My OperaPure i-20 digital iPod dock
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 11:31:47 AM
It's not often these days I get worked up about an audio product. My main stereo in the living room has been pretty much static in terms of configuration for over a decade, I think, mainly got together when I was in my mad hi-fi nut phase. Which lasted about 30 years, to be honest, and even now I'm picky about audio. But basically I got to the point where the law of diminishing returns set in big time, and could have ended up spending vast amounts of money for only small increases in sound quality.
Anyway, these days I do nearly all my listening with an iPod, even at home. And due to health issues a lot of that home listening takes place in the bedroom using an Apple iPod Hi-Fi speaker dock (a sadly underrated product IMHO: it's really very good indeed). Listening in the living room has been rather limited, especially as my current iPod Classic sounds a bit thin and feeble through my stereo via an Apple dock (previous 5.5G sounded better, but half the capacity and still sounded a little muddy a lot if the time). But it sure beats excavating CDs, vinyl and tapes!
So I got all excited when I read about the Pure dock. Instead of taking the analogue line-out from the iPod's dock connector, it extracts the digital stream and either provides a digital connection for external DACs or uses its own high-quality DAC to provide an analogue output for non-digital amps like mine. Either way it bypasses the iPod's internal DAC and analogue output stage, essentially using the iPod as a purely digital transport. And it does all this for less than £80, instead of the several hundred that such things have cost up to now.
So, a quick trip to Amazon and a wait for delivery later, and here it is plugged into my stereo as of yesterday afternoon. And WOW! This is seriously good. Even with my mostly low bitrate lossily compressed files (ie AAC and MP3), the grand plan to re-rip my CDs to lossless not having happened yet. Great news, as most of my recent acquisitions have been downloads rather than CD purchases (eMusic sub accounts for most).
Everything sounds much meatier and in focus, bass is more evident but nice and tight, everything sounds much more solid. My stereo sounds much more like itself. Best £80 I've spent in a long time.
Reading the reviews around the net, including a long thread on the Head-Fi site, it seems that you need to cough up several hundred quid to beat the Pure's internal DAC, but if you do it can beat some seriously expensive CD players when using lossless files.
If you use a dock to connect your iPod to a good stereo system it's definitely worth a shot. NB it only works with more modern iThings which can do the digital output thing, which includes iPod Classics, most Nanos, iPod Touches and iPhones.
Oh, and it does video out, too: SD via composite, S-Video or component. Haven't tested that yet, much too busy grooving to the audio at the moment!
Anyway, these days I do nearly all my listening with an iPod, even at home. And due to health issues a lot of that home listening takes place in the bedroom using an Apple iPod Hi-Fi speaker dock (a sadly underrated product IMHO: it's really very good indeed). Listening in the living room has been rather limited, especially as my current iPod Classic sounds a bit thin and feeble through my stereo via an Apple dock (previous 5.5G sounded better, but half the capacity and still sounded a little muddy a lot if the time). But it sure beats excavating CDs, vinyl and tapes!
So I got all excited when I read about the Pure dock. Instead of taking the analogue line-out from the iPod's dock connector, it extracts the digital stream and either provides a digital connection for external DACs or uses its own high-quality DAC to provide an analogue output for non-digital amps like mine. Either way it bypasses the iPod's internal DAC and analogue output stage, essentially using the iPod as a purely digital transport. And it does all this for less than £80, instead of the several hundred that such things have cost up to now.
So, a quick trip to Amazon and a wait for delivery later, and here it is plugged into my stereo as of yesterday afternoon. And WOW! This is seriously good. Even with my mostly low bitrate lossily compressed files (ie AAC and MP3), the grand plan to re-rip my CDs to lossless not having happened yet. Great news, as most of my recent acquisitions have been downloads rather than CD purchases (eMusic sub accounts for most).
Everything sounds much meatier and in focus, bass is more evident but nice and tight, everything sounds much more solid. My stereo sounds much more like itself. Best £80 I've spent in a long time.
Reading the reviews around the net, including a long thread on the Head-Fi site, it seems that you need to cough up several hundred quid to beat the Pure's internal DAC, but if you do it can beat some seriously expensive CD players when using lossless files.
If you use a dock to connect your iPod to a good stereo system it's definitely worth a shot. NB it only works with more modern iThings which can do the digital output thing, which includes iPod Classics, most Nanos, iPod Touches and iPhones.
Oh, and it does video out, too: SD via composite, S-Video or component. Haven't tested that yet, much too busy grooving to the audio at the moment!
