[SennheiserMiser]

Hi All, not sure if this is the appropriate Forum for this question, if not I'd be happy to re-post with some direction. In any case, I've recently taken the plunge into portable digital with the purchase of an iPod Touch. I resisted for a long time because I love my vintage equipment so much, Hafler Power amp, Polk M10s, a Denon Turntable and Yamaha CD player (obviously not so vintage), and I was hoping to get some guidance on the correct way to connect, set up, and use my iPod with my system. Last week I replaced my Hitachi Preamp with a Nikko Beta 50, mainly because the Nikko has a headphone jack, because my Sennheiser 430s have been in storage much too long. Also have a pair of Audio Technica ath-anc7s, because the Touch wouldn't drive the 430s. I've currently just been using a stereo mini to dual RCA patch cord, into the AUX input of the Preamp, but was a little concerned about the correct iPod out going volume setting to optimize SQ and not do damage to either device. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Mike

 

[omegaman]

The best option when using the i-pod is to use the line-out, that way the volume from the i-pod as no effect. To do this there is a few options.

One is to buy a cable similar to this :-

Or go for the Dock method like this :-

There are lots of cable and lots of docks for every budget. Hope this helps.

 

[SennheiserMiser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by omegaman /img/forum/go_quote.gif The best option when using the i-pod is to use the line-out, that way the volume from the i-pod as no effect. To do this there is a few options. One is to buy a cable similar to this :- Or go for the Dock method like this :- There are lots of cable and lots of docks for every budget. Hope this helps.

Hi Omegaman, thanks for the info. I'm not sure if the plain cable or dock would work better for me, but I'm having trouble finding anything but the cheapy white plastic docks, and basic $9 cables. I certainly don't want to break the bank, but might you have any suggestions on where I could pick up a decent mid-fi version of either? Thanks again.

 

[texashorn91]

Try this guy, and find a decent mini-RCA cable. A ton of manufacturers make them and there are ones for every price range. Search around in the cable forum in here too. Good luck

 

[wolster]

As you appreciate good quality sound, I would suggest that the most important step would be to copy your CDs as lossless files, not mp3s.

 

[SennheiserMiser]

Wolster, you read my mind. I had not yet gotten around to posting that particular question, but I had noticed plenty of mention about lossless on the forum and was obviously quite curious. I'm very new to the CD ripping game and have only some guidance from a consumer level iPod magazine under my belt, so if there are any good links/tutorials on the subject, I'd really appreciate if you could steer me in the right direction. I assume the files would be much larger than what I assume the compression must be with mp3's and I'm hoping I don't need to make a huge investment in hardware/software to accomplish this.

 

[wolster]

Storage capacity is a consideration but lossless files are still compressed but lose nothing of the music. I would rather have less music of higher quality than more MP3s. I personally use FLAC files but you will need to use apple lossless with the touch which is fine.

This link gives you the info required.

Cheers
wolster

 

[RonMiller1]

Are you using a Mac? if so I find the sound quality to be better when using XLD to rip my CDs into Apple Lossless then iTunes. Weird, but for some reason it sounds less harsh. It made a big difference on Johnny Flynn's A Larum, It was hard to listen to when I ripped with iTunes, now it sounds great.

 

[SennheiserMiser]

Wolster, thanks so much for the info on lossless. When I make my first attempt at Apple's ALAC format, are there any other settings (bitrate etc. - I'm very green at this) that I'll have to be concerned with?

Ron, interesting spin on my early lossless education. You mentioned XLD to RIP your cds. Is that a format in iTunes or a seperate pre-processing software. And yes I am on a Mac, only a G5 iMac though.

Thanks again.

Mike

 

[wolster]

Mike, I will have to let others with itune experience step in here. The only apples in my life are in my lunch box.

Cheers
wolster

 

[RonMiller1]

XLD is an application that converts all types of audio formats, I was originally using it to convert flac into Apple Lossless, but then randomly tried using it to rip a CD, and was very happy.

X Lossless Decoder: Lossless audio decoder for Mac OS X

When you first open it, no window pops open or anything. You just go into the preferences, choose a few settings (Apple Lossless doesn't give you many options as it's kinda automatic). Then when you go to File, it has the Open CD option.

 

[moogoob]

Apple lossless' only setting is "on" or "off" from what I can tell.

MP3, ogg etc. lets you pick just how much to let the encoder muck about with the audio, but as lossess doesn't muck about with the audio there's nothing to really set.

 

[SennheiserMiser]

Hi Ron, I played a bit with XLD today and converted a few CDs to compare to Apple Lossless (will give them a listen tonight), and I was wondering if you know of a way to get XLD to include all the CD metadata (song titles etc.) in it's RIPs. I might be missing something, but I couldn't find any control that enabled this. I'd appreciate some guidance if you've been successful getting it to automatically include them. Thanks.

 

[SennheiserMiser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolster /img/forum/go_quote.gif As you appreciate good quality sound, I would suggest that the most important step would be to copy your CDs as lossless files, not mp3s.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RonMiller1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I find the sound quality to be better when using XLD to rip my CDs into Apple Lossless then iTunes. Weird, but for some reason it sounds less harsh.

Hi wolster and Ron, I can see this site is going to cost me a lot of time, money and disk space!! I've been playing with lossless and see what you mean. A noticeable difference.

Ron, I also see what you mean about the harshness, but am wondering if it possibly depends on the original recording. I compared several tracks from Dire Straits Brothers In Arms, and found that the Apple Lossless was quite a bit more brilliant in the highs. Not sure if that's exaggerated or more accurate than the XLD version. Both very good though. Has your XLD ever been flaky? Besides the difficulty I'm having getting all the song data carried to the RIP, I had one of my conversions include about the first 3 seconds of the first track at the beginning of all the other tracks? Just curious if these types of issues are a glitch or regular things? On my system the XLD RIPs also take about 3 times longer to complete than the iTunes lossless, and the files sizes are almost identical. Thanks again.

Mike