DAC/Dock for iPhone 6?

McMike

New Member
Howdy, I used to have a Pure i20 that took the 30-pin iPhone output to RCA to play music on my vintage stereo receiver via aux-in. Does not work with iPhone 6, even with a 30=7 dongle.

Wondering what I should try these days:
- A DAC (preferably < $200, I am playing MP3s after all).
- Some other kind of dock or gadget I am not aware of.
- Just use a Bluetooth streamer and forget it.
- Get a wireless Sonos and plug in to the Borg

Nothing fancy. Just looking for better-than-headphone-port performance and not too many bells and whistles.

There are obvious convenience tradeoffs when moving to bluetooth or wireless, and that catches my eye, but are there still performance tradeoffs?

I listen to mostly playlists via the iPhone of purchased MP3s and burned CDs, plus some Spotify and Pandora.

Thanks
 
Chromecast Audio. Add a separate DAC later or right away.

The CCA's DAC is not bad at all by itself, and it has a SPDIF out.

(I admit to never setting up a CCA with an Iphone but I understand it works fine)

Spotify Premium sounds good with a CCA and the app has native CCA support.

Eric
 
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Not sure what the issue is with your I20, but I sometimes use my I7 with it, but it has to be an Apple brand adapter, not generic.
I will recheck my setup sat, and let you know what pieces are involved.
 
Howdy, I used to have a Pure i20 that took the 30-pin iPhone output to RCA to play music on my vintage stereo receiver via aux-in. Does not work with iPhone 6, even with a 30=7 dongle.

Wondering what I should try these days:
- A DAC (preferably < $200, I am playing MP3s after all).
- Some other kind of dock or gadget I am not aware of.
- Just use a Bluetooth streamer and forget it.
- Get a wireless Sonos and plug in to the Borg

Nothing fancy. Just looking for better-than-headphone-port performance and not too many bells and whistles.

There are obvious convenience tradeoffs when moving to bluetooth or wireless, and that catches my eye, but are there still performance tradeoffs?

I listen to mostly playlists via the iPhone of purchased MP3s and burned CDs, plus some Spotify and Pandora.

Thanks
There is a trade off in sound quality for Bluetooth. If you have an Amazon Prime account, I would recommend an Echo Dot because it pairs so easily with your phone. Once you have it paired the first time, you can just tell Alexa to connect to phone and music will play. It has built in free services like Amazon Prime's free music streaming, Pandora, Tune In, etc.

If you don't like Amazon listening in, you can always get something like the Belkin bluetooth receiver I use at work.

The Chromecast Audio device will only work with a subset of apps on your phone. Therefore, you will want to make sure it is compatible with the audio apps you use. It is capable of playing some high resolution formats and can use optical or aux.

There are numerous Airplay devices on the market, as well. The Airport Express can typically be found in the $50 range and it works with all of your iPhone's audio apps (like Bluetooth). However, it requires more wifi bandwidth than the Chromecast, so if you have an older wifi router, you may get drop outs. It is bit perfect with your typical CD quality file (16/44.1) and also has aux and optical out.

Anyway, there are a lot of options and which one you choose will depend on your specific needs and setup.
 
I have an airport express apple makes it so it’s easy to connect to your iPhone. It also helped extend the range of the wifi in the house. Don’t go with Bluetooth I tried it before the Apple airport and ended up returning it within a week
 
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