[lindrone]

Here's a posting stirred from a discussion about the sound quality of the Shure E5c, and what it takes to get the most out of them. I thought it also something that might be very useful in the portable audio forum.

The gist of it is... We debated that iPod wasn't a very good source to measure the sound quality that E5c's could achieve (a few people were unhappy with the sound they're getting out of their iPod with the E5c)... It seemed that with iPod just didn't provide a output that's powerful enough or clean enough to produce good sound from the E5c's.

However, after some experimentation, I found that by using WAV files instead of MP3 files, you can significantly increase the dynamic range coming out of the iPod. It's always been obvious that MP3 files are lacking in fidelity.. but it has never been more apparent to me until now. As a frame of reference, all my MP3's were encoded by using LAME on the highest VBR quality...

By using WAV files with the iPod, the sound quality came close to that of a Sony D-25S... Very impressive indeed... Before I go any further, here's the most recent posting of mine:

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new 15GB iPod + E5c.. all in WAV formats..

I just got the new 15GB iPod to replace my old 5GB. Now the 15GB iPod is loaded up with nothing but WAV files. I don't yet know the impact on the battery life, since the 32MB RAM on the iPod is going to have a hard time keeping the hard drive access to a minimum now.

However, as my previous post suggested, the sound output is much, much improved. I have to say the dynamic range coming from the iPod is still less than that of Sony D-25S; but now it's more than adequate and acceptible, especially as a source for a headphone amp now.

I ran through my favorite selection (Ben Folds, Norah Jones, Coldplay) to gauge the performance, since those the music I'm most familiar with. Unamped playback is very acceptible, although still lacking a bit in the low end.

Then I tested with a super mini amp (w/ crossfeed built in), the crossfeed from the amp help soften the sound. so instead of coming from the side of your head, you feel more surrounded by the music. As if the musician was performing in front of you instead of coming in from the sides. The amp also filled out the dynamic range some more, extended the high ends, softend the mid-range and also extended the bass tones.

The reproduction is still not as good as Sony D-25S + Super Mini... but it's probably around 80% to 90% there. I feel very happy with this set-up now...

I'll be using it over the course of next few days on my daily commute and a few hours of listening at work. We'll see what using all WAV file does to the battery life.

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So if you have been disappointed with your iPod's sound quality, and have been searching for different amps to better the sound experience, this might just be the one really simple thing that you have not tried.

 

[gregroe]

Great post. This is exactly what I plan on doing. Mac or PC? I was playing with PC's MUSICMATCH and will be now downloading WAV files. Any idea about total capacity?

 

[austonia]

lol. i guess i don't have "the golden ear", and so much the better for it. EAC/LAME -APS tracks sounds excellent to me right outa the iPod.

 

[lindrone]

I'm using a PC with my iPod. On the Mac, people probably use AIFF files instead of WAV. It's like the Mac version of WAV anyway...

Personally, I never liked the way MusicMatch worked with iPod.. it was always very awkward, felt like a tacked-on functionalty. Instead, I use EphPod, which is free (if you don't need MacOpener to read Mac-based iPods), and works just as intuitively as iTunes (minus the MP3 playback and encoding part, only for synching).

http://www.ephpod.com

You still need to install the standard iPod PC software though, the iPod watcher/manager, iPod Updater, and it'll install MusicMatch as well (just set it to default to never start...). Depends on which generation of iPod you have, you have to make the iPod "writable" by using either the iPod manager or the MusicMatch plug-in (both are just a check-box to enable the functionality) before you can use EphPod.

Right now, I've got 220 uncompressed WAV on my 15GB iPod. I still got 4.73GB left... You do the math

 

[gregroe]

Have you checked out www.exactaudiocopy.de/
For people who care about how there digital data is taken off a disc!

 

[Squibbles]

I highly recommend J. River Media Center. Works much better and looks just like iTunes: http://www.musicex.com/mediacenter/

Right now, they're in Beta, but it works fine.

 

[lindrone]

Thumbs up on that one... J River MediaCenter 9.1 rocks.. I've been using it since version 7... even back then I loved the extended functionality it has compared to.. say.. MusicMatch.

Now with the newest 9.1 beta, it has the best feature in duplicating some of the ease of use in iTunes, and still combine it with the extended features of MediaCenter itself.

As far as EAC... people has been using EAC for years, alongside LAME for encoding MP3's. It's the audiophile's preference for MP3's... but even then, eventually most audiophiles will abandone MP3 formats

EAC isn't all that special though... because there's plenty of good software to do digital audio extraction with.

 

[gregroe]

I've been told that it was the best way to extract a true exact copy of a .wav file. Then download it to an iPod for the best available uncompressed sound. Do you know of something different?
On another note, aren't audiophiles concerned with he best possible sound? Isn't that what we're trying to capture here as well? Is there any difference?

 

[lindrone]

Yup, you're right.. that *was* the best way to extract an true exact copy of a .wav file.. back when it was first written.. and a lot of other softwares (such as audiograbber) did a horrible job of extracing wav files.

These days, just about any software package that extracts wav files are just as good as EAC anyway. All that EAC was truly better at is error correction. And in reality, an extraction of a wav file is the same regardless of the software if you discount the possible errors with the error correction (I hope that made sense.. lol)... and that it didn't use some odd way of looping back from the sound card or something. There also used to be the day when some CD-ROMs weren't capable of digital audio extraction, and had to loop through the soundcard to do it.

Quote:

I've been told that it was the best way to extract a true exact copy of a .wav file. Then download it to an iPod for the best available uncompressed sound. Do you know of something different?

No... because that's what I said

 

[wildeone]

I can't seem to find a program that will let me put uncompressed (AIFF) files on my iPod from my mac. Perhaps it's just my impatience....

Anybody???

 

[wildeone]

Duh! It was there all along in iTunes and I never saw it.... Like I said, I suffer from impatience sometimes.

Off to reburn some cd's and if this breathes some life into the music.

 

[mister__big]

Lindrone: Have you discovered how many hours you get with the 3G iPod while listening to WAV files?

 

[lindrone]

About 6~7 hours on the average, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. Of course, depends on which headphone I'm trying to drive too. I never go above 50% in volume because I use the E5's.. they don't need to be turned up that high (well, anything above 50% blows your ears out).

Of course, recently I've been using it with my iTrip, that drains a *lot* of juice.. hmm..