Sound Quality of the Fifth Generation iPods?

ntropi asks: "As the drive on my old MP3 player (an iRiver H320) grinds toward its last days, I've found myself in search of a new one. Given the options the new iPod seems the best choice, but I'm hesitating somewhat over the murmurings as to the iPod's supposedly poor sound quality. However, while Marc Heijligers has provided a comprehensive breakdown of iPod performance for up to the fourth generation, I have been hard-pressed to find any information on the 5G's performance. With the exception of this CNET review, which reports that 'Audio quality is quite good and probably better than the previous iPod's, with reasonable bass, distinguishable mids, and shiny highs, plus the audio-output power is quite good.', there seems not to have been any detailed analysis of the iPod's output quality. Thus, it seemed a good idea to appeal to the Slashdot hive-mind for its personal experiences with the 5G's playback, or even analyses that people might have done which were simply never put online."

Comments

It sucks

[duffbeer703]

Only vinyl provides the warmth and depth that the artists really intended --- But Steve Jobs refuses to support vinyl because it won't accomodate DRM.

Truthfully

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

iPod's audio quality isn't the best. Its not overly powerful, its quiet on most good quality headphones. I here some faint digital "chatter" in the background, such as noise caused by the hard drive (or so I thought). I still hear this chatter on my Shuffle without any moving parts, so this leads me to believe that its a hardware issue. However, I don't here this chatter on a good quality pair of headphones like Sony DJ's or Sennheiser's, only on the really crappy Apple headphones which are way too tinny for my tastes. Not enough bass comes out of Apple's headphones. I generally have not heard any static or background noise as I have heard from cheaper digital music players.

When you hook the iPod to any good receiver or external speakers, the audio quailty is about as good as any digital media player. A system with good bass and good processing handles the relatively weak output of the iPod well for good overall sound.

The end result is, NO digital media player is for audiophiles, but the iPod is about as good as any. You will get lots of bias feedback saying Apple is the best, or the worst, but its about middle of the road, the digital chatter I hear is annoying only if you like your treble levels high, which most people don't.

In the end, compared to Creative or another comparible price/featured product, I doubt your going to find any of them setting themselves appart greatly in terms of audio quality. Only that the Creative actually uses a real equalizer feature to help fine tune things unlike the cheesy presets Apple uses. In my experience, using ANY iPod preset results in lousy audio quality as their digital audio processing isn't that great and make the music sound overly processed.

Would I not recommend the iPod based on audio quality alone, no. There are a lot more features and benefits using an iPod then a few audio quirks which are mostly overcome using better speakers/headphones. Just that I get sick and tired when people seem to feel that one digital audio player is better sounding the the next, except for really cheap ones, most in the $300 range are comparable, just depends how much bias is behind the person recommending them.

What Snobs We Have Become

[thatguywhoiam]

Sometimes I really wonder where we get our perceptions of 'quality'....

I guess I am a graybeard now, I remember recording an FM signal off the radio, onto a casette tape (magnetized particles, young'ins! and we liked it!)... trying to get a clean 'rip' without the DJ trampling the beginning or end (impossible)... futzing with levels to hit that magical peak 0dB (but not too much over!)... applying Dolby B 'noise reduction'.... all of this took, usually, an entire afternoon to assemble one good tape. Which your buddy's car deck would then eat the next day.

Not that I miss any of that really, but now its 'Transcode the file from AAC to MP3?!? My ears would BLEED, such a thing is beyond the pale! Were you raised in a cave?'

Of course, a lot of it is bullshit. There are true audiophiles and then there are those who just want to know that they have The Best. These are the people who have $10k stereos that don't notice when the entire left channel disappears at a club. I find its usually me and maybe one or two other people in the vicinity who looked shocked when that happens... the rest have no idea....