Audiophiles have long known that you can squeeze much better sound from your iPod if you load it up with WAV or Apple Lossless files, rather than sketchy MP3s. The problem is that until now you still had to use the iPod's internal digital to analog converter, connecting the player to your fancy stereo rig with an analog cable. The Wadia iTransport is the first dock that gets around this without a costly iPod mod, providing both an S/PDIF digital output that you can feed to a fancy outboard DAC, and component video connections for 'DVD quality' video. To pull this off, Wadia worked closely with Apple, allowing the iTransport to bear the coveted 'Made For iPod' seal of approval. Which functions work depends a bit on which Apple player you have, although current models except the Shuffle will support all functions.

The iTransport will be available in February for $350.