[Alec E]

I have a current generation iPod Classic that's only about three months old. Yesterday I synced it after ripping the newer, remastered versions of a couple of John Cale albums.

Listening to one of them on the Classic later, with a Phonak PFE, I heard a kind of crackling at specific moments in specific songs. Today I received a Shure SE530, and I've confirmed both that the earphones aren't the issue, and that the songs sound fine when I listen to them on the Macbook Pro that I used to sync the Classic.

The crackling happens at moments in the songs when I almost want to say the music is climaxing, becoming a bit loud--and yet it's not happening during song choruses, generally. I've found this happening on tracks that have been on this iPod since before this last sync, now. The noise happens identically each time I listen to the affected songs.

I never read any forums or subforums about source gear, so perhaps this is a common problem?

Does it seem like I've got a hardware issue, or what? Any advice appreciated.

 

[d.g]

The last sync hasnt affected any EQ settings by chance?

I dont use the itunes eq but had a play about with it and found it to heavily distort the sound if set wrong, you could check to see if its switched off and rule that out...

 

[Alec E]

Oh, God. Yes. I had it on "Spoken Word."

I used the EQ for the first time ever recently. It had completely slipped my mind that I'd done so.

I hereby officially submit myself to any sort of virtual stoning that's held when someone posts a thread like this.

The really embarrassing thing is that I didn't notice anything else wrong, except that the SE530 mysteriously sounded much better with the laptop than with the iPod.