Valve amps for iPods

[Steve]

Take a tiny music player and whack it into some massive media center. That seems to be the current aim of creators of iPod accessories. A-Zone International stick with that theme, but add a retro spin by slapping an iPod dock on a valve amp.

The iPod rests in a silver docking station with a wooden trim, and next to it sits a matching amp with three illuminated glass valves on top. The dock and the amp together measure about 42 centimetres wide and 15cms deep. The system also includes two 50 Watt-per-channel speakers. It all comes in a glossy black, wood or a leather finish.

And if you guessed that this thing ain't cheap, well done; it's €699 in Germany.

More over at Macworld.

[Bob Crabtree]

Personally, I've got cloth ears, so don't generally worry about the quality of MP3.

Nonetheless, the idea of lashing out on expensive valve kit to improve the quality does seem to me to be more than a little bit daft.

You are starting off with audio that has been compressed to turn it into something suitable for an iPod and then you waste all that money on valve kit that's supposed to provide better quality than transistors.

I wonder if the people who make it (or buy it) have heard of Gigo (garbage in, garbadge out)?

[TheAnimus]

i think the point is its more of an artistic thing, valves that are iluminated look kinda cool. Most apple product buyers are cretins anyway, and this thing glows and looks cool, as such they will become moist for it.

[UltraMagnus]

since Ipods dont support FLAC, WTF is the point!

vacuume tube amps are worth it if you have a quality imput like high bit rate FLAC files, but other wise, just forget it

[Funkstar]

not FLAC, but iPods do support Appls Lossless (or ALAC) which is pretty much the same, considdering it is lossless.

Oh, and i know it is picky, but there is no such thing as "high bit rate FLAC files", lossless is lossless. Sure you can adjust how hard flac.exe tries to compress your music (using the missleading "quality" parameter), but it has no bearing on quality, as it is all lossless but does vary the compression ratio. You are only likely to get about 5% difference from the fastest to the slowest though.

anyway, if you want a valve amp just for the look of it, the Imp Amp is for you

http://www.impamp.com/

a tiny stereo valve amp for about $600. I really want one for my SqueezeBox but can#t justify the cost :/