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iPod touch Sound Quality.... MP3 or AAC..?

D

degrutze

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 4, 2007
28
0
Another Silly question from me..

as a famous MP3/MP4 player... i don't hear any special sound from my ipod touch..., bass is small.. treble too strong...and sometime i got a disturbing sound, like the speaker doesnt strong enough to produce the sound....

compare to my made in china MP3/MP4 player, that i bought only $60, the ipod sound is terible.....or i can say it suck....

as newbie for Mac and ipod... wich is better for mac... MP3 format or AAC??? cos with my old MP3 player.. MP3 format is ok....

and one more thing....

what kind of video format that ipod can read??? only Mov???? cos i tried to drag and drop *.avi and *.wmv format to i tunes...., it didn't accepted it..

can somebody share your experience and knowledge to me?

Thanx
 
If you rip a CD, I will definitely suggest 256kbps AAC, between 128kbps-256kbps, AAC is a bit better. But You don't need to turn your mp3 into AAC, this will hurt the sound quality.

iPod is no like Japanese or Korean MP3, which use build in EQ to let give the sound more tasteful. iPod job is just to deliver the music to you as it was(You have plenty of EQ setting if you want). Chinese company use chipset purchased from Samsung or other company, so they belong to the Korea MP3 family.

The format is written on the back of the box regardless which iPod you have(expect the shuffle).And BTW ,which MP3 you bought in China , I know every MP3 in China ,and would like to learn which you bought
 
hmmmm...

Merkuryy said:
If you rip a CD, I will definitely suggest 256kbps AAC, between 128kbps-256kbps, AAC is a bit better. But You don't need to turn your mp3 into AAC, this will hurt the sound quality.

iPod is no like Japanese or Korean MP3, which use build in EQ to let give the sound more tasteful. iPod job is just to deliver the music to you as it was(You have plenty of EQ setting if you want). Chinese company use chipset purchased from Samsung or other company, so they belong to the Korea MP3 family.

The format is written on the back of the box regardless which iPod you have(expect the shuffle).And BTW ,which MP3 you bought in China , I know every MP3 in China ,and would like to learn which you bought
Click to expand...

i bought "SENSE' manufacture... (i bought it in Indonesia... so i don't know that it realy its manufacture) , i forget the serial number or its type.. iwill try to find a link to the sense mp3 player...
if you said i have alot of plenty EQ setting to my ipod touch... then where i can find this setting?... coz.. in my ipodtouch.. i only have some preset of EQ that doesn't help much to increase the sound quality.
 
The audio format you use is completely up to you. I encode my music with Nero Digital AAC using -q 0.25 -lc which produces files with bitrates of around 80-95 kbits/s, which is as low as I can go before I start noticing artifacts.

My advise is to experiment with the available formats at different bitrates.
 
rydenfan said:
Is anybody using FLAC Losssless?
Click to expand...

If it became more mainstream (support in a wide range of media players, both hard and software), FLAC would be amazing. Classical music sounds great in FLAC. Unfortunately, I've had to use workarounds to listen to FLAC files...so I end up just busting out Max and converting them into something more iTunes friendly.
 
Fiveos22 said:
If it became more mainstream (support in a wide range of media players, both hard and software), FLAC would be amazing. Classical music sounds great in FLAC. Unfortunately, I've had to use workarounds to listen to FLAC files...so I end up just busting out Max and converting them into something more iTunes friendly.
Click to expand...

Isin't there a FLAC Lossless setting for importing music into your itunes? Is that what you use for importing your cd's?
 
degrutze said:
as a famous MP3/MP4 player... i don't hear any special sound from my ipod touch..., bass is small.. treble too strong...and sometime i got a disturbing sound, like the speaker doesnt strong enough to produce the sound....
Click to expand...
The iPod's sound isn't that good, and the Creative players (given that they make sound cards) usually have better sound. However from what you are describing it sounds like the Chinese player is producing too much base and the iPod's sound isn't as distorted. However if you want to listen to your music with too much base you can use the Equaliser in the iPod to add extra base.

It is true however that the MP3 encoder in iTunes sucks and that the AAC one is much better, and that produces pretty good sound quality. I have heard that LAME is very good if you want to use MP3's.

degrutze said:
what kind of video format that ipod can read??? only Mov???? cos i tried to drag and drop *.avi and *.wmv format to i tunes...., it didn't accepted it..
Click to expand...

You'll need to convert them with FFPMEGX or iSquint.

rydenfan said:
Is anybody using FLAC Losssless?
Click to expand...

The main problem with FLAC is that one the iAudio portable players can play it.
 
so is the lossless setting in itunes what should be used for the highest quality audio resolution?
 
rydenfan said:
so is the lossless setting in itunes what should be used for the highest quality audio resolution?
Click to expand...

