I'm looking at the ibasso amp/dac combos, but i'm very new to the whole idea of amps. Does the ibasso utilize both the amp and dac while attached to a portable player like an ipod? If not, is there a product that does?

No, you are bypassing the iPod amp only. Wadia i170 and Onkyo ND-S1 will circumvent the iPod DAC and transfer raw data to an outboard digital interface or DAC. These are not portable.

You need an iriver player that has optical out, then you can take advantage of the DAC in the D10 (the only iBasso with optical input).

If you use an ipod as DAP there is no need for an external DAC since you can't bypass the ipod's internal one, at least with a stock ipod. So all you need is an external amp to boost the signal.

If you want an external DAC/Amp combo, you'll need a player that outputs a digital signal, either optical or coax or maybe USB. There is a sticky thread with a list of available players.

mat don't worry about an external DAC with a portable, most of the DAPs have decent DACs, get yourself a nice Amp, wait till the D4 is available

Quote:



even if I use LOD ?

edit: sorry, stupid question...
let's try with the second one:

and, since you say 'at least with a stock iPod', is it possible, and how, to modify the iPod (Classic, in my case) to bypass its internal DAC ?

ciao
daniele

I searched around and did not find any mod that bypasses the internal ipod dac. Apparently the signal before the internal dac is based on a proprietary format, not a standard spdif-signal that you could tap.

The imod just grabs the analog signal after the internal dac and provides a line out that bypasses the internal amp.

So if you want to use an external dac you should probably choose a different player. The iriver H1xx series works fine with an iBasso D10 and you can upgrade the harddisk od put a cf card or a cf-sd memory card adapter in it. Check out the forums at misticriver.net for h1xx related info.