5th gen Ipod sq sadness

[bangraman]

Hello guys


What I've found is that while the 5/4G DACs have similar performance, the headphone / line output stage offers a cleaner sound on the 3/4G... but really only if you subject it to a high load.


So the measured SNR on the 4G with a line load is higher. In fact practically every spec is better. The oft-mentioned problem with the 4G Photo is that the video stuff introduces additional distortion into the headphone output circuitry, and in addition all pre-5G iPods have a falloff in bass response with a low-impedance load (i.e. many headphones of 32 ohms and under). Added to that, there's significantly increased measurable distortion that creeps in with the same low load.


Using low-impedance earphones, the lack of bass response of the 3G/4G does fool even the reasonably practiced ear into believing that you're hearing better sound quality if you consider the distinct lack of bass to be a 'better' sound. Clearly this board is full of 'em as you guys still have the Etys up on a pedestal

Thing is though, with the older iPods there's actually a grain of truth in it, although the perceived difference in the cleanliness of the sound is more than the actual difference, and this is mainly down to the tonal differences.


In reality, the 5G iPod actually has a response closer to other more flat-sounding players. The thing is that if you consider the 3/4G the better source (and once again, there's some truth in this) the 5G comes across as bassy. But in reality, the 5G is actually flatter. Confused? Clearly many are, and until I started listening to a lot more players and measured them afterwards this wasn't fully clear to me either.


The simplest way to tell you the difference would be that if you stuck a 300 ohm HD650 into both a 4G mono iPod and the 5G iPod playing WAV files, the 4G iPod would sound better to the practiced ear because you wouldn't be pitching tonal differences against each other (both would offer an essentially flat frequency response with only minor variations) and you're freer to hear the better amp stage of the 4G. However if you pulled off that HD650 and replaced it with say a CD3000 (32ohm), ER-4P (24ohm), etc, you'd hear different tonal responses and then the opinions would be far more divided depending on how well you can separate quality from tonal response.



But... there's more!


The 5G has the best codec implementation among all the iPods so far. It's the most bug-fixed, and the most stable. Many MP3 and some AAC issues (some of them VERY audible) which cropped up in 3/4G iPods are fixed on the 5G. So in fact, despite the superiority of the audio stage of the older iPods if you're playing back high-bitrate compressed files you may be experiencing inferior decoding.


I hope I've confused everyone nicely now

 

[bangraman]

Oh yes, the Qualia 010 is a 70 ohm phone and is therefore is out of the 'danger zone' of pronouced measured bass loss and distortion of the older iPods. It is also one of the most accurate phones you can buy and it is actually perfectly adequately driven by the iPod's amp.


It's an excellent platform to gauge the iPod's relative sound quality.


And it just so happens I have one for sale. Hows about that, eh?


*innocent look*

 

[burnsy1]

Bangraman,

how do you sleep at night

 

[pds6]

says:
Quote:

Clearly this board is full of 'em as you guys still have the Etys up on a pedestal ... Thing is though, with the older iPods there's actually a grain of truth in it . . . 5G comes across as bassy.

THAT IS FUNNY! My favorite headphone & iPod combo is my Ety4's and a second generation 20 gb iPod.

Of course, we all should take the opinion of an idle and incontinent (SEE: http://www.depend.com) chit chatter with a grain of salt

 

[pds6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bangraman [T]he Qualia 010 . . . an excellent platform to gauge the iPod's relative sound quality.'

I can piss-away money with the best of them. Not even I would think about a pair of Qualis 010's (Retail: $2,600.00)

 

[4metta]

It certainly does get very confusing when you take into account everybody's personal preferences. Etys users usually prefer what most people would consider a bass starved sound. But it's no secret that low frequencies do "murk" up detail a bit. So what they really are is detail freaks. I would not consider myself a "bass head" but being a bass player myself, I do not enjoy it when the instrument is practically unheard. So I guess I like a more balanced sound. And I certainly do not see etys as balanced when they are that lacking in the low frequencies.The sound I am getting with my e500s straight out of the headphone jack of my nano is very pleasing to me. Perhaps it would seem too bass heavy with something like Superfis but the e500s still bring the detail out. I will say this...using etys to figure out more intricate bass parts in a song works well.


Has anybody on here compared the new 5.5 ipods to the new nanos? Would you consider them to be different sounding or about the same?

 

[bangraman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pds6 I can piss-away money with the best of them. Not even I would think about a pair of Qualis 010's (Retail: $2,600.00)

Oh, for me it definitely didn't end there. Anyway, apologies for barely stealth plug but since I never use'em these days I really would like to see the back of them

Guys, that's nearly all I can say about this. Personally I've come to prefer the compromise between the small loss in absolute quality for the more stable and usable headphone output of the 5G added to the codec stability, and it's definitely my machine of choice for everyday use, which is what stuff like this is about. The 5G is also now gapless of course. It's never really bothered me since about 10% at most of my musical diet is noticeably compromised by gapped playback, but that may be an additional factor for some.


