Except then you are locked into iTunes forever, especially if you bought music from them. I only buy CDs because I want complete freedom from any proprietary functions.

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maxvla said:

Except then you are locked into iTunes forever, especially if you bought music from them. I only buy CDs because I want complete freedom from any proprietary functions.

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Dude, you can put the iTunes files on any AAC-capable player/software you want. There is no DRM-protection anymore in case you did not know.

Again, following the 'Independent thinking' mindset shared by millions of Apple haters, leads a person to advance up to 2006, march up to 2007, give the finger to the man, and then return to the 80's. AAC files from iTunes have been DRM-free since 2007. Movies are another matter, as are TV shows, but I hardly think that has anything to do with Apple. 

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stevenswall said:

Between my S9 and any iPod I have ever heard, external amp or not, My S9 EQing ability completely trounces the Ipod. 'bass boost' on the iPod sounds like crackling rice crispies in the background on my PortaPros, wheras X-bass and Mach3 Bass on my Cowon S9 actually improve the low end on the 'phones, with no distortion.

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The 'cracking' distortion issue has been fixed for months now. iOS 4 brought that wonderful change. If you've not updated, you are missing out.

 
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shigzeo said:

Again, following the 'Independent thinking' mindset shared by millions of Apple haters, leads a person to advance up to 2006, march up to 2007, give the finger to the man, and then return to the 80's. AAC files from iTunes have been DRM-free since 2007. Movies are another matter, as are TV shows, but I hardly think that has anything to do with Apple. 

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Yeah they even let me upconvert the few files I bought from them a long time ago to the iTunes Plus format, while at the same time dropping the DRM.
 
edit: I like the way iTunes organizes my music, but I always make sure not to let them sort the "compilations" seperately. And I have a tendency to re-consolidate multi-disk albums into one album with more than one disc.

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shigzeo said:

The 'cracking' distortion issue has been fixed for months now. iOS 4 brought that wonderful change. If you've not updated, you are missing out.

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X1!!! The EQ settings on the touch via iOS 4 have taken care of the distortion. The presets on the touch now actually sound pretty good. I do wish there were a custom EQ, but it's now acceptable.

So it would seem that the main knock on i-devices has been fixed now, which would be the poor SQ when using the EQ. But people that use EQ will still gripe about the lack of custom EQ settings on them. I've never been into EQ, so it's never mattered to me. I do like the Sound Check feature, but it has never been a source of any distortion.

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leva said:

what external amps have you used or heard with ipod? just curious how the S9 would trounce ipod+lod+ (protector, Pico, TTVJ etc..) in SQ.
or are you comparing EQing ability only?

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I listened to a Headstage Arrow headphone amplifier with a $200 interconnect for my Cowon S9 (headphone out), and then the same amp with an LOD + iPod, both outputting to my KDE/250, and then to a Beyerdynamic headphone (660 or 770 I believe, nothing  higher, and 600 ohms) I did not notice an improvement in SQ with the amp on either device, but when plugging directly into my Cowon S9, the Beyer was driven to reasonable listening levels, and the bass boosting EQ worked as well, and with no distortion as far as I could hear. Plugging into the iPod was rather quiet, and using bass boost the music pulsed or broke up (sounds like a speaker that is fully occupied with bass trying to reproduce vocals; there isn't enough speaker play left to hit all the frequencies) like the internal amp was overloaded (I think it's called unloading the amp, ie. all the capacitors are drained faster then they can refresh their charge, causing the volume to pulse) From this experience I concluded that the amp in my Cowon was more powerful, and less prone to distortion, both pluses.
 
I also listened to a prototype DAC/AMP that used a decrypted digital output from the iPod and sent it to an HD800, Needless to say, even on the HD800 there seemed to be no significant difference between this and my S9 without the DAC/AMP; both sounded full and clean. It's just that with the iPod, you have to throw in another $300 to get this DAC/AMP to make it sound as clean and electronic as any other DAP I have heard on normal EQ settings (a Sony Walkman, a Samsung P2, a Cowon S9, a Creative Xen V+, ect)
 
Ampless, I have also done a comparison between a 5.5g iPod I purchased about a year ago, and an iPod classic on display at B-Buy. The Classic seemed to have an electrical sound to it like a downsampled audio file; like some if the sound information was cut out, whereas with my 5.5g ipod music sounded more full, closer to when I plug headphones into my Sony Stereo.
 
Once you factor in EQing capabilities on Cowon devices, you will likely never turn them off, and if they are always on it will always sound better than any iPod you care to compare it to, unless the said iPod starts to have incredible EQing capabilities that an end user is able to hear the difference in when using.
 
