Topics discussed:
1. Battery time
2. EQ
2. Sound quality
4. Why output levels are restricted
5. Recording/transfer quality
6. Looking for the right combination
Spending some days in hospital for surgery (removing metal parts in the pelvis after a bicycle accident ten months ago, preparing for a complete hip joint replacement in a further operation) gave me the unplanned opportunity to make some comparisons and reflections on mp3 listening. I’d brought along my trusted 1gb player bought at a local grocery store for €20, an old iriver IFP-595 (512 mb) and a recently acquired 8 gb iPod Nano 4th generation. Long hours in stillness and late, quiet nights waiting for the painkillers to do their work turned out to be perfect conditions for evaluating the sound quality and technical features of the players (and headphones). To my surprise, the iPod Nano gave up on the second day – the battery already drained. This is indeed a major drawback when you don’t have a charger or computer at hands. The €20 player lasted another day. Of course I didn’t listen all the time, but it was apparent that the iPod sucked power also when not being turned on. Later I found out that Apple admits to this fact in the manual. For me, who likes to load the player with carefully selected music for use during several weeks, on the tram to work and in the evenings, this is quite a drawback. I charge my player to avoid the need to connect it to the computer or mains every day, and to have it ready in my rucksack or pocket. I don’t care for Apple’s shrewd move to drain the battery during non-listening hours, forcing the user to connect it to the computer. (And to buy more new music on iTunes - Apple of course wants to make money. This encourages quick, superficial listening and quick discarding of songs, and I wonder what effect this has on high quality music with lasting qualities…) The Nano’s short battery life was confirmed when I did some tests after I’d left the hospital. Apple claims up to 24 hours battery time (!) for audio files, but this is a gross exaggeration. With the Sennheiser PX 100 (sensitivity 114 dB/volt, approximately 102-103 dB/mW) and volume setting at 75%, the Nano played for about 4 hours. With the Ultrasone Proline 650 (sensitivity: 94 dB/mW) and a volume setting of 95%, the playing time was similar: 3h 45 minutes. This is totally unacceptable.
In the hospital I only had the Sennheiser PX100 headphones, which are not perfect but quite musical. I’d like to attenuate the 100-200 Hz region by 3 dBs, and to raise the 10kHz register 3 dBs. This I could do on my cheap mp3-player and the iriver, but not on the iPod. And although I took time to try and find a somewhat similar frequency response among the 20 or so EQ presets on the Nano, I did not succeed. In fact, these presets are not usable for serious listeners, and they’re also tailored with features such as compression and other tricks – and why do you need a “flat” option when there’s also “EQ off”? Hmm… Sound quality difference between the iPod and the cheap player was insignificant using the PX 100, except when the original mastering was made at a low level - for instance an early CD transfer of Lee Ritenour’s magical album Rio. Here the iPod’s low output level was too low to give life to the music, which the cheap player managed magnificently. Best sound was produced by the old iriver, with more “body” to the instruments and, overall, a richer and more detailed quality with better spatial definition.
As I listen a lot to symphonic music (but also music in widely different genres), I’m sensitive to colourations of sound. There is nothing like a symphony orchestra to reveal deficiencies in a player’s frequency response. To me, if sound reproduction equipment - in this case an mp3-player and a pair of headphones - manages to reproduce, say, a Brahms symphony without drawing to much attention to itself, then it works. My €20 player did just that – I didn’t have any expectations but it fulfilled them anyway (!), and it served me well until the quartz clock got out of rhythm and every ten minutes or so switched left and right channels. And believe me, the first violins should be to the left, or I and many listeners get frustrated and confused. Same goes for the high-hat, it should be placed to the right unless we have a left hand drummer, like Phil Collins (Ringo is left handed too, but plays a normal kit, which facilitates many interesting and inventive high-hat and tom-tom effects, described as “Ringoisms” by the late Ian MacDonald in his fascinating book “Revolution in the Head. The Beatles’ Recordings and the Sixties, 1994).
