iStreamer DAC... Luke?

[harv]

So I have an older Alpine hu with RCA aux inputs. I also have an iPod/iPhone connector and charger. My system consists of 4 Precision Power component speakers, Luke box with 10" sub, and a Precision Power 5ch amp.

Lately my iPod iPhone cable has developed a short in it and it's not like it's all that old or it has been mistreated. Early on it had a short in another part of the cable that I was able to isolate. In my opinion the iSimple cable is just not that high of quality. .... So, I was thinking of wiring in a USB plug into the car stereo, that way when the cable took a shit, I could just get an new iPhone to USB cable.

Then I discovered DAC's.

A few days ago while visiting my Dad in Boulder Co. I was fortunate enough to get a tour and demonstration of PS Audio. This really got me thinking about DAC's. Doing a little search on the web I found there were a lot of cheep DAC's on the market, and many of them designed to interface with the iPhone or pod.

This got me to thinking that one of these cheep DAC's could improve the sound quality in my e30 as I mostly listen to my iPhone in the car.

I found this...

http://www.avguide.com/review/high-resolution-technologies-istreamer-dac-playback-40?src=Playback

Anyone ever use one of these in a car? It will charge the iPhone and or iPod.

Buler? Buler?

Ps. I forgot to add that it's available in 110vac or 12vdc


John

[harv]

Well, I couldn't take the shorting iPhone cable so I ordered the dac. Yea it was 150 bucks more than a new cable, but all this reading about dacs has my attention.

Can't wait.

John

[Holland]

Sounds super cool but I am a bit lost on how exactly it works?

[TurboJake]

Why not just get a new head unit? You can get a decent one for way under 2 bills that has native Ipod support, and charges it at the same time.

Just curious.

[harv]

A DAC doesn't use the analog signal (headphone or line out) from the iPhone or Pod. It takes the digital signal from the player and uses it's (much higher quality) DAC instead of the iPhone's own (flabby but girly man) DAC.

Last week I got to listen to a 4000$ CD player hooked to a 4000$ DAC.

It was .... Impressive (in my best Darth Vader voice)

John

[nrubenstein]

A DAC doesn't play the analog signal (headphone or line out) from the iPhone or Pod. It takes the digital signal from the player and uses it's (much higher quality) DAC instead of the iPhone's own (flabby but girly man) DAC.

Last week I got to listen to a 4000$ CD player hooked to a 4000$ DAC.

It was .... Impressive (in my best Darth Vader voice)

John

Which one?

I love my PS Audio Lambda II and Ultralink II until the DAC fried itself. (Once upon a time that was pushing $10k, but I didn't pay anything like that for it.)

[harv]

Don't know. It's so far above my pay grade.... It was the current PS Audio setup in their Boulder CO facility. Kinda interesting as they remove a CD and the music keeps playing.....

John

[Holland]

So this connects to the amp, which then connects to the deck? Meaning I could maintain the factory tape deck and still run my ipod?

[harv]

No.

It goes between an iPod/phone/pad and AUX inputs. Your head unit would need line level inputs. Like on your home stereo. My Alpine (forget the model number but it's old) has an Aux input and I can select it from the source button. Am/FM/CD/AUX. So this works for me.

John

[smooth]

the iPhone's own (flabby but girly man) DAC.

Which generation iPhone do you have? their DAC's are usually held in high regard but the head out isn't going to give best results because of the integrated DAC-amp design. if you get a line out you might get some surprising results...unless you have a 3gs.

I have a line out that someone from head-fi made for me years ago.
You might be able to find one from someone over there for probably around $20 bucks.

[nrubenstein]

The real question in my mind is whether or not this thing is actually better than a $150 head unit that has a decent onboard DAC and also plays back music files internally.

[smooth]

The real question in my mind is whether or not this thing is actually better than a $150 head unit that has a decent onboard DAC and also plays back music files internally.

Yes, it would be considerably better than a $150 head unit. I don't know of any in that price range that would qualify as having decent onboard DAC's but even if you found one there are other reasons this would still outperform it.

Whether one would be able to notice the difference in a 20+ year old car, or almost any normally driven car for that matter, is a different matter entirely.

[harv]

Whether one would be able to notice the difference in a 20+ year old car, or almost any normally driven car for that matter, is a different matter entirely.

This is very true, but I still couldn't resist trying to improve my 3GS iPhone sound.

John

[TurboJake]

A DAC doesn't use the analog signal (headphone or line out) from the iPhone or Pod. It takes the digital signal from the player and uses it's (much higher quality) DAC instead of the iPhone's own (flabby but girly man) DAC.

Last week I got to listen to a 4000$ CD player hooked to a 4000$ DAC.

It was .... Impressive (in my best Darth Vader voice)

John

I'm still confused.

The newer head units with the nativs iPod and iPhone connections (Such as the alpine 433iV cable) are still analog?

It doesn't use the headphones/line out connection. It uses a full speed data connection that's on the bottom of the iPod. It was to my understanding that this was still 100% digital and the deck decodes the stream using its internal DAC.

Or am I wrong? I kinda want to know this answer.

[smooth]

You're not wrong, but a couple things do need clarification.

First of all, this iStreamer is not intended as a portable device. It is powered by a typical wall wart. So we need to compare it to other offerings in the intended market segment, not car audio, to understand the demand for it.

It's intended to be an introduction to a higher quality of playback than typically offered from docks but lower than something like running a discreet amp and DAC. It's an all-in-one piece of gear that can sit on the desk and give someone very respectable playback, but it's not audiophile grade gear.

If one does connect an iDevice into a modern head unit that has some kind of digital interface then it most likely is going to rely on the DACs inside the head unit, but it does't have to. The apple cable can also do analog output. Regardless, without knowing the DAC within a given head unit or the DAC inside the iStreamer, along with the specific Apple device then it's not necessarily true that one device's DAC is always going to be better than the other.

Generally, though, a standalone device is going to deliver a better signal than an integrated one. It's likely that a $200 iStreamer-type device is going to have better components than a $500 dollar head unit, for example, and there's almost no chance it will be worse than an equally priced one. Aside from that, though, there are things like the amp, the signal to noise, and in this case how it ensures jitter-free playback that enable the iStreamer to deliver a much higher quality signal than is typically found on most consumer devices.