My Cowon trounces it by sounding clean and full for $300 less, and because of improved SQ through use of an EQ and various DSP effects (Upsampling, BBE sound correction, ect)
 
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shigzeo said:

The 'cracking' distortion issue has been fixed for months now. iOS 4 brought that wonderful change. If you've not updated, you are missing out.

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I don't own an Ipod, but occasionally I have friends lend me theirs to listen to the difference between presets on it, and presets on my S9, using songs we both have. The preset 'bass boost' on the iPod seems to do very little in terms of adding bass, even when the volume is low and distortion less noticeable... on quite a few other DAP I have used, many of them hundreds cheaper, the presets actually seem to have audible  differences, but on the iPod, I would have a hard time telling the differences between the various EQs in a blind test.
 
I have yet to do a comparison with an iOS 4 device, but even so, having a clean EQ on a terrible amp would be quite useless. EX: I plugged in my Mc5 to an iPad a few days after I bought it (the headphone, not the iPad) and turned the volume up... and up... and finally to max. It was somewhat loud, but nothing close to the ear splitting volume of my S9. It is incredible to me that the iPad/new iPod amplifier chip would really be that weak, especially with an 8mm IEM. Is there a volume cutting setting I am unaware of, or are they still going downhill in terms of DAC/amp quality? Other than that, the only other possibility is that my IEM is terribly defective (though only when plugged into iPods, as I have used it with many other sources) or that volume of the audio files has been clipped by the person who loaded it at B-Buy. Glad they fixed their broken EQ, but they still have a long way to go before I will consider iPods decent DAPs... Rockbox works for me, and is the sole reason I ever even tried an iPod... newer devices seem to have lost this feature due to the inflexibility and paranoia of the Apple team. Sadly, even if newer devices did support it, I don't think the hardware, particularly the DAC/amp, would be good enough to make it worthwhile.

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milkaffe said:

Dude, you can put the iTunes files on any AAC-capable player/software you want. There is no DRM-protection anymore in case you did not know.

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Good to know. I still hate iTunes.

Got my iPod Touch last week, really happy with it. Use it with a DHC lod > yuin PK1 / AKG 702 and everything sounds great to me. The screen is reeally nice too

I don't really like iTunes - if I'm in a hurry. It takes about 13 seconds to boot up (my intenet is pretty slow). But for music organisation/sorting/drag dropping to S:Flo and AMP3 and Sony, it is amazing. I 'get' the animosity - it's Apple, people who hate it don't use it like it can be used and most use Windows that has NO native scripting effects to really tweak it to Hell. I love Foobar (when I used to use Windows) for managing small libraries (very small) and for boot up speed, but when I want to get business done, iTunes is really the only software that's been able to do it.
 
I DO wish that Apple allowed a music-only mode that didn't connect to internet so that I could boot up in 5-6 seconds and just sync my iPod or listen to Mozart quickly. For that reason, I understand completely, but generally, the people who really 'hate' iTunes don't use it or haven't used it in years, or don't know how to use it.
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maxvla said:

Good to know. I still hate iTunes.

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I have been pretty happy with the sound quality of my iPhone 4 when listening straight from the socket.  I still need to turn the volume up almost all the way to achieve decent listening levels but there is a surprising amount of detail and punch.  Maybe ill do a comparison against my ipod classic to find any discernible differences.

Just got my ipod touch 4g i was quite surprised, the sound is a bit more warmer now, a bit thicker sounding ,unlike the 3g that had which was more digital sounding i think because it was a bit more neutral.I think the sound signature has changed on the ipod touch 4 i dont think its better than the 3g for some reason thats just through my ears. Then again the sound may change over time

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tds101 said:

X1!!! The EQ settings on the touch via iOS 4 have taken care of the distortion. The presets on the touch now actually sound pretty good. I do wish there were a custom EQ, but it's now acceptable.

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So what about us poor folks with Classics, huh? The EQ still sounds like junk. Then again, Apple don't see the Classic line as a big moneymaker any more and so the chances of an OS update are slim at best.
 
As for iTunes, my library has had too much blood, sweat and tears poured into it (mostly iTunes' fault, mind you) for me to just stop using it. Everything is all prim and pretty, properly tagged and with album art. I still use Foobar2k for my critical listening because of the WASAPI support and the cleaner interface (takes about 1/5 time iTunes takes to load up) but I'll keep iTunes as long as I have an iPod, or until I upgrade my computer.

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goody said:

Just got my ipod touch 4g i was quite surprised, the sound is a bit more warmer now, a bit thicker sounding ,unlike the 3g that had which was more digital sounding i think because it was a bit more neutral.I think the sound signature has changed on the ipod touch 4 i dont think its better than the 3g for some reason thats just through my ears. Then again the sound may change over time

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I found the same things to be true.  The 4g sound is a lot meatier and involving.  The 3g is distant and brighter/thinner in comparison.