Beside battery time, the iPod also failed in one other important area: output level. For me, these two parameters must be satisfactory met before one even starts discussing sound quality. Simply put, during playback of a classical piano recording such as Ravel’s piano music with Jean-Yves Thibaudet on Decca, the iPod couldn’t produce normal listening levels even with the quite sensitive PX 100. This is partly soft music with fine-graded dynamics that explore all colours and nuances of the grand piano. N B, I do not listen loud, but need a wide dynamic range to hear all of Ravel’s subtleties. This the iriver managed, and the cheap player, which even had power to spare. The iPod failed on this account, a sad fact. The iriver’s volume control is graded to 40, and the maximum output level of the iPod reached about 34 on this scale. This may be enough for low quality, high efficiency earplugs with piercing and possibly ear damaging midrange, but won’t do with good quality headphones. How a magazine like What Hi-Fi? can claim that “if you simply want the best, the Nano is undeniably it” (May 2009) is a mystery. With which headphones, what iem:s? The output of the Nano must be less than 5mW (some say 1-2 mW) compared to the iriver’s 12 mW (16 ohms), and I’m surprised that not one magazine/web site has measured the Nano’s’s output power during tests. This should be mandatory! But this is a hornet’s nest, especially with the EU regulations, and I’m not surprised that the audio magazines are scared of treading on the big manufacturers’ toes, or to “reveal” players with too high and “illegal” output. Low output is also a major problem with cell phones, the largest group of mp3 players around. When I confronted Sony Ericsson’s customer support about the low output levels of my handy they simply said they ”do not have access to the information”.
Threat of law-suits (apparently some people suffered damaged hearing after excessive listening levels) and EU regulations are the reasons behind the low output levels of iPods and other mp3 players. Good for the kids who mainly listen to brickwalled top 40 songs, but a problem for quality oriented listeners. The European standards originate from French regulations, where in 2003 iPods were taken off the market for playing louder than the 100 dB maximum (I’m right now checking how the rules regulate, in detail, the limitation of the headphone/player combinations’ maximum output level of 100dB – it seems like an impossible task for the manufacturers!). I find it a bit ironic that French rules now make it impossible to reproduce Ravel’s music accurately on mp3-players… this is disastrous to all of us who wants to enjoy the qualities of some of the best music ever written (and I’m not only talking about Ravel, but all of classical music and subtle and refined recordings of singer-songwriters, choirs, jazz combos and so on). Apparently EU even wants to lower the maximum level to 80 dB.
But let’s get back to the player comparison. The iPod was out of the race, with too low output and too short battery-life killing listening altogether. The modest €20 euro player lasted another day, with sufficient listening levels and good, reliable sound. I’ve never made a better investment in my life and it brought me musical pleasure for more than two years (and it still does, provided you don’t care about switched left and right channels). Best of all was the IFP-595 that lasted over a week and presented the most convincing sound quality of the three – quite surprising, considering the model is five years old. But it was a high quality mp3-player when introduced, among the best. The memory capacity (512 mB) however, is obviously too small if one opts for 320 kbs transfers, which I think is the lowest resolution one should choose. Difference between this format and lossless files (i. e. CD quality, which in itself is a sonic compromise) is less important than the quality of the player, the headphones and ultimately the recordings themselves, in my opinion. There is an old saying that good recordings sound good even on cheap/simple equipment, and I find this to be true. Bad recordings sound bad also on the best equipment, but good recordings and clever arrangements, for instance Decca orchestral recordings, classic Sinatra tracks and Bacharach’s 60’s hits, sound fresh and attractive even to this day, 40-50 years after they were put down on tape, even on cheap mp3-players. But if one chooses lossless files, these players need even more storage space: 50-100 gb would be desirable.
