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 MSB Technology iLink Digital iPod Dock
But so far, these docking stations have been a source of frustration for the audiophile who wants to use an iPod with a home audio system to achieve the best sound possible. Until now, every way of connecting an iPod has simply passed the player’s analog signal along to your home system. This means that, in terms of sound quality, audiophiles have been at the mercy of the iPod’s built-in digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Now, for a pocket player, the iPod’s built-in DAC is actually pretty good -- it sounds better than the DACs in some full-size CD players. But it doesn’t sound better than a true high-end DAC, which is why hardcore audiophiles who want to get the most from their portables want to do so by getting at the digital stream inside the iPod before it reaches the player’s DAC, and shooting that signal into their own high-end DACs. That’s what MSB Technology’s iLink does. It’s squarely aimed at the audiophile market, where its digital-output capabilities will be most appreciated and its hefty price of $1995 USD makes the most sense, based on the sound quality it delivers. On paper, it’s an audiophile’s dream. Description The iLink is an L-shaped cradle measuring about 5"H x 4"W x 2.5"D -- a little bigger, wider, and deeper than an iPod. In looks it’s nothing like the sleekly styled iPod itself, which is more or less a masterpiece of modern industrial design. Instead, the iLink looks chunky, despite its small size. But this shouldn’t be surprising; most audiophile companies aren’t so much concerned with cutting-edge aesthetic design as with achieving a high quality of sound.
However, you can’t just use any ol’ iPod with the iLink. No off-the-shelf iPod outputs a digital signal; if it did, devices such as the iLink would be everywhere. Rather, MSB Technology must modify your iPod. The cost of one mod is included in the iLink’s $1995 price; if you want a second iPod modified, MSB will charge you $199, which is nearing the price of a 30GB iPod itself. And if you don’t have an iPod at all and don’t want to go through the hassle of buying one and shipping it to MSB for modification, MSB will sell you a modified 80GB iPod with an iLink for $2349. For this review, MSB supplied me the whole kit’n’kaboodle. The modification doesn’t add any weird holes to the iPod or harm its appearance. Instead, all mods are done inside; the digital signal is output through the connector that’s already on the unit’s bottom. The only thing that indicates that an iPod has been modified is a legend engraved on its rear panel: "iLink Digital Upgrade by MSB Technology." All this talk about modifying iPods brings up one important thing: When MSB does their thing, your iPod’s warranty from Apple is voided. Obviously, this is something to consider before buying, especially as the cost of the iPod with mod is about $500. But I suspect that audiophiles who want access to that digital bitstream will have no problem with an unwarranted iPod. Here’s what else you need to know about the iLink: Included in the $1995 price are a small remote control and a nifty little RF connector that attaches to the bottom of the iPod. The remote has some very basic features: track skip and pause, and a digital volume control. As you’ll see in my comments below, I didn’t find the remote all that handy. On the other hand, the RF connector made up for that a bit. This transmitter allows you to wirelessly transfer the digital stream from iPod to iLink -- you can hold the iPod at your listening chair, or walk around the room with it, without keeping those bits from making their way to your DAC. Neat, but not without limitations; more on that below. Finally, the software: MSB supplies none, nor do they need to. Rather, you use iTunes to fill your iPod with music, as any iPod user would. However, it’s critical that you use the Apple Lossless compression format. Apple Lossless is, as its name implies, a non-lossy digital audio format: all of the musical information taken from the CD remains intact. This is unlike, say, MP3, a "lossy" format that, to save hard-drive space, throws away musical information it deems insignificant. To make sure iTunes rips tunes in Apple Lossless, go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Importing, and select Apple Lossless Encoder. It’s that easy. There’s one more important thing that MSB doesn’t tell you, but it seems that everyone who cares enough about sound quality to go to the trouble of encoding in Apple Lossless does -- or should -- know. After you select Apple Lossless, you’ll notice another option: "Use error correction when reading Audio CDs." By default this is off, and when it’s off, CDs rip faster. However, when this option isn’t selected, read errors made by the computer’s drive mechanism can supposedly slip through. I’ve never noticed any problems, but on various digital-music forums I’ve visited I’ve read plenty of stories of users who’ve experienced dropouts when that option wasn’t ticked; others have experienced poor sound quality. (Dropouts are complete losses of sound -- it’s not something you’ll miss.) Therefore, select it; it should guarantee you a bit-perfect transfer. However, the ripping speed won’t likely be as fast -- a small thing, probably, when you’ve spent two grand on something like the iLink and are looking for the very best sound possible. Setup I used the MSB iLink with my Stello DA220 DAC, which has been in my reference system for years. I used DH Labs’ Silver Sonic D-75 and i2Digital X-60 coaxial digital interconnects to connect the iLink to the Stello, to see if either cable would make any difference in the sound -- they didn’t. I also used the Silver Sonic D-110 AES/EBU cable, which connects to the DAC’s XLR jack -- it seemed subtly better than the coax cables, about which I’ll explain more below. My Theta Data Basic CD transport was also connected to the same DAC coaxially (again, the D-75 and X-60 yielded similar results, but my transport doesn’t support an XLR digital connection). This allowed me to do A/B comparisons of ripped files through the iLink with the original CD as played by the transport. I did most of my auditioning of the iLink with the Janszen Model One active loudspeaker system (review in the works). Because the Janszens are fully powered speakers, I needed to add only my Blue Circle BC3000 preamp. Analog interconnects were Nirvana Audio S-Ls. I also did some auditioning using the stand-mounted Usher Audio Be-718 speakers, powered by Simaudio’s Moon i-7 integrated amplifier and connected with Nirvana S-L speaker cables. In this second system, the front end remained the same. Use
