iPod audio quality of a video ipod?

[Hibbity]

After reading through a handful of reviews (cnet, arstechnica, etc.) about the video ipodsi quickly came to realize;

nobody talks about the actual sound quality! They put together these huge reviews analysing the design to death, all about scratches and video video video....and as far as audio discussion goes they basically say "it sounds fine, also."

In the forums here i've found a few brief sound quality comparisons but there needs to be a full topic actually comparing the qualities of the audio to other companies, previous ipods, nanos, etc.

Unless I missed it and there already is one, i hope this becomes a serious, detailed discussion about the sound quality in the video ipods.

So far all i've heard is that the shuffle has the best output of all, and one guy thinks his 4th gen sounds better than the new ipods.

 

[happy.buddha]

I think when it comes to audio quality the compression (AAC, MP3, lossless, etc), bitrate, & headphone/earphone preference would be the deciding factor and when you take into consideration that everyones taste/preference for these different factors is different it is probably why you don't see many opinions on it.

 

[ilikeninjas90]

What I found to be true is that its more of the earphones than the actual ipod

but I use Phillips earphones that run like 25 dollars

and the quality is good, but nothing too impressive

 

[Revlimit Punk]

This thread contains some comparisons between different iPod generations:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/184705/

 

[luckylisp]

I have listened to the same song/bitrates on various iPods including the video iPod, a shuffle, and a 3rd gen iPod. I personally think the 5th gen video iPod sounded the best, but the shuffle was pretty close. The 3rd gen definitely did not sound as good.

 

[Hibbity]

What I found to be true is that its more of the earphones than the actual ipod

?? Headphones only put out what the source gives them...for example, a lot of cd and mp3 layers put out a lot of static (especially music players with hard drives), don't output much bass, sound tinny, etc....headphones can't correct this.

Obviously, good headphones make a big difference, but this difference could just translate to the inadequacies of your music source being more pronounced.

 

[nutman]

but if your headphones cant play the bass, then theres no point having highly encoded music.

 

[AvSRoCkCO1067]

but if your headphones cant play the bass, then theres no point having highly encoded music.

I agree with you - I think that the headphones make a huge difference (going from my iPod headphones to the Bang and Olufsens that I now use is a big jump, and they're not even that nice)

 

[Killyp]

....they're not even that nice)

They're a lot nicer than most people think. It's just prejudism against B&O (quite common unfortunately!).

Bass isn't all there is to sound quality. In fact, when it comes to MP3 compression, it's the bass that suffers the least. Treble and midrage gets completely flattened, warbled, echoed and everything on MP3 compression. Bass IMO isn't too bad on MP3.

The compression can easily be heard on normal iPod headphones, it's just a case of knowing what to listen for...