Yes, but it uses a lot of space, ripping as AAC at 256kbps will get nearly perfect sound that takes up a lot less space.

Of course if you rip to lossless you can then convert to another format without losing any more audio quality than ripping a CD.
 
another hmmm....

wow... do i have to re-rip my 14Gb of song??????? and all of my songs data are in MP3 format..... it such a d*** work to do if i have to re-rip it again.....

can i just convert it to AAC??? can it produce a better sound???

is there any 3rd party EQ that can change my IPOD sounds??????

and to be noted.... i dont have any Mac PC... i only have Window pc....
 
Sense...

Merkuryy said:
If you rip a CD, I will definitely suggest 256kbps AAC, between 128kbps-256kbps, AAC is a bit better. But You don't need to turn your mp3 into AAC, this will hurt the sound quality.

iPod is no like Japanese or Korean MP3, which use build in EQ to let give the sound more tasteful. iPod job is just to deliver the music to you as it was(You have plenty of EQ setting if you want). Chinese company use chipset purchased from Samsung or other company, so they belong to the Korea MP3 family.

The format is written on the back of the box regardless which iPod you have(expect the shuffle).And BTW ,which MP3 you bought in China , I know every MP3 in China ,and would like to learn which you bought
Click to expand...

this is the link to MP4 player that bought in indonesia... Made in taiwan.... good one, sound, video... radio... interface..... the quality is good... but its to fragile... i already broke it....

http://www.sensestyle.com.tw/sensemp3se-235.htm
 
degrutze said:
wow... do i have to re-rip my 14Gb of song??????? and all of my songs data are in MP3 format..... it such a d*** work to do if i have to re-rip it again.....

can i just convert it to AAC??? can it produce a better sound???

is there any 3rd party EQ that can change my IPOD sounds??????

and to be noted.... i dont have any Mac PC... i only have Window pc....
Click to expand...

No, if you want your songs in a different format, you should re-rip them. You don't want to transcode (going from one format to another), especially with lossy formats because you actually lose sound quality by doing this.
 
Yeah, if you want better sound quality you'll have to rip again.

Apple's iPod technical specifications say they can view .mp4 and .m4v movie files as well as .mov. There are various programs available online which will convert your .avi's or .wmv's to a usable format.
 
degrutze said:
wow... do i have to re-rip my 14Gb of song??????? and all of my songs data are in MP3 format..... it such a d*** work to do if i have to re-rip it again.....

can i just convert it to AAC??? can it produce a better sound???

is there any 3rd party EQ that can change my IPOD sounds??????

and to be noted.... i dont have any Mac PC... i only have Window pc....
Click to expand...

Do you have an ipod touch? Look in Settings->Music->EQ and pick the bass booster setting. Sounds like what you're looking for.

Also, inner ear headphones will give you much better bass than the apple earbuds.
 
savar said:
Do you have an ipod touch? Look in Settings->Music->EQ and pick the bass booster setting. Sounds like what you're looking for.

Also, inner ear headphones will give you much better bass than the apple earbuds.
Click to expand...

Yes i have an ipod touch..., i tried that EQ, but it didn't help much...
 
rydenfan said:
Is anybody using FLAC Losssless?
Click to expand...

I use FLAC in my home library. I have a couple of players which can use FLAC, but the space, power (even on flash players since the FLAC codec usually requires a little more horsepower), transfer time and other tradeoffs mean I actively avoid trying to use lossless codecs on a portable - just not worth it.

~

The iPods have always had a pretty flat sound, which is not a particularly bad thing since it's a pretty honest representation of the music. But in general - the Touch included - the Apples do definitely have a slight reduction in bass with many earphones. And the EQ is essentially non-functional, with the bass booster EQ's resulting in the distortion that the OP mentioned. It would be a better player I think if it could do both 'flat' and 'entertaining' like Cowon for example, but it can't.

I'm very sensitive to the quality of the sound, i.e. how close it is to how it should be. Which is why I generally like the iPod sound quality as it is decent. But many other people are sensitive not to quality: What they call 'sound quality' will be how coloured the sound is regardless of the fidelity of the sound, i.e. how much thumpin' bass the player puts out. For those sorts of people, the entire Apple player family will be a disappointment.

You will not notice any improvement in sound 'quality' by re-ripping. You will notice an improvement by:
a) changing to a player which puts out thumpin' or at least an emphasised bass, e.g. Sony, Samsung, iRiver, Cowon.
b) buying headphones which accentuate the bass.
 
