My new favourite thing.

I will get around to revisited something I wrote a few months ago about my use of the iPad as a traveling device, but in the mean time here's the latest reason why I think the iPad is a great device.

Apple's iPad accessory adapter for cameras, the iPad Camera Connection Kit, supports audio interfaces that are compatible with the USB Audio Class.

Now that might not mean a lot to many people but it means that the iPad can pass a digital audio signal to a USB DAC (digital to analogue converter). To put that in reasonably plain english, the iPad can output CD quality music to audiophile quality devices. Suddenly the iPad has become one of the best devices for true audiophile quality music on the go.

For years expensive Hi-Fis have used dedicated CD transports to pull the digital data from a CD and pass it to an outboard DAC for conversion to a signal an amplifier can use. Overkill perhaps, but thanks to a £30 adapter designed for cameras the iPad can now perform the same task as those expensive CD transports. While I won't be using my iPad at the centre of my Hi-Fi, it does mean that the iPad has become the perfect partner to the headphone amplifier/DAC I use to get great quality sound from my Laptop. The same great quality without the need for a laptop, and with 15 hours battery life.

iPad, amplifer/DAC and headphones in perfect harmony

To get this CD quality you need to use Apple's lossless audio codec as this is the only CD quality lossless audio format the iPad supports. This meant I spent several hours over the weekend re-ripping some CDs, and converting music from other lossless formats, into this iPad friendly format. But once synced onto the iPad and played back through some decent headphones using the headphone amp/DAC the quality is most impressive and far better than anything I've previously heard from the iPad.

The only slight downside side, and it is a slight downside, is that the iPad only supports the CD standard bit depth of 16 bit and sample rate of 44.1 kHz. The latest true high definition music that you can listen to requires a bit depth of 24 bit and sample rate of 96kHz, which both my Laptop and headphone amplifier/DAC support. Given that Apple doesn't make any references to the current audio capabilities of the 'Camera connection kit' I can't see them rushing to improve upon it.

While the ability to support true audiophile quality music reproduction won't appeal to a signigicant number of iPad users it is another excellent string to the iPad's already capable bow.