iLounge

41

I love this debate… But for the money, you can’t get a better iPod speaker system than the iCarta.

Posted by Andy on December 31, 2006 at 2:14 PM (PDT)

42

Curtis: if money wasn’t involved and you were looking for the best possible digital output for your ipod, would you go with the peripheral designed by people who make wireless keyboards, or the people who have blown away reviewers with hi-fi audio equipment for over 20 years? keep in mind that there is more to these products than their clocks… we’ve invested a lot of time in research to figure out why things sound the way they do.

What a load of cr*p! I can’t believe you have the audacity to try and imply that the people behind the Squeezebox have no idea what they are doing. Logitech BOUGHT them, they weren’t a division of Logitech to begin with. Your slanderous comments about comparing a company that makes keyboards to a company like MSB are outrageous. You had some credibility until you said that, then you lost it all. All us real audiophiles know the history of Squeezebox and Slim Devices so don’t pass your marketing cr*p off as actual intelligence or wit.

Posted by Audiophile on January 1, 2007 at 4:45 AM (PDT)

43

The whole point of the ipod is portability.  What’s the point of a link that provides perfect digital output when you cannot carry great speakers, amps, preamps, etc. in your pocket along with the ipod?  It might be attractive for travel if you could actually connect it to a system of decent quality in a hotel room.  Unfortunately, the best system I ever found in even a 5 star hotel was made by Bose, and by your own admission, for Bose this is overkill. 

This is a great little gadget for people who don’t want to go to the trouble of taking cds out from the case and putting them into their cd players.  It’s perfect for the young investment banker with more dollars than sense who isn’t technologically savvy, and doesn’t know how to put his music on an external hard drive other than an ipod. For him, the high price point will actually be a selling point.  I do not see true audiophiles being interested in it for many reasons. Anyone who can hear the difference in sound quality provided by “audiophile” cabling can (or will claim to) also hear the difference between Apple Lossless which is compressed, and AIFF or WAV. They will need a hard drive larger than 80 gigs.  Moreover, the audiophiles I know don’t use itunes to rip their music and will not use an ipod, modded or not, for home playback.

Posted by Bunny on January 2, 2007 at 10:34 AM (PDT)

44

What happens when your iPod goes bad as most do? They happen to be very glitchy

Posted by RAL75 on January 3, 2007 at 1:29 PM (PDT)

45

To whomever who listed the specs for the Wolfson DAC:

Standing alone, these specs may be excellent, however they do not account for the overall sound quality and output of the ipod.  You have to take into consideration all of the circuitry and the quality of the amplifier.  I’m sure the specs of the overall output of the player, although respectable, do not even come close to those of the chip. And if you think the output of the line out on the docking station is fantastic, think again...it’s still connected to volume control of the ipod’s amplifier, and may be worse than the output of the headphone jack.

Maybe some of you should congratulate MSB for doing something that Apple apparently is unwilling to do. Although pricey, no one said you had to purchase it.

Posted by Coprock on January 4, 2007 at 11:06 AM (PDT)