Sesshi said:
I use FLAC in my home library. I have a couple of players which can use FLAC, but the space, power (even on flash players since the FLAC codec usually requires a little more horsepower), transfer time and other tradeoffs mean I actively avoid trying to use lossless codecs on a portable - just not worth it.

~

The iPods have always had a pretty flat sound, which is not a particularly bad thing since it's a pretty honest representation of the music. But in general - the Touch included - the Apples do definitely have a slight reduction in bass with many earphones. And the EQ is essentially non-functional, with the bass booster EQ's resulting in the distortion that the OP mentioned. It would be a better player I think if it could do both 'flat' and 'entertaining' like Cowon for example, but it can't.

I'm very sensitive to the quality of the sound, i.e. how close it is to how it should be. Which is why I generally like the iPod sound quality as it is decent. But many other people are sensitive not to quality: What they call 'sound quality' will be how coloured the sound is regardless of the fidelity of the sound, i.e. how much thumpin' bass the player puts out. For those sorts of people, the entire Apple player family will be a disappointment.

You will not notice any improvement in sound 'quality' by re-ripping. You will notice an improvement by:
a) changing to a player which puts out thumpin' or at least an emphasised bass, e.g. Sony, Samsung, iRiver, Cowon.
b) buying headphones which accentuate the bass.
Click to expand...



Hahahahaha.... I get your point there Sesshi..., iam also kind of person that sensitive to music quality... but maybe our point of sensitive a little bit different...i love aflat sound that i can play with an EQ so i can get a kind of sound that my ears like...
but in my case is, its not just a flat sound or a lossless sound, but it more a disturbing sound (like i said before.... sound that the speaker doesnt strong enough to produce the sound...like it get broken sound, too many trebel....(i dont know what you guys call it)...nah.... in that case, im currious... is my type of sound files that was wrong??? or its just an ipod are not good enough....? since i found myself pretty new in the ipod thing.
 
degrutze said:
Hahahahaha.... I get your point there Sesshi..., iam also kind of person that sensitive to music quality... but maybe our point of sensitive a little bit different...i love aflat sound that i can play with an EQ so i can get a kind of sound that my ears like...
but in my case is, its not just a flat sound or a lossless sound, but it more a disturbing sound (like i said before.... sound that the speaker doesnt strong enough to produce the sound...like it get broken sound, too many trebel....(i dont know what you guys call it)...nah.... in that case, im currious... is my type of sound files that was wrong??? or its just an ipod are not good enough....? since i found myself pretty new in the ipod thing.
Click to expand...

Assuming that you are ripping at a decent bitrate (192K+ for MP3, 160K+ for AAC), then I think what you're hearing in terms of an elevated treble is caused by the lessened bass. The effect is easy enough to reproduce on a PC - tweak just the bass EQ up, and you'll probably note that your perception of treble lessens.

All iPods (to different degrees) distort with any EQ preset that increases bass. It's just the way it's been for many years - the iPod EQ is still broken. It's also not helped by a slight bass reduction inherent in the design of the audio stage. As I said though the underlying sound quality of the hardware seems fine to me. Not absolutely the best and beaten by some cheaper machines, but not bad either.

Which is why I said in order to 'round out' the sound, you may need a pair of headphones that emphasises bass, or at least headphones that cause no additional bass loss. Are you using the standard earphones?
 
degrutze said:
this is the link to MP4 player that bought in indonesia... Made in taiwan.... good one, sound, video... radio... interface..... the quality is good... but its to fragile... i already broke it....

http://www.sensestyle.com.tw/sensemp3se-235.htm
Click to expand...

Thx, looks like Onda product. At least there are 3 or 4 product that are their style, 50$ is just the price.

Yep, if you want good sound effect, you should do it. Let your computer do the work, and at the same time do other stuff. I remember swichting from Creative Nomad Muvo 2 to iPod Nano, all my WMA had been changed to AAC. Took me 4 midnight. Can you imagine it:D?
 
Sesshi said:
Which is why I said in order to 'round out' the sound, you may need a pair of headphones that emphasises bass, or at least headphones that cause no additional bass loss. Are you using the standard earphones?
Click to expand...

yes i still using the standard earphone..... maybe i should check some good earphone.... any sugestion for the earphone???(since you are a audiophile...) coz i dont want to pay a great mount of money for shure or sennheiser....

Merkuryy said:
Thx, looks like Onda product. At least there are 3 or 4 product that are their style, 50$ is just the price.

Yep, if you want good sound effect, you should do it. Let your computer do the work, and at the same time do other stuff. I remember swichting from Creative Nomad Muvo 2 to iPod Nano, all my WMA had been changed to AAC. Took me 4 midnight. Can you imagine it:D?
Click to expand...

4 midnight???!!!! wow.... you sure a patient one....
 
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