Chord demonstrated the absolutely stunning Indigo Advanced D to A ($15,000). Yes, that's an iPod dock on top, but the Indigo isn't just another iPod dock. For one thing, you can only dock Chord modified iPods directly into it, allowing Chord to access the digital data in the iPod. The Indigo also has a A2DP radio "dongle" that can seamlessly stream digital radio ir music from anywhere in the room. Another dongle is supplied to stream analog output from unmodified iPods.

Additional digital inputs include S/PDIF, AES/EBU,TOSLINK, USB, and high-quality Bluetooth. What's that, you say, isn't Bluetooth a strange choice for high quality?. Chord uses Bluetooth to extract the digital data and input it directly into its DAC which incorporates the field programable gate array(specifically, Xilinx Spartan 3, which is customized to a massive" 1.2 million gates). The FPGA then handles S/PDIF switching, decoding the digital PLL< RAM buffer controller, WTA filtering, and a 5^th gen Pulse Array DAC.

There's also an analog input (RCA and XLR) and to line level outputs (variable and pass through). There's even a headphone jack.

Of course, its construction is solid chord—the casework is flawless.