Digital Out

At first glace, this appears to be just another iPod dock. What makes it special is on the inside (awww, isn't that sweet)—so hidden, in fact, that if you didn't know about it beforehand, you may miss it.

You see, this is the first iPod dock that is able to extract a digital signal from the iPod, keeping the signal digital (depending on your system) all the way to the speaker terminals on your amp. Even if your setup isn't digital that far, wouldn't you rather rely on the digital converters in your receiver/pre-pro than the $300 iPod? Me too.

Surely there have been digital outputs on iPod docks before! You proclaim. Well proclaim away. But up until now, the only signal output from an off-the-shelf iPod was analog. The really impressive thing about 170iTransport, which Wadia developed in-house, is that it works with any current iPod.    

Well, mostly. Depending on which iPod you have, the 170iTransport has slightly different functionality. If you have a current touch, classic, or latest-gen nano, you can control it with Wadia's iPod styled remote, the click wheel on the iPod, and have the choice of component video output as well.

With lesser (older) iPods like my tired 30GB video, you can switch tracks with the remote, but that's it. To switch playlists and such, you need to remove the iPod from the dock, select, and replace. You also only get the s-video output. This isn't Wadia's fault; the older iPods just don't have the processing power to do multiple things at once.

The most noticeable, and interesting, audio aspect to the all-digital connection is an almost total lack of noise. Turn up the volume on an analog connection, and you'll hear buzz and such (well, on most systems anyway). With the 170iTransport, there's no noise, just music.

A direct analog output/digital output is difficult, but on my system even the higher compressed tracks sounded subtly better. They were a little fuller, with less codec bite to the high end. The better your DACs, no doubt the better it will sound overall. If you encode your tracks lossless (and what audiophile doesn't?), you get a wonderful full-on lossless digital audio server that just happens to have a portable hard drive portion by Apple.

There are no user interface screens when you hook up the 170iTransport to your TV (another iPod deficiency), but you can get your video content over component. Don't expect it to look too much better just because it has more bandwidth on the better connection, though. It's still low-res and highly compressed video.

At a price of $379, this is a no brainer for any audiophile. The iPod gets a bad rap for being a low-fi mainstream product. Thanks to companies like Wadia, they're showing it doesn’t have to be that way.

DESCRIPTION: iPod dock with digital output

CONNECTIONS: One component, one s-video, coax digital out, stereo analog out

DIMENSIONS: 2.7 x 8 x 8 inches (hxwxd)

PRICE: $379
CONTACT: 734.786.9611, wadia.com