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iPod 5th gen sound issue (distortion?)

post #1 of 32
4/21/09 at 8:40am
Thread Starter 
I cannot choose a right word for it, but it is like when you're enabling a huge boost (e.g. 5x) in your player settings/eq (as i understand, in such a case a high peaks will be cutted because they won't fit inside an allowed max.amplitude; sorry, i can't choose better words). Such "tinkling" or "wheeze" persists on almost every album i've tried to listen to (of course, i've tried lossless; more precisely, it was FLAC) and it seems that the issue doesn't depends of the volume - the distortion can be easily distinguished even on -50 volume, and makes some music (e.g. Death Magnetic by Metallica) totally unlistenable.
This is a refurbished 30GB (MA446LL) unit with Rockbox v3.2 installed; all settings are factory default (although maybe i've changed something unintentionally).
Is it the issue with my specific unit, or is it a common 5th.gen problem? Can i fix it someway (of course, without upgrading it to iMod)?
Thanks in advance, and, please, forgive me my bad english...
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post #2 of 32
4/21/09 at 8:43am
Use prevent distortion in Rockbox, worked for me - ripped audio track from DVD replygain showed -11dB so enabling prevent distortion stopped the loud bits from crackling.
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post #3 of 32
4/21/09 at 8:48am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Use prevent distortion in Rockbox
Where can i enable it? I can't find anything like it in the settings.
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post #4 of 32
4/21/09 at 8:56am
settings, playback, replaygain, prevent clipping.
you will need to replaygain scan your music.
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post #5 of 32
4/21/09 at 9:05am
Thread Starter 
Hmm, i've set "Enable Replaygain" to "Yes" and "Prevent Clipping" to "Yes", and nothing have changed. Also, i've tried to set "Pre-amp" in "Replaygain" settings to -12dB, and the volume haven't changed. Should i do something to make this "Replaygain" work?
Quote:
you will need to replaygain scan your music.
Is this something i should do on the PC?
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post #6 of 32
4/21/09 at 9:07am
If you have not scanned your music, then those settings will do naff all. Use foobar, insert your music into the windows, select all, right click scan all as albums by tag, wait a while, then click update.
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post #7 of 32
4/21/09 at 9:14am
Death Magnetic is just a terrible recording if you are listening to the released CD version, it's not your ipod. The better your equipment gets the worse bad recordings sound and this is possibly the worst example of bad mastering ever (the actual music is good - there is a guitar hero rip that is much better quality) This is due to the loudness war - there is plenty of info available as it is terrible.

Try it with a good recording, the older the better, and see if it sounds good.
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post #8 of 32
4/21/09 at 9:38am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
it's not your ipod
Well, Death Magnetic is not the only album, almost every recording i've tried suffers from the clipping.
Quote:
Try it with a good recording
I'm choosing a player to listen music i like, not a music to listen a player i like player is a tool for me, not an aim
Quote:
Use foobar, insert your music into the windows, select all, right click scan all as albums by tag, wait a while, then click update
And it will just modify my .flac files accordingly?
Thanks, will try it when i'll be at home
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post #9 of 32
4/21/09 at 9:53am
Thread Starter 
Just looked at the flac binaries - can i get rid out of foobar and just do `metaflac.exe --add-replay-gain' for all my flacs?
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post #10 of 32
4/21/09 at 10:28am
It is a lot easier if you just use a program to do the replaygain for you. Get either Winamp or Foobar2000, load your files into a playlist and do a replaygain scan. It will scan all your files and add the replaygain to the metadata. BTW, save the settings as an album, because then it will save track data (nice for random play) and album settings (for listening to a single album).
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post #11 of 32
4/21/09 at 11:27am
Thread Starter 
For me it is easier to use CLI and i don't listen to a separate tracks, only to a whole albums; my flacs are one huge .flac + .cue
However, as i understand, metaflac should do the same that winamp or foobar (do not have them installed on pc) would do
Thanks for the help anyway!
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post #12 of 32
4/22/09 at 6:33am
Thread Starter 
I've tried to do `flac --add-replay-gain' for all my flacs. Now, when i'm enabling Replaygain in rockbox, sounds becomes more quiet on modified flacs; and, when i'm selecting -12dB in preamp settings, it becomes even more quiet; but beggining of third track of Death Magnetic still sounds like a total crap. I cannot tell the difference between old version without of replaygain data and new version with this data except for a volume; clipping is still here.
Haven't tried other tracks yet, but i doubt if something has changed.

Anything else i can do?
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post #13 of 32
4/22/09 at 6:37am
You don't need to change preamp setting. It'll be more quiter, but all albums will sound similar in volume. I would think DM album is the problem, I've used RP on a DVD album that sorted the distorting. But if the original album wave is distorted, and according to others, it has RP cannot fix that.
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post #14 of 32
4/22/09 at 6:52am
Thread Starter 
I've changed preamp setting just to make sure replaygain is working
So do you think that just DM CD is a crap (along with other albums listed on Loudness war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ), and other albums should now sound OK?
Thanks, hope it will be so
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post #15 of 32
4/22/09 at 5:28pm
It's not nearly limited to albums listed on Wikipedia.


Just about anything put out by big recording companies will be given the kiss of death and distortion. The reason they do this is to make it more noticeable on the radio and TV. It's all marketing. There is no art in music anymore, it's all about the money. This is why I stick with independent artists and small labels. Also, all music before 1992 or so (original un-remastered recordings only) should be fine.


By the way, he's not nearly the only one that does this, but if you see the name VLADO MELLER as the mastering engineer of anything you own, expect it to sound horrible. He's the one that started it all with Oasis' What's The Story (Morning Glory)?, and continues to ruin albums to this day. He killed Muse's recordings, and I will never forgive him for that. Muse deserves better than that.




Death Magnetic will never sound good. Chances are, half or more of your collection is also poorly mastered and you just don't have the gear to show it yet. Crap in, crap out. Sorry.
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