Pure i-20 iPod/iPhone Dock as a DAC - Page 27

Any DAC that accepts optical or coaxial digital input will work.  USB input will not work since the i20 has no USB output.

I agree with BmWr75 but also remember that the I-20 dose have a 24-bit 192 KHz DAC for its analogue output

I got an i-20 for Christmas so I could set up a secondary headphone rig in our rec room. That idea go quite as expected so for the most part the dock has acted as a charging station until last week when I picked up a NAD C326BEE for our modest speaker setup. After hooking up the i-20 to the NAD I was a bit perplexed why my iPhone 4S's volume still worked. I shot off an email to Pure at the same time a browsed through this and other threads but I didn't see a full explanation as to what was going on. I just received a reply from Pure which shed light on it for me so I thought I'd share.

 

 

 

I double checked this by plugging my phone into the dock and turning the volume up and down with the remote, lo and behold the volume on the iPhone itself goes up and down as well confirming Pure's explanation.

 

Sorry if this is old news.

Des anyone know how much louder/ more gain the analogue output of the i20 has compared to an ipod classic's line out from an apple dock or the analogue output from an airport express?
I have a cambridge audio stereo amp that outputs a fair 75 watts into 8 ohms but my speakers aren't the most efficient and I would like to have a source with a decent ouput level rather than turn the volume up on the amp.
Would rather not have to spend and buy a whole new source like a media player of some sort but use my ipod classic.

Thanks.

Matthew

Did you try to increase the volume with the pure remote control  ? I have noticed that when I plug my Ipod I often need to do this .

 

Florent

I do not own the pure dock.
I was just wondering if anyone who does own it knows either from the specs or from listening whether the line out from the pure dock is significantly louder than the line out from the apple dock.
I would like to use the volume from my amplifier so would leave the volume on the ipod untouched, though as a true line out i presume the pure dock's audio out would be a fixed volume ie non adjustable.

Thanks

I bought the Pure I-20 a few weeks ago. However, my iPod 80Gb Classic will not work with the dock. It gives an error that the accessory is not compatible. The Pure I-20 manual indicates that the 80Gb iPod Classic is supported.

 

Has anyone faced this issue?

 

I get that message on occasion with my iPhone 4S, in fact it just happened last night. Usually just taking it off and putting it back on will do the trick but there have been a couple of times that it was stubborn so I had to do it a few times.

 

You connect any external DAC via Toslink or SP/DIF (coax) it is just fine and will always work.  The decoding is done before the audio is sent to the output...  I use one as part of my reading and relaxing setup, it's been great.  Of course with new iPod connectors, the question is will it work with the thunderbolt adaptor.  Anyone tried?

For those of us who have an A/V receiver with very good quality DACs.Would we benefit also using these docks?I'm using an apple dock with my ipod classic to my Onkyo with Burr Brown Dacs.And it sounds excellent.

PS. I haven't read the whole thread yet.Apologies if it was already answered.

Edited by Nirvana1000 - 12/28/12 at 8:20pm

If you're using an Apple dock you're not listening to the DAC in your receiver, you're listening to the DAC in your iPod.

 

That's the difference with the i-20, it bypasses the DAC in your iPod and gives you Spdif digital outputs to connect to your receiver's digital inputs (RCA/coax or Toslink).

 

All the Apple dock does is bypass the iPod's internal amplifier, it is still outputting an analog (line-level) signal.

Edited by grokit - 12/28/12 at 10:36pm

Found a nice perk using Apple's "Home Sharing" to my old iPhone 4, I can stream my 88 and 96KHz content to the phone and it appears to be outputing 24 bits via SPDIF...

I have had an i-20 for a couple of months now and love the sound it produces:

 

ipod touch 2nd gen > i-20 analog out > audio innovations amp > polk rt12's..... hardly high end I know but we are amazed at the audio quality (it's a bedroom setup but rapidly becoming the main listening room!).

 

I want to move the 2nd gen ipod touch back to the bedside clock radio dock thingy for wakey up music and get a new ipod for the i-20 so

 

My question is: Which one is best suited for the i-20? I have skim read every page of this thread and also been going nuts researching "best ipod audio" threads. Does it not matter if it has a wolfson or cirrus(?) chipset? Is it just a ones and zeros storage pod as we are sucking the bits out of the bottom connector (and not using headphone out)?

 

thanks

^ yes your final sentence is right. Choice of iPod does not matter as the i20 bypasses the iPod dac chip. That's the point of the i20 - bit perfect retrieval of the digital data stream from the iPod. Choose your iPod based on ergonomics and capacity factors.

Right now you are using the i20's built-in dac to convert the iPod's digital stream to analog. The next obvious step is to take the digital direct from the i20 to an external dac. You do this by connecting to the i20's coax or optical out.

Another consideration for device choice is Home Sharing via iTunes, for which you need an iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad with wifi.  

 

With Home Sharing you can also get streaming of your main music library.  I have a TB of music, now I don't have to worry about what's actually on the device on the i20, I have my whole library including my 24/88 and 24/96 material.