried it via Belkin adaptor into my system at home and it was nowhere near the sound quality of my cd player. I never expected it to be, but still, it sounded pretty good.
The main purpose of an iPod, at least to me, is convenience. I can bring it to work and listen to it on a good pair of headphones and totally enjoy the sound.

If anyone knows of a good quality cable to connect the iPod to the preamp, please post.

Ferrari ... what was the encoding format of the music ? It makes all the difference. Lossless and 192kbps AAC sound pretty good through my sennheiser cans.

128kbps MP3 on the other hand sounds absolutely terrible.