[manveru]

I listen to all genres and have AB-ed iPods vs Zune/Cowon on a few different headphones, depending on what I owned at the time. I always found the iPods to sound dull, lifeless, and muddy in comparison. It's like the difference between a 16/44 320 kbps mp3 and a 24/96 flac. I don't know why it matters if Jude or anyone else uses it or not, especially if they're using a CLAS and external amp in which case the iPod has absolutely nothing to do with the sound at all anymore. It just functions as a hard drive in that case. Just my own opinion of course

 

[estreeter]

I like the battery life and the UI.
I loathe iTunes and I consider the out-of-the-box sound quality to be middling, at best, but I haven't heard the fabled 4G iPhone. For all that, my old 3G Touch has been used and abused and is still going strong - full marks for longevity. Put it side-by-side with the (much cheaper) T51 in blind testing and I would be stunned if even 5% of Head-Fiers chose the Touch.

 

[lee730]

Quote:

ticking time bomb? I doubt most have problems with the ipod. it's a little annoying at times to arrange ur music but that's usually due to organization skills of humans.
 
The Studio V isn't widely available and that's one of the problems. the Class A amp and 85+ hours you put there sound fantastic though if it was more widely available that would be great.
 
 

I didn't say the ipod is a ticking time bomb. I said its a ticking time bomb with all those external amps and DACs attached to it. That's not reasonable for me to walk down the street with that kinda rig in my pocket. Unless I'm gonna set the worlds Guinness record for the most baggy pants around .
 

 

[lee730]

Quote:

This is so true. My bassy FX700's go really well with my iPod Touch 4G but don't go so well with any of my Sony daps unless I reduce the bass. When I had the bass-shy UE700's, they sounded horribly thin and hollow with the Touch, but sounded a lot better with my Sony daps. The one thing I've observed about the Touch is that it's much more fussy about what I pair it with than my Walkmans. It sounds better to my ears with fuller sounding bassier phones like TF10, IE8, W3 for example, than with phones like PFE, UE700 or ER-4P.
 

You should hear what the IE80 sounds like with the Studio V. It just bring me tears of Joy ;`). Sadly I can't say the same thing about the FX700 with it. Both are very transparent, and resolving. Putting them together just adds too much clarity to the music and pisses me off to no end . I like that the IE80 has been balance out when compared to the IE8. I don't need to EQ it at all with my Studio V and pretty much everything else I play it on. Just enough mid bass to make the sound fun without clouding the mid range. Treble is silky smooth. Bass goes deeper due to the new found balance.

 

[bowei006]

Quote:

I listen to all genres and have AB-ed iPods vs Zune/Cowon on a few different headphones, depending on what I owned at the time. I always found the iPods to sound dull, lifeless, and muddy in comparison. It's like the difference between a 16/44 320 kbps mp3 and a 24/96 flac. I don't know why it matters if Jude or anyone else uses it or not, especially if they're using a CLAS and external amp in which case the iPod has absolutely nothing to do with the sound at all anymore. It just functions as a hard drive in that case. Just my own opinion of course

well everyone is different and has different ears...or do we...waht if it was all just a farce? 
 
 


Quote:

I like the battery life and the UI.
I loathe iTunes and I consider the out-of-the-box sound quality to be middling, at best, but I haven't heard the fabled 4G iPhone. For all that, my old 3G Touch has been used and abused and is still going strong - full marks for longevity. Put it side-by-side with the (much cheaper) T51 in blind testing and I would be stunned if even 5% of Head-Fiers chose the Touch.

yeah...itunes like i said in the page before :/
It's not the 4G iPhone. Just the 4S. there is no official rule for what companies can call 4G right now. The next gen wireless disclorusre act right now will hopefully fix this. The HSPA+ in the iPhone is unofficially a 4G standard that AT&T and Tmobile call 4G. AT&T has been heard to want to change the 3G sign on the iphone to display 4G. Again, this is all due to the fact thatt here is no standards right now. But yes, it has a 4G...wireless spectrum ability in it. But Apple is not playing that game.
my 2G itouch is going mad mad strong
 
So you prefer the T51 better? 
 


Quote:

I didn't say the ipod is a ticking time bomb. I said its a ticking time bomb with all those external amps and DACs attached to it. That's not reasonable for me to walk down the street with that kinda rig in my pocket. Unless I'm gonna set the worlds Guinness record for the most baggy pants around .
 

hahahah. sorry but the last part just got me to LOLz....litterally.
 
 

 

[estreeter]

I prefer the SQ of the T51 to any DAP/PMP I have owned previously, although I admit that my X1060 came close. Sadly, it was stolen over 12 months ago so its impossible for me to do a side-by-side comparison, but I dont recall the soundstage on the X1060 being as wide, nor the instrument separation as good. In raw power terms, I havent owned anything that comes close to the power from the HO and LO on the T51, but you pay for that in battery life. Swings and roundabouts.

