Quote:
Originally Posted by mr_walsh 
1) The AppleInsider iPod Touch teardown shows it still has the Wolfson. AppleInsider | iPod touch tear-down with high-quality internal photos
2) Cirrus Logic, at least to me, has a reputation for el-cheapo chips. They made the cheapest, most plain graphics cards. Wolfson is an audiophile supplier.
3) I suspect and hope the 'Touch' lifelessness that I can hear is from the amp, not the DAC.
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Here we go again ... the date on the top of that page is gold : lets hope they can keep better track of the photos than of the time.
Your attitude to the Cirrus Logic vs Wolfson DAC mirrors a lot of the comments I have seen to date, but I would throw a couple of things into the mix:
1. I dont believe the quality of the DAC that Wolfson supply to Apple for the iPods could be anywhere near that supplied to companies like Cambridge Audio for their CDPs. Every 'name' in audio has released brilliant products and others that most prefer to forget - why do we believe Wolfson would be any different, particularly given the price pressures Apple inevitably put them under ?
2. Cirrus might be 'cheap and nasty', but I'd like to see what the real cost of that chip was before they won the Apple contract. Apple are paying for the silicon and a small profit margin on each chip - the difference is that Cirrus knows they can sell millions of the things.
3. I believe that Apple engineers were given the time and budget to do something with this chip, presumably to bolster the audio performance of the iPhone.
Personally, I could care if the internals of the 6G Classic came from Mattel and Disney corporation - I like the sound. YMMV.