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[Maxwell House]

I am buying new bookshelf speakers, an AV receiver and cables to hook up my gf's ipod to at home for her Xmas present.

I had a question about the type of inputs an Ipod will take from the receiver. Can you hook up an Ipod to the receiver via higher quality opitcal cables? Can those cables run from the headphone jack of the Ipod or do you need to buy an Ipod dock for that?

What is the best way to get the best sound out of the Ipod in other words? Is it optical cable from the Ipod dock to the AV Receiver? Thanks for any and all help.

Oh, and if you guys have any recommdendations on a good optical cable kit for Ipod to home receiver that would be nice to know about to.

 

[DJ Sl4m]

The headphone jack will work, but I've read that there's a type of output which plugs into the bottom of the iPod for better quality sound.

Of course it's Apple stuff, so expect to overpay another $49.00 or so, but how much better is the question that I can't answer.

 

[mrklaw]

she got a PC to hold all those tracks on? Why not hook that up to the receiver.

 

[StrikerObi]

she got a PC to hold all those tracks on? Why not hook that up to the receiver.

Other idea:

AirPort Express. If her PC/Mac has a wireless card in it you can beam the music right from the PC to the AirPort Express, which is wired into the stereo.

As for the iPod idea, use a dock. Running a cable from the headphone port on the iPod will use the iPod's amp. Running it through the dock's output will not, and will result in better sound quality.

Edit: Also, I notice this everywhere on every forum. Is it that hard to write "iPod" correctly? It's not ipod, it's not IPOD, it's not Ipod. lowercase i capital P lowercase od. iPod.

 

[Maxwell House]

Ok, I plan to buy the dock. Do you know if you can connect the dock to an AV Receiver using optical cables into one of the optical inputs?

 

[Jim Bowie]

Unless you plan on absolutely blasting the stereo, the headphone jack to line in will work wonders. I do that to my car and I get pretty good sound quality. As good as you can get with a cheap car stereo and factory speakers.

 

[StrikerObi]

Ok, I plan to buy the dock. Do you know if you can connect the dock to an AV Receiver using optical cables into one of the optical inputs?

I believe that Monster makes a cable designed for use with the Dock or AirPort Express that has a minijack plug on one end, and a TOSlink optical on the other end, which is what you're looking for.

Honestly though, I question the audio quality of such a product. The idea of using optical is to keep the signal high quality all the way from output to input. If it has to start with a minijack doesnt' that limit the overall quaity? Transfering from minijack to TOSlink is still going to leave you with minijack quailty audio. Just becuase it's moved to optical at one point can't magically boost the quality of the aduio, can it?

 

[Dilbert]

Honestly though, I question the audio quality of such a product. The idea of using optical is to keep the signal high quality all the way from output to input. If it has to start with a minijack doesnt' that limit the overall quaity? Transfering from minijack to TOSlink is still going to leave you with minijack quailty audio. Just becuase it's moved to optical at one point can't magically boost the quality of the aduio, can it?

Even more to the point -- unless you have all of your music on your iPod in lossless format, you will only be paying extra $$$ to reproduce lossy audio in excruciating detail.

 

[StrikerObi]

Even more to the point -- unless you have all of your music on your iPod in lossless format, you will only be paying extra $$$ to reproduce lossy audio in excruciating detail.

Excellent point.

If I were you I would use a minijack to RCA (red/white) cable. The quality with TOSlink will not be amazing (because of the aforementioned reasons). RCA will be fine, and save you a good deal of money.

 

[Maxwell House]

Thanks for the advice. I think I will just go el cheapo with the headphone jack route.