Pure i-20 with or without outboard DAC

with a system as good as yours a pure 1-20 is a must. i waited on a wadia for 3 years and i,m glad i did. the pure is just a great value. i have some dyi open baffles with a fatman tube ipod system in my garage and i a/b'd the fatman dock to the pure in the aux circuit and i will never listen to a ipod again in a home system w/o bypassing the ipod dac. i have a xpa-2 on magnepans in another room and love emotiva products so much i got their pre and cd too. how would you compare the sound quality between the music fi integrated and the upa-1s? i used to have a a-1 when it was british fidelity and loved it but man did it run hot. class a u know.

Then I'm glad I decided to get the i-20. At some point down the line, I may get an outboard DAC to see if there is any improvement.

Regarding my MF gear, I have the A300 as well as the A3cr power amp, and the a3cr is now on sale as it lost a close battle to UPA-1's. I think the main difference is in the highs. With the MF amps, the highs seem a little softer compared to the Emotiva. Emotiva brings just a little bit more sparkle. Also, the UPA-1s are dead silent, so that did it for me. But, I could easily live with the MF a3 powering my fronts.

my emotiva system is dead quiet too. for what it is worth i a/b'd the pure dac with my music fidelity v-dac and in another system i have with a peachtree audio decco amp/dac. the pure dac was not as good with either of these options but made the pure an even better value as it was still really good. the british magazines have really loved the pure.

Thanks for the info. The MF V-DAC is available for pretty good prices here. I may pick one up.