The Apple iPod has undoubtedly changed the face of music listening as the majority of music lovers know. It was not the first MP3 player and it's not the best sounding, but thanks to outstanding design and ergonomics it transformed music on the move and has gone on to invade the home as well.

This is achieved with inexpensive standalone sound docks with built-in amp and speakers, or for better results, with docks that allow you to stream the player's analogue output to an existing system. Sound quality is inevitably compromised by a number of factors, but the compact and essentially cheap nature of the DAC in an iPod seems to be one of the biggest.

The second, of course, is users' preference for compressed music files in order to boost the capacity of the device. Downloads also play a part in quality. Realising these limitations, high-end digital specialist Wadia has built a dock that can output a digital stream from an iPod for external conversion.

Design

Wadia is the first and, so far, only company to do this with an unmodified iPod. The only competition that we have discovered comes from MSB Technology whose iLink dock requires that the iPod be modified for the purpose, which is partly why the price of player and dock is considerably higher at £1,900.

The Wadia 170i Transport is almost as stylish as the iPod itself thanks to a compact square case with rubberised spike feet and a high quality anodised finish. The key to its appeal, of course, is the Wadia logo cut into the front, something that is usually only found on components costing over ten times the asking price here.

A variety of dock inserts are supplied to accommodate different models of player and the list of these seems fairly comprehensive, with all but the Shuffle and iPhone present. We would recommend that you go to wadia.com for a definitive list to make sure your player is supported.

Featurewise, the 170i Transport has a coaxial digital output and analogue out on RCA phonos, these sit alongside video out in composite and S-video varieties. The connections are of the same quality that you find on amps and CD players at this price, essentially quite basic and for this reason we would suggest you avoid doing what we did, that is using a high-end chord indigo digital interconnect which has extremely tight plugs.

Wadia supplies a digital interconnect in the box alongside a small remote, but this can only be used to find next and previous tracks in an album or playlist, it has + and – buttons too, but these 'may be used with future Wadia products.'

The final 'mode' button changes output from digital to analogue, but not back again, which can be a trifle irritating unless you know to take the player out of the dock and re-seat it to achieve this end. As mentioned earlier most iPod users compress the music they want to hear in order to get more on the player, this inevitably compromises sound quality and while it may not be so apparent via the supplied headphones in this situation it's obvious.

The format that Wadia's UK distributor MDC recommends is Apple Lossless which compresses files to about half their original size but without an obvious reduction in sound quality. The best system available is WAV which is totally uncompressed and, therefore, takes up acres of space, but if you want the best results and have a system that can take advantage it's space worth using.

Sound quality

We used the 170i Transport with two varieties of iPod classic, a 120GB version of the current anodised finish model and its predecessor, a 5th-generation 80GB example. The latter was used because it's an MSB iLink-modified unit that works in both the Wadia and MSB docks and was used for comparison with that competitor.

Its a comparison which makes a good case for the extra cost of the MSB, in a high-end system the iLink is clearly a superior player and one which can hold its own against CD transports of like price. It has a more open sound, presents more image depth and is clearly more revealing, the 170i Transport seems thinner through the midband and the bass and while not short on grunt, does not go so far down.

With challenging material the Wadia struggles to maintain its poise in a highly revealing system, a job that the MSB is clearly more at home with. It's crucial to remember here that even if you include an iPod classic in the equation, the 170i Transport is a third the price of its competitor. On its own terms the Wadia does a remarkably revealing and entertaining job with both Apple Lossless and WAV files on the iPod.