[ckhirnigs113]

Double post.

 

[ckhirnigs113]

After reading this thread I am excited at what's possible with Rockbox and the 5G's new Hardware EQ. I have an iPod Photo right now, but I am really considering a refurbished 5G as an upgrade.

Could someone please explain in detail the settings of this new Hardware EQ. Is it like the Bass and Treble Controls in Rockbox already? I think those were hardware based. I would like to know how this EQ improves the sound of the iPod so much. Do you only have to turn it on, or rather, how does it work exactly?

Also, I would like to hear from anyone with UM2's to see if this new EQ helps to bring out the Treble.

As you can see, I have no idea how these new settings achieve this level of improvement that people are claiming, mostly because I have no 5G iPod to test out. My question in general is whether or not this new Hardware EQ makes it worth my upgrading to a 5G. -CK

P.S. If I do upgrade I will be selling my iPod on the forums here, so if anyone is interested in a 40gb iPod Photo (iMod-ready), just shoot me a PM.

 

[ckhirnigs113]

Since my last post got no response I was wondering if anyone has compared this sound quality with this new Hardware EQ to an iModded iPod. This has been mentioned earlier in the thread, but I think it is worthwhile enough to bring up again.

My opinion is that if the 5G can get pretty close to the quality of sound produced by the iMod, then I am going to get a 5G. I would rather not be confined to carrying around an amp whenever I want to use my iPod. -CK

 

[mattie1972]

Dear all,

perhaps I am missing something? I loaded Rockbox onto my 5g 30gb, with all ALAC and E5c. Everything worked fine, it picked up all my songs and so I enabled Hardware EQ....

....

Euw! The sound was terrible, the bass was so distorted! I messed about with the settings until it was acceptable, but then it made no noticeable difference when I switched Hardware EQ on or off!

At this point I was ready to give up on Hardware EQ, except for all the positive responses it has already received on this thread. There must be plenty of people who are using it with IEM's, is there something I'm not doing?

Many thanks...

 

[GIGANTOID]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ckhirnigs113 Also, I would like to hear from anyone with UM2's to see if this new EQ helps to bring out the Treble.

Yes, it does. It seems to make the BAss much more authopritative, the highs sparkle and everything widens up a little. Much better than the software EQ.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chkirnings113 My opinion is that if the 5G can get pretty close to the quality of sound produced by the iMod, then I am going to get a 5G. I would rather not be confined to carrying around an amp whenever I want to use my iPod.

I have not heard an iMod iPod but I can't imagine it makes a vast improvement in sound such that I would want to carry an amp at all times. The benefit of being able to go without is to valuable especially if you fly and don't want to risk explaining your way through security.

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ckhirnigs113 Could someone please explain in detail the settings of this new Hardware EQ. Is it like the Bass and Treble Controls in Rockbox already?

It's a semi-parametric equalizer. It has five bands:

Low shelf
Peaking filter
Peaking filter
Peaking filter
High shelf

For each band, you can control (1) gain, (2) center frequency (by choosing one of 3 preset frequencies), (3) and whether the filter is applied on a "wide" range of frequencies or a "narrow" range.

So, it does not have nearly the flexibility of the software parametric EQ, but it is substantially more configurable than the simple bass/treble settings.

 

[bejay]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GIGANTOID If someone else could try this on Kruder & Dorfmeisters 'Jazz Master' on K&D Sessions and let me know your findings I'd appreciate it.

Sounds fantastic on my UM2's. I've got the precut on -6db. No distortion, just clean tight deep bass.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CKHIRNIGS113 Also, I would like to hear from anyone with UM2's to see if this new EQ helps to bring out the Treble.

Even the software eq can help, but the hardware eq simply sounds better, dramatically reduces the hiss from the headphone out too. In fact it sound as good if not better than through my supermini III > UM2's. Haven't tried my er4's or HD600's with it yet, but I can imagine similar improvements.

 

[Gnus]

Anyone have a chance to compare this and an iModded iPod? Would be interested to see which is better, as I'm looking to get a new DAP.

 

[zip22]

Quote:

Originally Posted by xlEnt is there a release that takes advantage of the 60gig ipods 64mb flash mem?

heres something
http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/5472

 

[toucam]

I'm happy with the sound but not with the playback. It skips or glitchy about 3 times everytime I play an ALAC file, this is even with EQ off, no Peak Meter and simple theme.
Guess I will have to wait for an update.

 

[krmathis]

This hardware EQ seems great.
I will give it a try when Rockbox get better iPod support.
* HFS+ support.
* Better power management.

Its not even in beta stage yet, so I expect some real improvements in the future.

 

[fierce_freak]

I don't suspect there will ever be HFS+ support...I could be wrong, though.

 

[K2Grey]

Umm, I'm a bit unclear here.

As far as I can tell from reading, this is just a low-distortion EQ. In which case, it's certainly very useful if it's set up correctly, but it's not a sound quality increase per se.

 

[mitchmalibu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krmathis This hardware EQ seems great. I will give it a try when Rockbox get better iPod support. * HFS+ support. * Better power management. Its not even in beta stage yet, so I expect some real improvements in the future.

hfs+ support will never happen. Rockbox has been designed since the beginning to boot on a fat partition. Using hfs+ would require some major code rewrites and waste quite a lot of time, time which could be used to optimize and add new features.

 

[krmathis]

mitchmalibu. I know the Rockbox developers opinion on this, but I disagree with them!

The iPod is Apple's #1 product. And when someone write a 3rd. party firmware, it seems pretty obvious to me that they should add support for the companies primary file system as well.
Just take a look at iPodLinux. It has HFS+ support...

Managing a FAT32 iPod on a Mac is a real pain in the ass. So I stay clear!
I know, cause I wrote "Rockbox:Wiki -> Convert an iPod from HFS to FAT32".