Own it

Covers are tough. Sounds too much like the original, and everyone will wonder why you wasted their time. Sound too different, and you risk not doing the original justice.

But strike that Goldilocks balance, taking the song and making it your own but still showing the original reverence, there's the potential of being as good (if not better) than the original. That's what these covers do in spades.

Brèagha ceòl: Linn's new Majik DS-I combines the best bits of their digital player, preamp and digital amplification, all squeezed into one package.

To be honest, I think Linn is an odd company.

Looking at their product lines, you have to wonder if they lack a decent spell-check or are just lifting names straight out of the Ikea catalog.

Sure it's cool and trendy, but what can the iPad do for the A/V Enthusiast? Well, quite a lot it turns out.

Somewhere after the time the fanboy lines abate and before it cures cancer or something, the iPad turns out to be a ridiculously useful device for the ePerson.

Digital Audio
Analog Sound

Everyone has music on their computer.

The question though, is what’s the best way to get it from there to your ears?

We take a look at how it all works and poke at three DACs vying for your attention while we're at it.

Don't let the size fool you

Wadia is the maker of one of my favorite products of the past few years: the 170iTransport, the only digital iPod dock.

It was clearly a success for them, as the 151PowerDAC mini was designed to match up with the 170, with a nearly identical form factor.

Wireless DAC

The AirStream is an interesting product.

It's a wireless DAC, nothing more, but in its standard setup the way it goes about it is rather quirky.

10 Best winner, scaled down and spruced up

The 300D is, for the most part, the DAC portion of the 10 Best Award winning MOON i3.3 Integrated Amp.

Digital Music Player

Bryston has announced the BDP-1, a high-end, Linux-based, digital music player designed to play back files from an external USB drive.

A pure player, the BDP-1 forgoes internal storage or DACs.

All the info after the jump.