I resorted to controlling the iPod directly while it was docked, which offered much better functionality. However, it wasn’t a cure; it’s not that easy to use a docked iPod’s controls -- the player was designed to work best in the palm. Luckily, MSB has a solution: an RF transmitter that clips into the iPod’s bottom port lets you venture away from the iLink, iPod in hand. Compared to using the remote control, or trying to control the iPod while it was docked, using the iLink this way was much easier. In fact, the ability to wirelessly stream music from the iPod gave me a glimpse of what we can soon expect from other small, digital front ends. But MSB’s iPod RF transmitter wasn’t flawless -- it liked a direct line of sight to the iLink receiver. If something got in the way -- such as my speakers or, more often, my hand -- dropouts occurred. This happened often when I wasn’t careful about how I was holding or pointing the iPod, and it got frustrating enough that often I wouldn’t hold the iPod in my hand after I’d cued a song to play. Instead, I’d place the iPod on the arm of my listening chair, where nothing, including any part of me, would get in the way of a clear path to the iLink. Furthermore, I wasn’t sure if it was possible to degrade the RF-transmitted signal enough so that sound quality would be decreased, but not enough to cause a full dropout. In other words, would the iLink accept a less-than-bit-perfect transfer from the RF transmitter and still play what it could? There was no way I could test that reliably, so I phoned MSB’s support number, and the gentleman there confirmed to me that it would. Hmmmm. Therefore, for my most critical listening, I docked the iPod in the iLink and resigned myself to the fact that I couldn’t have all the convenience I wanted from the iLink if I also wanted from it the best sound possible -- at least for a critical review. Listening In terms of sound quality alone, however, I can’t complain about the iLink. I A/B’d ripped music files against the CDs they’d come from, and, at worst, the iLink matched my Theta Data Basic transport’s sound quality playing the original CD. Most of the time, though, the iLink sounded better -- not in the bass, where I heard no real difference, but in the midrange and highs. Furthermore, the soundstage delineation also improved. For example, when I played tracks rich in high frequencies -- such as "Cradle and All," from Ani DiFranco’s Not a Pretty Girl [CD, Righteous Babe RBR-007D] -- the CDs through the Theta always had a splash and tizziness up top that I’d thought were parts of the recordings. Via the iLink, the Apple Lossless versions were every bit as extended in the highs, but without the splash and hash. I was surprised. "Where did the noise go?" I asked myself. "Is my transport adding this grunge? Does it have something to do with the CD?" Obviously, there were a lot of variables at play: different digital file sources ("Red Book" 16-bit/44.1kHz vs. Apple Lossless), storage methods (CD vs. the iPod’s internal hard drive), and playback electronics (the Theta Data Basic vs. the MSB-modified iPod through the iLink). Saying that the difference was due to one of those variables and not the others is impossible. However, the improvements I heard playing music through the iLink-based digital front end were undeniable -- the iLink system was always equal or better. These differences were just as apparent through the midrange. When I played Quartette’s cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s "Song for a Winter’s Night," from Beautiful: A Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot [CD, Borealis BCDNBM500], the singers’ voices were clearer, richer, and easier to discern in the mix. The highs, again, were cleaner, as if a hint of noise had been wiped away. Furthermore, things improved just a smidgen more when I changed the iLink’s connection to my DAC from coax to AES/EBU XLR (DH Labs Silver Sonic D-110 cable). The differences between the cable types were very subtle -- not nearly as obvious as the differences between my transport and the iLink -- but I learned from this comparison that there was still a bit of tidying to do at the top end. For example, the cymbals on Van Morrison’s "Get On with the Show," from What’s Wrong with This Picture? [CD, Blue Note 93651], had a touch more clarity and, again, an ever-so-subtle reduction of noise and hash that I thought had already disappeared -- but these artifacts were reduced by one more notch with the D-110 cable in the mix. There was also a small improvement in the "air" around the instruments and voice that helped to improve the re-creation of the soundstage. But I don’t want to make as big a deal of this comparison. As I said, the differences between these cables were very, very small, and might be undetectable in a system of lower resolution. Clearly, the biggest differences were between my Theta transport and the MSB iLink. So if you have to use coax, don’t fret -- the iLink is a strong performer in that regard. But if you can, try an AES/EBU XLR connection -- you might find the difference meaningful enough. Then again, that difference is subtle, so maybe not. Whatever the case, while I had strong reservations about the iLink’s feature set, particularly for $1995, its digital playback was first-rate. Conclusion
