R dock or Maplin connect

Hi all
Could you tell me if the expense of an R dock (i know its only just over £100) is worth the outlay as against a connection lead from Maplins hooked up to my amp.
any advice would be welcome
Thanks

 

I think the advantage is it will charge at the same time. You dont need to spend "rdock" prices though, Onkyo make one for a lot less.
http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/moreinfo.cfm/Product_ID/3934
or how about NAD?
http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/moreinfo.cfm/Product_ID/3834

 

With these kind of devices there are two kinds - one that makes use of the Ipods in-built Dac. I believe all of the above listed fall into this category. The other type takes a digital out form the ipod, bypassing the ipods own DAC, therby letting you use an external DAC.

I can't imagine you would get a huge sound improvement from using a lead vs a doc (for those devices in the first category)

if you do a search on here I think this has been covered fairly extensively before

 

kmac, thats not quite true.

their are ipod docks, and then there is the Wadia itransport and the MBS Imod. Only the MBS and Wadia units extract an unblemished digital signal from inside the IPOD bypassing the internal DAC.

All ipod docs output an analogue signal directly via the analogue out of the ipod, ie using the ipod internal DAC. Even the krell KID does this, though it does ADC internally and then reconverts it, weird huh.

The Wadia itransport bypasses the DAC in the ipod and outputs the digital stream via spdif. it also output analogue in the same way as any other dock.

The MBS unit, requires a specially modified ipod at $1800+ to do the same as the Wadia.

Ther eis a new component coming from DLO, this outputs digital, but this is derived by performing ADC on the analogue output from the ipod, so is not true bitperfect. Basically this a cheap Krell KID.

 

Seems hardly worth the effort IMHO.