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wow a thread this old comes back to life.
anyways I don't have other comparisons, but I can say to my ears my rockboxed ipod 5g blows the iphone 4s out of water.
I have the iPod Classic / Video 5 -- or, whatever it's referred to with the Wolfson DACs. I don't have the iPhone 4, but I do have the iPod Touch 4th Generation. When it comes to sound quality, the iPod 5 / Classic has the touch beaten by quite a bit. I'm not running Rockbox either. Just the standard Apple iOS software on both players.
I'd love to hear a newer Apple iPod or iPhone device with a Cirrus chipset that can pull ahead of those with the Wolfson. As it stands, the touch that I own requires a fair bit of EQ adjusting to get a sound signature like that of the older iPod Classic 5.
If someone is trying to say the Cirrus chips are better and more capable from a sound perspective, I'll either fully disagree with that statement, or I'd love to hear that player for my own ears to judge. Simply put, Apple obvious had to stuff more operations into a chipset so that other functions for the smarter touch players and iPhones could perform more functions out of that piece of silicone. I think Apple was happy that they could get all those functions and features into a hand-held device with a sound that they considered was "good enough" ... so, they rolled with it. Sure, to the MP3 generation of people running ear buds, they all suspect that the sound is very good. Though, a fair share of them are probably also running their $400 iPods with those $5.00 "included" ear buds, too. However, to someone who has gotten used to a higher quality of sound through years of listening, one can easily detect the shortcomings of the Cirrus chips when it comes to sound.