While I admired the MSB iLink’s ease of setup and the way the dock streamed bits from the iPod to my DAC, I wasn’t happy with the lack of features on its remote control, and I was mixed on the performance of its RF transmitter -- it was great with a perfect line of sight to the iLink, but frustrating when anything, such as my hand, got in the way. I can’t give the iLink high marks for features, and because of that, I can’t see it replacing my CD transport, whose convenience and features I prefer, even if means having to walk to my shelves to select a disc. The MSB iLink’s real appeal is what it was created for: getting the digital bitstream out of an iPod and into your own DAC. And that it does not merely well, but fabulously. I found that, regardless of source material, at worst the iLink matched the sound quality of my CD transport; usually, it bettered that quality. This was not something I anticipated when I first set up the iLink, nor did I expect that it was something that any iPod docking station would be capable of. MSB seems to have done a knockout job of getting an Apple iPod to put out sonic performance that can stand among the best. The iLink will appeal to some iPod users, but not to all. I don’t see it being used in low- or even moderately priced systems -- it’s just too expensive for that. Such systems are what low-priced cables and docking stations were designed for. Rather, I see the iLink most likely being used alongside a CD transport as another high-quality digital source by audiophiles who are serious about their iPods, and just as serious about integrating them into their home systems and getting the best sound from them -- and are willing to pay $1995 to do just that. …Doug Schneider MSB Technology iLink Digital iPod Dock MSB Technology Corporation Website: www.msbtech.com MSB Technology responds: The staff of MSB Technology and I would like to thank Doug Schneider for his thorough and thoughtful review of the MSB iLink. The review sample was from our first prototype production run and some things have been changed since:
We feel that the exceptional clarity of the iLink that Doug describes when compared to a CD transport is a result of the elimination of the common "digital demon" that audiophiles refer to as brightness or that "the music is not coming from a silent background." There is a "smear" that blurs the overtones of instruments, hardens voices, and truncates recovery of the recorded space. As Doug noticed, the iLink is free of this "noise." Jitter levels in current CD players and transports that are not as low as they could be and the bit-replacing error correction that occurs in all CD transports have been identified as the main culprits. The iLink system addresses both of these problems. The iLink system has been engineered using a proprietary clock-buffering method that reduces the jitter far below the best CD transports we have measured. Follow the setup instructions supplied with the iLink, and the iPod will have a bit-perfect copy of the CD, which also will not age or degrade over time as CDs will. The MSB iLink system is intended to achieve the superior playback of CDs, surpassing the best CD transports available. The iLink system is therefore a no-compromise front-end that we feel will improve the sound of any system from low cost to cost-no-object state of the art. Using it in combination with one of MSB's ladder DACs (either our Power DAC or the DAC III) yields what we believe is groundbreaking performance. Best regards, Vince Galbo
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The impact of the Apple iPod is
obvious -- visit a coffee shop, a mall, or any downtown street corner, and you’ll see
someone with an iPod. It’s one of the most successful electronics devices ever. That
success has inspired a plethora of third-party add-on products -- cases, cables,
headphones, and docking stations that allow you to connect your iPod to a home audio
system. In fact, new places to dock your iPod are popping up faster than zits on the face
of a teenage McDonald’s employee. 
On the back are three digital output
connectors -- RCA coax, optical TosLink, XLR balanced -- for connecting to your DAC (you
must supply your own digital cable). Inside the iLink, leading up to these outputs, is
something crucial that you’ll never see, but will probably hear if your system is of
high enough resolution: The iLink has circuitry to buffer and reclock the digital stream before
it leaves the iLink’s connectors. This is done to deliver a perfect, low-jitter
bitstream to an outboard DAC. In fact, MSB Technology claims reference-level digital
performance in this regard, which is why they also claim that the iLink can replace your
CD transport. Also on the rear is a small connector for the external "wall wart"
power supply. However, there’s no power switch -- you leave the iLink on at all
times. On the front is the docking connector for the iPod, which the iLink recharges while
it’s docked.
The first thing I did was to sync the MSB-modified iPod with my iTunes-ripped
files. Then I docked the iPod in the iLink. As soon as I cued up a song on the iPod and
pressed Play, sound rushed from my speakers. Everything was A-OK, which kind of impressed
me -- computer-based gear doesn’t always work that easily right off the bat. Then I
picked up the iLink’s remote control and found that, well, it didn’t let me do
all that much compared to what a plain ol’ CD player’s remote control allows.
The remote has track skip, play, and pause controls, and a digital attenuator to adjust
the volume. I don’t need the remote volume control -- my preamp has that -- and those
controls are few, to say the least. The MSB’s remote is disappointing, particularly
in light of how rich in features most consumer electronics are today.
