Not sure if this is borderline blasphemy in this subreddit, but I listen to most of my music via pandora/my iPhone. I wouldn't call myself an audiophile by any means, but I figured I'd head to the guys who know their stuff.
I'm looking for a quality iHome/iPod dock that will take my iPhone 4. I just want something easy where I can drop my phone off to charge it and listen to some music at the same time when I'm in my apartment. Can you guys recommend one that not only has good sound quality, but won't crap out on me in a year?
The iPhone 4 is pretty old. It uses the obsolete 30 pin connector instead of the current lightning connector, so you aren�t going to find any current dock; it will have to be an old dock.
Are you looking for dock you connect to an existing stereo, or a dock with speakers built in? If you�re looking to add the iPhone to an existing stereo, using Bluetooth would probably be the simplest and easiest way. If you need a powered speaker, there are quite a bit of Bluetooth speakers out there, ranging from a few bucks to mortgage payment levels.
Didn't WADIA at one point make an Uber Premium dock which actually extracted digits from the 'pod? All other docks use the analogue output. Or so I'm told.
They made 2 of them - the 170 iTransport and 171 iTransport. They were about $300 or so, if I remember correctly. The first one was pretty buggy when I tried it at a shop. Had to undock and re-dock a few times. Not sure about the second one (it was a replacement). I think they had analog outputs too.
Bluetooth is the way to go for the old 30 pin. The current Lightning cable can output digital with the camera kit. The 30 pin can too, but good luck finding the right one at the right price, and hopefully the software matches up because some camera kits because obsolete after a firmware update.
I use an Audioquest Dragonfly Black with camera kit into a Parasound Zpre3 into some M-Audio BX8s in my basement. Works and sounds great. It doesn�t compete with my main system, but it�s not exactly supposed to either. I also use the Dragonfly at work with my iPhone. Either my Focal Listens or Etymotic IEMs.