 

[bowei006]

Quote:

I prefer the SQ of the T51 to any DAP/PMP I have owned previously, although I admit that my X1060 came close. Sadly, it was stolen over 12 months ago so its impossible for me to do a side-by-side comparison, but I dont recall the soundstage on the X1060 being as wide, nor the instrument separation as good. In raw power terms, I havent owned anything that comes close to the power from the HO and LO on the T51, but you pay for that in battery life. Swings and roundabouts.

hmmm i'm very skeptical on the overal quality of it. As in through mass use and deployment and not just the testimony of one person :/ 
We regular peeps will stick with our ipods

 

[estreeter]

The T51 is a POS in every respect bar one - sound quality - but that happens to rate above everything else for me.

 

[bowei006]

Quote:

The T51 is a POS in every respect bar one - sound quality - but that happens to rate above everything else for me.

hahah. From what i have heard/seen. PRC develops some very high spec'd things that win. The only problem with any of it, is Refineness. Build Quality is a serious factor that most need to have though. FiiO is the start of the new revolution! FIIGHTTT!!! 

 

[bcasey25raptor]

The thing about ipods are they are so damn easy to acquire. I have 3 ipod touches each of which i bought for $50. My ipod classic was bought used for $80 about 4 years ago and still works. I have owned 2 ipod shuffles (both $10 a piece) (2g), 2 nanos One was a gift the other was $20 (a 4g and 2g), and now i am using my iphone as a portable player. When you can pick up an ipod used for that cheap so easily then why the hell not.

 

[stevenswall]

Quote:

...[iPods:] They just work.

I hear that quite often with most Apple products, and disagree with its connotation. The vast majority of DAPs these days 'just work,' and they can do it without having to install iTunes, an Apple Software Updater, and QuickTime in a large software bundle Apple wants them to have. Not only this, but iPods often do not just work when you are using any computer other than the one(s) you set it up on, and you still run into the required software problem since everyone doesn't have iTunes installed. What do they have on their computers? File browsers, and that's something that will always 'just work,' with pretty much anything not made by Apple.
 
 
Quote:

Not an ipod but related. The iphone 4 is considered to be the best sounding portable dap/smart phone from what i read. All i can say is i agree.

 
I typically hear that the newer generations sound better than the older ones, and that's been consistent pretty much since they made the terrible sounding iPod Classic. As far as what I hear to be the best sounding, I was under the impression that the title still goes to the Cowon S9/J3, or the Sony X-Series Walkman.
 


Quote:

...My Touch 4G sounded better to me with flat settings than the vaunted Cowon players with Wolfson chips, when you disable all their wild enhancements. I haven't tried on of the current Classics to compare, but my 4th-gen Touch and Shuffle are excellent sounding players.
 
Also, that article is old....

 
BBE and BBE MP are incredibly sound technologies that often get snubbed because they "mess with the sound." There is some fairly lengthy documentation on both processes, and it seems to me that they subtly improve the sound... Not nearly as 'wild' as the typical iPod EQ's that dampen particular ranges and introduce clipping. In fact, it seems that the MP process uses oversampling, which has been shown to improve sound quality, and the BBE process makes notes decay correctly. If you turn them off, that's your choice, but I'd only think it's fair to try and have both players sound there best when comparing. If one supports oversampling and has better note decay, then I'd say it was better sounding, even if I chose to turn those features off.
 
 

 

[Achmedisdead]

Quote:

 
 
BBE and BBE MP are incredibly sound technologies that often get snubbed because they "mess with the sound." There is some fairly lengthy documentation on both processes, and it seems to me that they subtly improve the sound... Not nearly as 'wild' as the typical iPod EQ's that dampen particular ranges and introduce clipping. In fact, it seems that the MP process uses oversampling, which has been shown to improve sound quality, and the BBE process makes notes decay correctly. If you turn them off, that's your choice, but I'd only think it's fair to try and have both players sound there best when comparing. If one supports oversampling and has better note decay, then I'd say it was better sounding, even if I chose to turn those features off.
 
 

You're right about the typical iPod EQ.....but add the "Equalizer" app, and you have a fully customizable seven band parametric EQ to play with...and I'll take that over the Cowon setup any day. In fact, I traded my Cowons away and kept the Touch. It's easy to go too far with the various BBE settings and end up with an unnatural sound....granted, used carefully they do work very well.

 

[super nova]

I only use ipods because I actually like Itunes.

 

[bowei006]

Quote:

I only use ipods because I actually like Itunes.

I'm an Apple fan. And there are some very annoying UI things in iTunes. IT's not easy to fix as it is how Apple keeps control on things. If you are very organized and can spend extra time converting/encoding stuff. iTunes is decent I guess. I don't really like any of the alternatives anyway :/ I guess. While i'm not happy 100% with iTunes. It's the best i've used and seen.

 

[lee730]

Quote:

I'm an Apple fan. And there are some very annoying UI things in iTunes. IT's not easy to fix as it is how Apple keeps control on things. If you are very organized and can spend extra time converting/encoding stuff. iTunes is decent I guess. I don't really like any of the alternatives anyway :/ I guess. While i'm not happy 100% with iTunes. It's the best i've used and seen.

Media monkey is a great alternative to itunes. I'm just not sure if they have been updated to support IOS5 yet. Won't be loading any music to my iphone4 until this happens, I hate itunes with a passion.