30 Pin Dock with quality DAC?

Is there a 30 pin quality DAC or sale? Yes there is but stock is limited. If you do a search in Australia for an Arcam drDock you'll find there is some stock available. I bought one and it is so superior to the alternatives (and most of them are second hand). This unit isn't cheap but the sound is sublime and blows most of the alternatives out of the water.


If you keep your eyes open then you may be able to pick up a second hand Cambridge Audio id100 dock but this doesn't have a DAC and connects to an amplifier via a digital cable.


Both of these are made to of aluminium and are as solid as all get out.



After that there is the Pure i-20 and this is a plastic dock with decent sound as well. I can't recommend anything other 30 pin dock as they aren't worth the outlay.

Posted on Jan 19, 2021 1:36 AM

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Posted on Jan 19, 2021 1:46 AM

Just a quick clarification on the Cambridge Audio dock. This a transport dock (i.e. no internal DAC) that just sends out a pure digital signal to a digital amplifier (that has an internal DAC) which then re-encodes the signal into an analogue signal for transmission to your analogue speakers. You could also connect a DAC between your 30 pin iDevice and the amplifier if you have an old analogue system or your amp's DAC is low end. The choice is yours.


I'd also advise that if you're using a quality dock/DAC then turn off the iDevices' Equaliser (EQ) and any other adjustments that would degrade the digital signal.

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Jan 19, 2021 1:46 AM in response to stewart265

Just a quick clarification on the Cambridge Audio dock. This a transport dock (i.e. no internal DAC) that just sends out a pure digital signal to a digital amplifier (that has an internal DAC) which then re-encodes the signal into an analogue signal for transmission to your analogue speakers. You could also connect a DAC between your 30 pin iDevice and the amplifier if you have an old analogue system or your amp's DAC is low end. The choice is yours.


I'd also advise that if you're using a quality dock/DAC then turn off the iDevices' Equaliser (EQ) and any other adjustments that would degrade the digital signal.

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30 Pin Dock with quality DAC?

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