I won this unit at the California Audio Show. I have never even owned an ipod before however this unit was very user friendly. You have a number of different dock inserts for different ipods. I had trouble getting the thing to work until I realized that the Wadia came with the wrong dock insert installed for the ipod I was trying to use. The insert was a little tricky to remove. Once the correct insert or no insert is used the ipod goes in fairly easily. I than connected the Wadia to a Grant Fidelity DAC I had purchased at the audio show. BTW there were some incredible bargains at the audio show. Until the California Audio Show, I had not paid much attention to the ipod but these things were all over the show along with the Wadia transport hooked up to different DAC's making beautiful music. I figured I better get into the modern era. This is a great way to get high end sound out your ipod. You still need a DAC either built into your preamp or an outboard unit. Once everything is properly connected you now have another source component to play through your stereo. It comes with a simple remote control that I will probably lose over time however it was easier for me to just use the ipod controls.

i have owned a Wadia 170i for close to a year now and this is the best new HT product out there hands down.. brings the iPod/iTouch into the big time HT sound systems, and will stun even the biggest nonbeliever.. to get the full sound out of them they must ran with a iTouch and also like other people have said they also need a good DAC, now with that said there's only one company {at the time i wrote this} that had a built-in DAC onboard the Wadia170, with digital in, and a switch so you can run a CD player throught the DAC in the Wadia or iTouch and there's even more MODS if you like....please check out ASi teknolgies / and Doug Jesse is the man who makes this high end player even better and he's the one who built mine and WOW it's the bomb. with a GOOD DAC this will flat make your jaw drop all the way to the flood and you'll like it............

Quality. Be it sound quality or build quality this unique product can truly transform your Ipod into a formidable hi-end music server.

It’s not so much weakness; however these are suggestions on how the Wadia 170i Transport can be improved.

In the early product promotion Wadia showed a cool lit up blue light where the Wadia logo is. The production version does not do this. It should. A nice little blue LED light would serve two purposes. 1) Indicate the unit has power to it 2) Provide a place to aim the remote during night listening.

The Wadi 170i transport lacks volume controls…on some systems this is not an issue; however on other systems (particularly older vintage gear with no remoter control) having volume on the remote would be a welcome benefit. It should be noted that the Wadia supplied remote control has volume controls on it; however they actually serve purpose (as you will read in the manual)

That’s about it. Otherwise it is a great product.

The Wadia 170i Transport is the missing link between true hi-end fidelity and your Ipod. If you are serious about your sound than by now you have come to accept the limits of MP3. Yes, you can “rip” your current CD’s using Apple’s well respected “lossless” format and you can also download content exclusively from Itunes + however at the end of the day your digital content onboard your Ipod is only as good as those tiny, low end onboard DAC’s buried deep inside of your Ipod.

Thankfully the Wadia 170i transport finally does away with this misery. The Wadia is the first product on the market to somehow bypass the lackluster onboard DAC’s and output a pure digital signal. Please keep in mind that is all the Wadia really does. The Wadia has no built in DAC’s of it’s own; so unless you have the gear to properly take advantage of a pure digital signal the Wadia will yield no sonic benefits to you whatsoever.

For those of you who have a stand alone DAC or a built in DAC in some other component that can accept the Wadia’s coaxial digital output signal than be prepared for pure sonic bliss. If you use “ripped” content under Apple lossless I can guarantee that what you will hear out of your DAC will be every bit as good as any other device that you have used with your DAC. Either hi-end transports or CDP’s; the Wadia routed through a good quality DAC will yield sonic results that are on par. It’s than good and when you consider the paltry $ 399 asking price it can truly transform your Ipod into a hi-performance music server.

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There really is nothing that compares directly to the Wadia. However tube buffers/processor’s can be found at ½ the money that might be worth experimenting with. Also at $400 + the cost of an Ipod one might look to explore a digital music server.