[RickDangerous]

Hi,

Has using the HDP as a pre-amp into the ICON with S-1 speakers been tested? Does this combination sound good?

I have an Icon + S-1 setup that I like the sound of when connected to my laptop via USB, but when I connect my Apple AirPort Express using the RCA inputs it's not so great, probably because the DAC in the Airport isn't as good. I was thinking I could get an HDP and connect the Airport using optical and the into the Icon. Where would you set the volume control on the HDP when using it this way?

[etnt]

Interested to know the answer to this also.

Currently feeding ipod dock via 3.5mm, xonar stx via rca (pc1) and usb (pc2) into the Icon, powering S1+W1 and headphones.

Thinking of adding the HDP between the devices and Icon to act as DAC and headphone amp when powering the headphones; and act as dac/preamp to Icon when powering the S1+W1.

[rustydoglim]

I will answer both questions.

Icon HDP is a much better DAC and headphone amp than Icon. Basically you want to reduce Icon to amp only for S-1.

Since HDP has optical in, you will get better performance with Airport Express.
Some people will buy Icon HDP just for the performance of the headphone amp alone. Some companies are selling a high performance 24bit/96Khz DAC and preamp for twice the price of HDP.  Therefore when you look at it from cost or performance angle, it is worth introducing HDP into your system.

You can still migrate this system to higher performance when we introduce Icon Amp-100 in the future (at least 6 months away).  In that case, you would have to buy the S-2  to match Icon HDP + Icon Amp-100.   Then either sell or move the original Icon+S1+W1 to another room.