iPod Sound quality, really that bad ?

[lolex]

A couple of my friends and guys the other forums complain on ipod's sound quality, some even name it the worst sound ever in any mp3 players.

I 'm confused , which I personnally tested it was quite good a quaility not deserving this comments,

Did you guy has any comments, and which do you agree to ?

 

[geese]

The earphones aren't great, but once you get a decent pair of Sennheisers it sounds great (assuming you havnt encoded the files at a stupidly low bitrate)

Hi-fi mags tends to say that the iPod sounds good (I use 'What Hi-Fi' as source)

Your friends probably dont know what they're talking about.

 

[lolex]

The earphones aren't great, but once you get a decent pair of Sennheisers it sounds great (assuming you havnt encoded the files at a stupidly low bitrate)

Hi-fi mags tends to say that the iPod sounds good (I use 'What Hi-Fi' as source)

Your friends probably dont know what they're talking about.

lucky me to hear some postive comment here, which I don't need finding a doctor to check my ear.

 

[yenko]

A couple of my friends and guys the other forums complain on ipod's sound quality, some even name it the worst sound ever in any mp3 players.

I 'm confused , which I personnally tested it was quite good a quaility not deserving this comments,

Did you guy has any comments, and which do you agree to ?

Wax in ears.

 

[Lacero]

I find that Sound Check turned on muddies the audio quality of modern recordings, especially CDs that have been mastered with an excessive amount of compression.

With Sound Check turned off, the audio sounds surprisingly good. The mini and my 2G iPod's sound quality is not as good as my shuffle but it's not anywhere to be termed 'bad'.

 

[MacDawg]

I think the sound is really good. I use mine mainly in my truck, playing through a cassette adapter, and I've been quite pleased.

My only concern was using my Bose QuietComfort II headphones that the volume would only go so loud. I have downloaded a hack, but haven't tried it.

Woof, Woof – Dawg

 

[devman]

I find that Sound Check turned on muddies the audio quality of modern recordings, especially CDs that have been mastered with an excessive amount of compression.

With Sound Check turned off, the audio sounds surprisingly good. The mini and my 2G iPod's sound quality is not as good as my shuffle but it's not anywhere to be termed 'bad'.

yes, I definitely agree with this. Also, some EQ settings for some CDs don't work well either - FWIW. I have no EQ (flat) on my iPods though (and sound check off, of course).

 

[snowmoon]

The 4g iPods had, according to some, the worst quality. Shuffle has the best, the 5g is a noticable improvement over 4g "photo" models. ( These are not my opinions, but ones I have seen kicking around ). I guess it had to do with the quality of the capacitors used to drive the amps. The shuffle is the best since it's a solid state amp and there is no "Roll-off" due to undersized capacitors and the 4g "photo" is the worst because the additional space on the circuit board is taken up with video-out circuitry.

To me they all sound real nice.

 

[Johnny Rico]

The biggest impediment of the ipod's sound quality is the horrific bitrate that music from the itunes store is encoded at. If you go by that alone the ipod has atrocious sound quality.

 

[Passante]

I think the sound is really good. I use mine mainly in my truck, playing through a cassette adapter, and I've been quite pleased.

My only concern was using my Bose QuietComfort II headphones that the volume would only go so loud. I have downloaded a hack, but haven't tried it.

Woof, Woof – Dawg

A dawg with bad hearing?

Woof!

 

[Loge]

There were three main sound quality issues with the 4G models all of which appear to be addressed in the 5G. This was reported in the ilounge review, but it is also my experience. The issues were,

- Distorted sound on piano solos (colour screen models only).

- Bass roll off.

- Static audible when accessing hard drive, using some third party earphones.

 

[DaftUnion]

Um, I don't know what you friends are on, but iPod's can have audiophile sound if you encode high enough and use a good pair of headphones. Mine sounds fantastic.