It exists; we saw it for ourselves! Wadia's $349 iTransport can take the digital signal out of an iPod <I>before</I> the DAC, outputting 16-bit/44.1khz resolution for uncompressed files—it doesn't upconvert lower-rez files like MP3s, but it <I>does</I> reformat them to 16/44.1, according to Wadia's John Schaffer.
The back of the iTransport fully decked out with XLO cabling.
The new Wadia iTransport detailed above also comes in your choice of hot rod finishes. Well not officially, but they couldn't resist making one for the show.
We ran into SinglePower Inc.'s Mikhail Rotenberg as he was sprinting down the hall to the Synergistic Research room. "Check these out," he said. "These are a 1932 Tung Argon 4327 and a 1943 722A (323), labeled Centennial, but manufactured by Western Electric."
The show has just opened its doors and <I>Stereophile</I>'s Stephen Mejias holds the new Product of the Year awards to be handed out all day long.
Now that hi-rez files without DRM are starting to become available for download from several labels, are you ready for an audiophile music server?
On January 4, <I>BusinessWeek.com</I> <A HREF="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2008/tc2008013_398775…; that Sony BMG Music Entertainment was dropping digital rights management (DRM) from "at least part of its collection." Sony BMG thus becomes the last of the big four music labels to do so—following <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/news/123107warner/">Warner Music Group's example</A> by less than a week. EMI and Universal Music Group began the stampede earlier in the year, pioneering DRM-free downloads with <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/100107amazon/">Amazon.com</A>, among other partners.
Reference Recordings, the Bay Area-based audiophile label founded by John T. "Tam" Henderson in 1976, has adopted a unique approach to computer and music server playback. Later this month, the company will begin to market what they call "HRx" discs. Incompatible with conventional optical disc players, these are data discs containing WAV files intended for playback on computer-based music servers. Each HRx is a digit-for-digit copy of an original Reference Recordings 24-bit/176.4kHz digital master. The format is slated for audition during this week's CES. It can be heard in the TAD, FIM, and Magico rooms at the Venetian, as well as in On a Higher Note's Vivid/Luxman suite at the Mirage. Actual HRx discs will be available soon thereafter.
Wadia Digital, Inc. announced that it will debut the $349 iTransport iPod dock in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) January 7, 2008. Certified by Apple as "Made for iPod®," the iTransport bypasses the iPod's internal D/A conversion to output an S/PDIF signal, "providing CD-quality resolution from full-resolution from file formats such as .WAV and [Apple Lossless]."
The accuracy of a hi-fi system's "soundstage" reproduction seems to be of paramount importance these days, just as a component must now have "transparency" to possess hi-fi righteousness. If the system in which that component is used doesn't give good soundstage, then the system's owner has definitely fallen by the wayside. But what defines a good soundstage? Stereo imaging must have something to do with it, I hear you all cry. (I would have said stereo <I>imagery</I> until Larry Archibald pointed out that imagery has far less to do with hi-fi than with good writing, something I'm sure we agree has no place in a hi-fi magazine.) OK, what defines good stereo imaging?