How much easier it is listening to CDs and SACDs . At home I plug in my Sennheiser, AKG, Ultrasone and other headphones to a mains headphone amp connected to the output of a SACD-player. This is as good as it gets, especially when I listen to the spectacular recordings of the Gothenburg Symphony, the National Orchestra of Sweden, recorded in the acoustically superior Gothenburg Concert Hall by my friends Lennart Dehn, producer, and balance engineers Michael Bergek and Torbjörn Samuelsson. Wonderful resolution and presence! Don’t miss the Sibelius symphonies with Neeme Järvi on Deutsche Grammophon and the Alban Berg orchestral music with Mario Venzago on Chandos (excellent violin soloist: Isabelle van Keulen) – you’re in for a treat. Or if you’re a Shostakovich fan, discover four wonderful concertos (cello, clarinet and flute x 2) of his friend and contemporary Weinberg, also on Chandos.
So where does all this lead? Well, why haven’t the manufacturers provided the basic portable rig for the critical listener: a good sounding and small mp3-player with sufficient output power and good battery life and a pair of efficient, transparent and discreet headphones? Gapless playback is also on the wish list, considering attacca symphonies, Zappa and live recording sequels or, in general, subdivisions of larger musical works. This is probably asking too much, unless Rockbox software is available. I don’t want an extra amplifier in my pocket or bag to drive Sennheisers or AKGs that are too bulky – I want a slim, 8-32 gig mp3-player with SD card expansion that fits in my shirt pocket, modestly sized headphones (I find iem:s a bit uncomfortable), preferably closed, that block out noise and provide high resolution reproduction of my favourite music. Haven’t found them yet. Cowon D2 delivers but is a bit bulky, Sansa Fuze apparently falls short with the equalizer (or do you only need to figure it out?), an Onda player fulfilled all my demands except the manual EQ… And the headphones? I had hopes for the AKG K450 but was disappointed by their flat and coloured sound. I have Sennheiser HD228 but am not convinced about their qualities yet, the veil is there. Audio-Technica ATH-ES7 might be an option.
Regarding the mp3-player, I’d like to consult the collected resources of all you headfiers out there to help me find one with the following features, no compromises accepted:
Compact size
8 gb memory or more
SD slot
Manual eq
No touch screen
Enough output power (15 mW or more)
Optional extras: gapless playing, radio.
1. Battery time
2. EQ
2. Sound quality
4. Why output levels are restricted
5. Recording/transfer quality
6. Looking for the right combination
Spending some days in hospital for surgery (removing metal parts in the pelvis after a bicycle accident ten months ago, preparing for a complete hip joint replacement in a further operation) gave me the unplanned opportunity to make some comparisons and reflections on mp3 listening. I’d brought along my trusted 1gb player bought at a local grocery store for €20, an old iriver IFP-595 (512 mb) and a recently acquired 8 gb iPod Nano 4th generation. Long hours in stillness and late, quiet nights waiting for the painkillers to do their work turned out to be perfect conditions for evaluating the sound quality and technical features of the players (and headphones). To my surprise, the iPod Nano gave up on the second day – the battery already drained. This is indeed a major drawback when you don’t have a charger or computer at hands. The €20 player lasted another day. Of course I didn’t listen all the time, but it was apparent that the iPod sucked power also when not being turned on. Later I found out that Apple admits to this fact in the manual. For me, who likes to load the player with carefully selected music for use during several weeks, on the tram to work and in the evenings, this is quite a drawback. I charge my player to avoid the need to connect it to the computer or mains every day, and to have it ready in my rucksack or pocket. I don’t care for Apple’s shrewd move to drain the battery during non-listening hours, forcing the user to connect it to the computer. (And to buy more new music on iTunes - Apple of course wants to make money. This encourages quick, superficial listening and quick discarding of songs, and I wonder what effect this has on high quality music with lasting qualities…) The Nano’s short battery life was confirmed when I did some tests after I’d left the hospital. Apple claims up to 24 hours battery time (!) for audio files, but this is a gross exaggeration. With the Sennheiser PX 100 (sensitivity 114 dB/volt, approximately 102-103 dB/mW) and volume setting at 75%, the Nano played for about 4 hours. With the Ultrasone Proline 650 (sensitivity: 94 dB/mW) and a volume setting of 95%, the playing time was similar: 3h 45 minutes. This is totally unacceptable.
