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Ipod 5.5g 80GB with rockbox or Ipod Classic 80GB

post #1 of 26
2/17/08 at 12:08am
Thread Starter 
I may pick an Ipod 5.5g 80GB up refurbed. Does rockbox make the Ipod shine or does it degrade the sound quality in any way? When side by side, which one would you take, the 5.5g with rockbox or the classic?
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post #2 of 26
2/17/08 at 12:16am
The base sound of the Apple firmware and RockBox is the same. RockBox gives you many ways of controlling the sound: crossfeed, crossfade, 5 band parametric equalizer, ....

Additionally with RockBox, you get support for many more codecs: Ogg, FLAC, MPC, ....

Also, you get freed from ITunes. You can you a multitude of tools to manage your music, or just drag and drop files.

And, it dual boots. You use the Apple firmware to watch videos or manage photos.

Guess I'm saying go for the 5.5G and RockBox.

-Pony
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post #3 of 26
2/17/08 at 12:24am
Thread Starter 
does rockbox add hiss or any background noise to the Ipod 5.5g? The reason I ask is because when I switched from OF to rockbox on my e280 sansa player, rockbox made the existing hiss and background noise more noticeable. I had to switch to the OF and eventually I got rid of that player.
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post #4 of 26
2/17/08 at 1:01am
I have a 60GB 5G IPod and hear no hiss with my UM2s. I am very familiar with the hiss of the IRiver H1xx series, but hear nothing with my 5G IPod.

I always use my 5G via line-out and amp; you made me plug into the HO.

-Pony
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post #5 of 26
2/17/08 at 1:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DJGeorgeT View Post
does rockbox add hiss or any background noise to the Ipod 5.5g? The reason I ask is because when I switched from OF to rockbox on my e280 sansa player, rockbox made the existing hiss and background noise more noticeable. I had to switch to the OF and eventually I got rid of that player.
The question is what type of files will you be playing? and do you plan to go out of the Headphone out or the Line-Out with a Dock and an Amp.

I had hiss with my 5.5G Rockboxed with FLAC files through the headphone out, but NO hiss through the line out.
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post #6 of 26
2/17/08 at 1:32am
Rockbox actually REDUCES hiss on Ipod 5.5G!!! Listening to senstive IEMs with stock firmware, there is alway hiss. Switching to Rockbox, the hiss goes away - <<hiss gone>> ! This has been confirmed by others and no one has a good answer for why it is so.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DJGeorgeT View Post
does rockbox add hiss or any background noise to the Ipod 5.5g? The reason I ask is because when I switched from OF to rockbox on my e280 sansa player, rockbox made the existing hiss and background noise more noticeable. I had to switch to the OF and eventually I got rid of that player.
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post #7 of 26
2/17/08 at 1:37am
Thread Starter 
In the office, line out. Commuting, headphone out.

Hiss is gone! That's what I wanted to hear.

Is the rockbox mp3 codec better sounding than the apple codec?

When I owned the sansa C250, I confirmed that with rockbox, all my mp3s sounded flat, boring, muddy, thin. With the OF, the sound was a bit better.
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post #8 of 26
2/17/08 at 1:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DJGeorgeT View Post
In the office, line out. Commuting, headphone out.

Hiss is gone! That's what I wanted to hear.

Is the rockbox mp3 codec better sounding than the apple codec?

When I owned the sansa C250, I confirmed that with rockbox, all my mp3s sounded flat, boring, muddy, thin. With the OF, the sound was a bit better.
I would say the MP3 codecs are of the same quality - can't tell any difference.

Another thing: with Rockbox on 5.5G, you can control the Ipod's "hardware EQ". That is not a DSP in software, but rather a setting on the Wolfson chip. The hardware EQ shows up as bass and treble controls on 5.5G.

Finally, the RB devs are working to improve the battery life issues with RB and Ipods.
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post #9 of 26
2/17/08 at 10:17am
Thread Starter 
yeah, the EQ is one of the biggest features that rockbox provides. At least with my sansa e280, If I were to boost certain frequency band, rockbox would automatically adjust the gain to prevent clipping. I wonder if it is the same on the Ipod 5.5g.

What battery life issues?
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post #10 of 26
2/17/08 at 10:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DJGeorgeT View Post
At least with my sansa e280, If I were to boost certain frequency band, rockbox would automatically adjust the gain to prevent clipping.
This is not true. You can adjust the gain manual using the pre-cut, but Rockbox will not automatically adjust gain to prevent clipping.
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post #11 of 26
2/17/08 at 10:41am
Thread Starter 
not the band EQ, but on sound settings BASS/TREBLE settings. Go ahead and push the bass the 24dB boost and you will notice how rockbox adjusts the gain to prevent clipping...if it works the same way as the e280
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post #12 of 26
2/17/08 at 12:26pm
I have a 80gb 5.5g running RockBox. I bought a 160gb 6g Classic, and while I loved the extra disk space, found I could not live without RockBox, so sold the 160gb Classic.

For me, once getting used to the flexibility and features of RockBox (especially flac playback and drag and drop file management), I found the Nazi-like iron fist and feature bloat of iTunes unbearable. That's just me, though. Others love iTunes, but I have no need or use for cover flow, video playback, etc, so it's wasted on me.
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post #13 of 26
2/17/08 at 12:32pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by agile_one View Post
I have a 80gb 5.5g running RockBox. I bought a 160gb 6g Classic, and while I loved the extra disk space, found I could not live without RockBox, so sold the 160gb Classic.

For me, once getting used to the flexibility and features of RockBox (especially flac playback and drag and drop file management), I found the Nazi-like iron fist and feature bloat of iTunes unbearable. That's just me, though. Others love iTunes, but I have no need or use for cover flow, video playback, etc, so it's wasted on me.
how is the USB recognition on rockbox? Once I switch to rockbox, will I ever have to use iTune? Once I go rockbox, I want absolutely nothing to do with ITunes.

Iron fist is what I used to call my ex-boss...
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post #14 of 26
2/17/08 at 2:06pm
I tried rockbox on my 5.5 imod but it is soooo slow, I dont know if it is anything to do with the settings i have or the rb build or whatever but basically, it takes 4 minutes for a song to pause, or stop or start to play or to change to anothr track I just uninstalled it.

On my iriver h340 it is sorted no issues at all, I was wondering if this is other peoples experiences with rb on the 5.5 pod or if some tweaking on my payer could increase responsiveness?
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post #15 of 26
2/17/08 at 2:14pm
Then something is wrong with your install. Rockbox is going to be slower than most stock firmwares, as it resides on the hard disk itself instead of in the built in flash memory. However it seems you are just having an isolated issue.

Keep the good comments coming! My5.5g 80gb will arrive here tomorrow.
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