I used to have no problem listening to low quality mp3s because iTunes made them sound alright, but with 10.5 they sound hissy and flat. What was wrong with the standard equalizer before? It sounded great with all my music, why did they change it? I checked with Zune player and they sound much better than on iTunes, even though they used to sound similar on both only a few days ago. Anyone else notice this?
Go to Preferences / Playback - turn off sound enhancer - turn off sound check turn off equalizer Test. Then turn one back at a time and test.
Sounds the same to me. I'm running off an external DAC, but it shouldn't matter either way as long as you have any iTunes filters off.
Turning on sound enhancer seemed to make it a little better but there's still this horrible hiss that I don't get on Zune. I guess I'll just have to play around in the equalizer for a bit EDIT: I had them all off to start with and that was worse
Are you SURE all your cables are connected fine? What happens if you play the same MP3 file in QuickTime or VLC?
No problems here from two different machines, one Windows and one OSX. Both iPods and an iPhone, no issues.
I updated last night and noticed this as well. The mids seem to be flat sounding and I've noticed that the bass is missing some of its punch. It also seems that the highs are sounding a bit screechy as well but I haven't noticed that nearly as much as the muddled mids and the softer bass. I have all enhancements turned off and have been playing around with the various settings to see if I can correct the sound, but something has definitely changed.
same problem here, the sounds seems very flat. I have read somehwere that iTunes 10.5 is the first one that does not use QuickTime libraries, so... Anyone knows how to force iTunes to use QuickTime?
Any changes would have been subtle, and not night and day differences like a couple of you are reporting. That hints that something is wrong elsewhere.
Well the only thing that has changed is iTunes, so I'm not sure what the problem would be. My movies sound the same as before, music through Zune sounds the same as before, I'm not sure what else could be a problem.
Well first of all, the hiss you're reporting sounds like a hardware problem, whether it be a bad jack, bad noise floor from your playback equipment or amplifier, or bad impedance matching. All iTunes gives you is 1s and 0s, it has nothing to do with hiss. Its less than optimal EQ can lead to horribly flat songs (not as in a flat frequency response, but flat dynamics), as it adds harmonics throughout the entire audio spectrum, and its sound 'enhancer' can cause for horrible audio balance, a corruption of the soundstage, and large amounts of clipping, so it's safe to always have those off. That leads me to a question-- what exactly are you using to playback your music through iTunes?
play in quicktime Play it in another app as jdavtz said. Try it in Quicktime player and try it in VLC. If iTunes is the culprit it should be fixed in both VLC and Quicktime player. If Quicktime is the culprit it should be fixed in VLC only.
Stop listening to low-quality MP3s. Seriously I suspect a hardware issue from the hissing as TMRaven says, though that would not explain why Zune sounds better.
Some of these songs only exist as low quality MP3s though. It's an iTunes issue for me, other programs seem to handle them fine. I'll see if the next update fixes it, but until then I guess I'll be using Zune.
iTunes 10.5 mp3 playback is distorted iTunes 10.5 has a bug for Windows XP users (apparently with an AMD chipset, only). mp3 file playback sounds tinny and distorted. m4a files play just fine. Based on my call to tech support, Apple knows about the bug, and is planning to get a fix out. But no timeline was specified, and they don't seem to be publicizing the bug at all. Got an email from Apple Support Community on how to rollback to iTunes 10.4, but its not that simple, so I'm going to wait for the fix.
Re: iTunes 10.5 mp3 playback is distorted Sure hope you're right, Fuchal. Apple is being close-mouthed about this issue. Maybe they want me to buy a Mac.
Newest iTunes and iOS, everything sounds the same to me...but then I mostly listen to podcasts. EDIT: Oh, Windows 7, an Asus G74 notebook, and fourth gen iPod touch.