In the hospital I only had the Sennheiser PX100 headphones, which are not perfect but quite musical. I’d like to attenuate the 100-200 Hz region by 3 dBs, and to raise the 10kHz register 3 dBs. This I could do on my cheap mp3-player and the iriver, but not on the iPod. And although I took time to try and find a somewhat similar frequency response among the 20 or so EQ presets on the Nano, I did not succeed. In fact, these presets are not usable for serious listeners, and they’re also tailored with features such as compression and other tricks – and why do you need a “flat” option when there’s also “EQ off”? Hmm… Sound quality difference between the iPod and the cheap player was insignificant using the PX 100, except when the original mastering was made at a low level - for instance an early CD transfer of Lee Ritenour’s magical album Rio. Here the iPod’s low output level was too low to give life to the music, which the cheap player managed magnificently. Best sound was produced by the old iriver, with more “body” to the instruments and, overall, a richer and more detailed quality with better spatial definition.
As I listen a lot to symphonic music (but also music in widely different genres), I’m sensitive to colourations of sound. There is nothing like a symphony orchestra to reveal deficiencies in a player’s frequency response. To me, if sound reproduction equipment - in this case an mp3-player and a pair of headphones - manages to reproduce, say, a Brahms symphony without drawing to much attention to itself, then it works. My €20 player did just that – I didn’t have any expectations but it fulfilled them anyway (!), and it served me well until the quartz clock got out of rhythm and every ten minutes or so switched left and right channels. And believe me, the first violins should be to the left, or I and many listeners get frustrated and confused. Same goes for the high-hat, it should be placed to the right unless we have a left hand drummer, like Phil Collins (Ringo is left handed too, but plays a normal kit, which facilitates many interesting and inventive high-hat and tom-tom effects, described as “Ringoisms” by the late Ian MacDonald in his fascinating book “Revolution in the Head. The Beatles’ Recordings and the Sixties, 1994).
Beside battery time, the iPod also failed in one other important area: output level. For me, these two parameters must be satisfactory met before one even starts discussing sound quality. Simply put, during playback of a classical piano recording such as Ravel’s piano music with Jean-Yves Thibaudet on Decca, the iPod couldn’t produce normal listening levels even with the quite sensitive PX 100. This is partly soft music with fine-graded dynamics that explore all colours and nuances of the grand piano. N B, I do not listen loud, but need a wide dynamic range to hear all of Ravel’s subtleties. This the iriver managed, and the cheap player, which even had power to spare. The iPod failed on this account, a sad fact. The iriver’s volume control is graded to 40, and the maximum output level of the iPod reached about 34 on this scale. This may be enough for low quality, high efficiency earplugs with piercing and possibly ear damaging midrange, but won’t do with good quality headphones. How a magazine like What Hi-Fi? can claim that “if you simply want the best, the Nano is undeniably it” (May 2009) is a mystery. With which headphones, what iem:s? The output of the Nano must be less than 5mW (some say 1-2 mW) compared to the iriver’s 12 mW (16 ohms), and I’m surprised that not one magazine/web site has measured the Nano’s’s output power during tests. This should be mandatory! But this is a hornet’s nest, especially with the EU regulations, and I’m not surprised that the audio magazines are scared of treading on the big manufacturers’ toes, or to “reveal” players with too high and “illegal” output. Low output is also a major problem with cell phones, the largest group of mp3 players around. When I confronted Sony Ericsson’s customer support about the low output levels of my handy they simply said they ”do not have access to the information”.
Threat of law-suits (apparently some people suffered damaged hearing after excessive listening levels) and EU regulations are the reasons behind the low output levels of iPods and other mp3 players. Good for the kids who mainly listen to brickwalled top 40 songs, but a problem for quality oriented listeners. The European standards originate from French regulations, where in 2003 iPods were taken off the market for playing louder than the 100 dB maximum (I’m right now checking how the rules regulate, in detail, the limitation of the headphone/player combinations’ maximum output level of 100dB – it seems like an impossible task for the manufacturers!). I find it a bit ironic that French rules now make it impossible to reproduce Ravel’s music accurately on mp3-players… this is disastrous to all of us who wants to enjoy the qualities of some of the best music ever written (and I’m not only talking about Ravel, but all of classical music and subtle and refined recordings of singer-songwriters, choirs, jazz combos and so on). Apparently EU even wants to lower the maximum level to 80 dB.
