Hi there, I have a Panny TX-L37U10B 37", I'm finally going to get a Humax foxsat HDR 500GB freesat box and I'm also looking at getting the Onkyo HTX22HDX 2.1, I have a HDMI upscaling Lidl dvd player, I believe the Onkyo has 3 HDMI inputs so the Foxsat and the DVD player could be attached there, I would also like to get the Onkyo ipod docking station and a small CD player, the question is could the docking station and a CD player be linked in to the HTX22HDX and could all this work or is there a better way to do it

Many thanks in advance

Make sure you get the right docking station. You need one with the RI connection for the HTX22 not the Onkyo universal port model. For example..

http://www.richersounds.com/product/.../onky-dsa3-blk

The HTX22 has a number of digital inputs and two analogue stereo inputs so depending on what your CD player has it will certainly connect up OK.

HTX22 manual can be downloaded here to give you an idea how it all works.

http://www.eu.onkyo.com/dl/1465317/M...X-22HDX_En.pdf

Thanks for the advice, for the Onkyo docking station it says it doesn't support ipod 1st, 2nd & 3rd generation models, its a ipod nano I have will that work with it?

Thanks again

See the Features tab here

http://www.eu.onkyo.com/products/DS-A3.html

Thanks again, I think its a 5th generation nano ipod, it was a christmas present from the kids winter 09/10, looking for pointers for what I could hoook it up with. To think i was going to buy the station thinking, no problom, how wrong I was, bring back some simple technology! getting old!

Thanks again

Any docking station that has either digital or analogue audio connections will work OK. All you lose is the ability to remote control the iPod. Unless the docking station has some sort of remote itself.

But if all you are interested in is playing music then is the lack of a remote that much of a deal breaker?

Hi there, I was in John Lewis buying a Humax sat box and was showen a docking station 'Pure' I think for £35, it had a 3.5mm jack connection but he advised to use analouge connections as this would be better, would an optical connection better this, sorry just feeling my way around this

Thanks in advance

A 3.5mm connection is analogue. I don't know of any MP3 or iPod player which sport optical or coax digital connections.
I'm not sure if iPod docking stations connect digitally while the iPod (that is the Apple iPod brand - other mobile MP3 players are not iPods) is in the cradle. I would imagine it is analogue audio and a command link to enable the iPod to submit to remote control operation.

Or are you talking about connecting the docking station to something else such as, say, an amplifier?

Hi again, I would be connecting it to possibly a 2.1 surround ampifier along with a CD player, I don't know how this will sound though.

Thanks in advance

Not sure if the original was duff or it got lost in translation

Analogue vs digital connection

Analogue iPod Docks:

Entry level and mid priced iPod docks will all use analogue connections...This could be via a jack connector (like iPod headphone) or via a pair of phono plugs which are usually red & white or red & black in colour. The end result is the same; the iPod decodes the digital music in to analogue signal.

Analogue docks are cheapest to make. If your budget is £35 - £60 you'll be almost certainly buying an analogue dock for your iPod.

Digital iPod Docks:

Analogue signal quality is only really limited by the quality of the chip that decodes the digital music on the player to an analogue signal, and then next by the quality of the stereo system used to play the music.

Using a dock with a better decoding chip than the one built in to the iPod is the next logical step up in quality. This is where Digital iPod Docks offer a potential advantage. The Pure i-20 (£75 @ JLP) has such a digital chip.

On the back of the i-20 there are analogue connections and also digital outputs for connecting to an amplifier with digital inputs. This kind of dock is a good choice if you're not sure whether you'll be connecting to an analogue or digital capable amplifier.

At the top of the quality tree are the purely digital-only iPod docks such as the Onkyo NDS1. On paper you'd think that the spec was lower than the i-20. After all, they have no analogue out, right? The thing with these is they use better digital circuits to get a cleaner signal.

Will I hear the difference?

That's probably the most important question to ask.

"Digital" doesn't automatically mean better. The hi-fi that the digital signal is connected to has a massive effect on the final quality. A poor hi-fi with a digital input won't sound better than an analogue only hi-fi. Also, you'll probably need a £400+ hi-fi to start to make a meaningful comparison between analogue, digital, and the difference in quality between a 128k rip and something better.

Similarly, if all your music is ripped at very high compression (lots of music taking up very little space) then it might not matter if you have digital or analogue.

In summary... Buy a decent hi-fi first, then buy an appropriate dock for the quality of music you want.