Regarding the disparity in opinion when you mix both quality and tonal differences together, the primary reason of the tos and fros between comparisons of various DAPs in the past boiled down to this. The iRivers, iAudios, etc had audio quality that's comparable to the 5G rather than older iPods... i.e. they were inferior to iPods of their generation in terms of absolute quality. BUT, like the 5G they were tonally more stable with low-impedance loads. So you got the large variances in opinion, and some people were more generally sensitive to tonal stability rather than quality as such. It was also complicated by the codec issues I referred to before. Murky stuff and really impossible to clarify in full because you couldn't explain these things to everyone... or at least I couldn't at the time.

 

[pds6]

bangraman says,
Quote:

Oh, for me it definitely didn't end there. Anyway, apologies for barely stealth plug but since I never use'em these days I really would like to see the back of them

As soon as I wrote it, I was a little concerned that you may not take it in the manner it was meant.

Thank You!

 

[MarcusL]

In light of the 4g's bass falloff with low-impedance load, perhaps the reason why the OP had better results with his friend's ipod photo is due to the IM716's 68ohms in HD mode. If both the 4g and 5g uses identical, Wolfson8759 codecs, there are still other factors that would alter/make each unit's sq.

bangraman, i'm now curious what's your new portable choice now that you'll let go of your red babies. the daddy O's are heaving driven by the mobi blu

.

 

[burnsy1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarcusL In light of the 4g's bass falloff with low-impedance load, perhaps the reason why the OP had better results with his friend's ipod photo is due to the IM716's 68ohms in HD mode. If both the 4g and 5g uses identical, Wolfson8759 codecs, there are still other factors that would alter/make each unit's sq. .

Ahh, I didn't include that yes, I was testing with the im716 in hd mode. The 4th and 5th gen in fact do not use the same dac.

4th Gen
Wolfson Microelectronics WM8975 CODEC (should be similar to WM8971 (http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/products...decs/WM8971/)).

5th Gen
Wolfson Microelectronics WM8758 Audio codec

I'm hoping that the use of a heaphone amp will help open up the sound a bit. I'm all ears if anyone can suggest a good amp for this setup under 100.00

 

[bangraman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarcusL bangraman, i'm now curious what's your new portable choice now that you'll let go of your red babies. the daddy O's are heaving driven by the mobi blu .

Honestly speaking, it was more of a 'because I can' sort of thing... I would take the 010 to various places but in truth the HD25 does an acceptable job everywhere where I go around with a portable. So it's that, the UE-10 and the PX200. K701 for gaming, two Omega II's for (very infrequent) headphone use. I've not bought a new headphone in a while... and won't anymore unless there's breakage. Fully decamped to speaker-land I'm afraid

I might buy the new D777 eggos for winter but that's it.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by burnsy1 The 4th and 5th gen in fact do not use the same dac.

The WM8971 is almost identical to the WM8759 which replaces it. The differences are the 5g iPod's DAC has slightly better specs (SNR 100 as opposed to 98dB / THD 95 as opposed to 88dB at line level) and doesn't include some things that were on the 4g DAC (like amp for an external speaker) that the iPod doesn't use anyway.

The 4g iPod does not have a better DAC than the 5g. On paper, the DAC in the 5g is slightly better, but in practice they're both about the same.

See ya
Steve

 

[Laptopia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by VicAjax that's pretty much the exact opposite to my experience. i found my 5G 60GB iPod to have far superior sound quality to 3G or 4G iPods. i've read that the modded 4G is the best, but never heard one. IME, the 5G beats 4G in sq up and down the board, from FR to soundstage.

That's nice to hear. I have a 5G 60GB. Is yours Rockboxed, or is the sound also good in the stock config? I've read that the 5G really shines with Rockbox/FLAC/Hardware EQ turned on.

 

[bigshot]

I have 4 iPods (and a new 80 gig on its way). I've got a 3g 30 gig, a 60 gig photo and two 60 gig 5gs. There are differences between the way the headphone out sounds between the way the 3g/4g and 5gs sound with my HD-590s, but with line out, they all sound just as wonderful.

I find that the big determining factors as to how good your music is going to sound is the encoding (I use AAC 192 and 256) and using line out instead of the headphone jack.

See ya
Steve

 

[ProParadox]

Hi,
I'm replying to this thread primarily because of the fact that I too am dissapointed by my 5G iPod sound quality. I haven't been to head-fi in months, but I was so dissapointed by it, I figured there must have been a thread regarding it. Lo and behold.

Anyways, I use ety er4p's and I find that there is a lot of lower end distortion at higher volume levels. It's very dissapointing. Some people say the 4G had bass dropoff at higher levels... I don't really understand that. It seems that the 5g doesn't have the power to power the lower end of the spectrum on my Ety's at higher volumes.

What does this mean? I have to listen to quieter music, and feel like im missing something.