But let’s get back to the player comparison. The iPod was out of the race, with too low output and too short battery-life killing listening altogether. The modest €20 euro player lasted another day, with sufficient listening levels and good, reliable sound. I’ve never made a better investment in my life and it brought me musical pleasure for more than two years (and it still does, provided you don’t care about switched left and right channels). Best of all was the IFP-595 that lasted over a week and presented the most convincing sound quality of the three – quite surprising, considering the model is five years old. But it was a high quality mp3-player when introduced, among the best. The memory capacity (512 mB) however, is obviously too small if one opts for 320 kbs transfers, which I think is the lowest resolution one should choose. Difference between this format and lossless files (i. e. CD quality, which in itself is a sonic compromise) is less important than the quality of the player, the headphones and ultimately the recordings themselves, in my opinion. There is an old saying that good recordings sound good even on cheap/simple equipment, and I find this to be true. Bad recordings sound bad also on the best equipment, but good recordings and clever arrangements, for instance Decca orchestral recordings, classic Sinatra tracks and Bacharach’s 60’s hits, sound fresh and attractive even to this day, 40-50 years after they were put down on tape, even on cheap mp3-players. But if one chooses lossless files, these players need even more storage space: 50-100 gb would be desirable.
How much easier it is listening to CDs and SACDs . At home I plug in my Sennheiser, AKG, Ultrasone and other headphones to a mains headphone amp connected to the output of a SACD-player. This is as good as it gets, especially when I listen to the spectacular recordings of the Gothenburg Symphony, the National Orchestra of Sweden, recorded in the acoustically superior Gothenburg Concert Hall by my friends Lennart Dehn, producer, and balance engineers Michael Bergek and Torbjörn Samuelsson. Wonderful resolution and presence! Don’t miss the Sibelius symphonies with Neeme Järvi on Deutsche Grammophon and the Alban Berg orchestral music with Mario Venzago on Chandos (excellent violin soloist: Isabelle van Keulen) – you’re in for a treat. Or if you’re a Shostakovich fan, discover four wonderful concertos (cello, clarinet and flute x 2) of his friend and contemporary Weinberg, also on Chandos.
So where does all this lead? Well, why haven’t the manufacturers provided the basic portable rig for the critical listener: a good sounding and small mp3-player with sufficient output power and good battery life and a pair of efficient, transparent and discreet headphones? Gapless playback is also on the wish list, considering attacca symphonies, Zappa and live recording sequels or, in general, subdivisions of larger musical works. This is probably asking too much, unless Rockbox software is available. I don’t want an extra amplifier in my pocket or bag to drive Sennheisers or AKGs that are too bulky – I want a slim, 8-32 gig mp3-player with SD card expansion that fits in my shirt pocket, modestly sized headphones (I find iem:s a bit uncomfortable), preferably closed, that block out noise and provide high resolution reproduction of my favourite music. Haven’t found them yet. Cowon D2 delivers but is a bit bulky, Sansa Fuze apparently falls short with the equalizer (or do you only need to figure it out?), an Onda player fulfilled all my demands except the manual EQ… And the headphones? I had hopes for the AKG K450 but was disappointed by their flat and coloured sound. I have Sennheiser HD228 but am not convinced about their qualities yet, the veil is there. Audio-Technica ATH-ES7 might be an option.
Regarding the mp3-player, I’d like to consult the collected resources of all you headfiers out there to help me find one with the following features, no compromises accepted:
Compact size
8 gb memory or more
SD slot
Manual eq
No touch screen
Enough output power (15 mW or more)
Optional extras: gapless playing, radio.
