What! Massive clipping with iPod's EQ.

[mavis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TWIFOSP Anyway, I don't think it's the iPod, but now I'm gonna have to go buy that CD because 1. I'm curious, and 2. I like aphex twin

Actually, it is the iPod, and it happens with both the headphone out and the line out (I used both the E5c and A900 with Sik Din and E5c level attenuator) ... The same file plays back without distortion (even with the low end boosted +12db) using iTunes, Winamp, and WMP10 on my PC (Audigy2 ZS, un-amped) ...

As for the song, I'd highly recommend the CD I got, if you're an Aphex Twin fan ... It's called 51/13 Singles Collection and it's got a few very good tracks, including "Donkey Rhubarb" (I bought it for this reason alone), "On," and as it turns out, the best bass test ever ...

It's an import, so it's kinda pricey, but I got mine from Caiman.com (look under Used&New at Amazon - caiman.com is a zshop seller there, and they've got another new one like mine for $21)

 

[mavis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TWIFOSP I think the bottom line here is that you can't expect a portable device which wasn't designed to support hi end headphones to produce desire results. The iPod just wasn't designed to drive E5C or ER4S. Granted, the 4g is the little portable that could and puts out ~80mw with its headphone jack. That ain't bad for a portable. E5C are actually quite decent out of the headphone jack. But they are so much better when amped.

Well I'd hardly classify the Sony EX71 as a high-end headphone, but the iPod's EQ is still unusable with that song, even with such average cans. It's a probelm with the iPod, not the headphones. The same clipping occurs no matter what headphones I use, and it also occurs using the line out (Sik Din) ... However, it doesn't happen when playing the same file on my PC (WMP10, Audigy2 ZS) even when I apply a +12db bass boost to the lower bass frequencies (40Hz) ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by TWIFOSP Not sure why this thread is focusing on the iPod or the unit itself. You wouldn't expect your home CD player to sound good straight out of the jack, an amp is neccesary there. No difference with high end cans on the go.

Actually, I expect my home CD player to reproduce the music that is on my CDs, just as I expect my PC to reproduce the music in my MP3s or on my CDs, etc. I expect the same from my iPod, which is of course the reason I bought it - to play my music.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TWIFOSP Amps and the quality of your digital file will have far more to do with your sound and bass impact than the portable unit.

I was curious about how much low end I'm missing with my EAC+LAME 3.96.1 (--apx) rips, so I used EAC to decompress the MP3 in question back to .wav ... I then analyzed the .wav it made, and the bass is still peaking at about 45-50Hz, still at -11db (the original .wav was slightly elevated at -9db but then again, this MP3 was normalized) ... I guess the point I'm making is that the 'quality of my digital file' is quite high, the bass is still present, as it should be. Well, present in the file, but not present on the iPod (which is the point of this thread, of course) ...

 

[guyverl]

i'd second the iAudio M3 suggestion for better bass representation; there's also a nice 5 band equaliser too. Tag reading problems have been fixed. Problem is, to use the line out you'd have to carry the small sub pack around with it - i've also noticed the remote seems to degrade the sound quality. It definitely sounds cleaner when plugging straight into the unit.

 

[TWIFOSP]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mavis Well I'd hardly classify the Sony EX71 as a high-end headphone, but the iPod's EQ is still unusable with that song, even with such average cans. It's a probelm with the iPod, not the headphones. The same clipping occurs no matter what headphones I use, and it also occurs using the line out (Sik Din) ... However, it doesn't happen when playing the same file on my PC (WMP10, Audigy2 ZS) even when I apply a +12db bass boost to the lower bass frequencies (40Hz) ... Actually, I expect my home CD player to reproduce the music that is on my CDs, just as I expect my PC to reproduce the music in my MP3s or on my CDs, etc. I expect the same from my iPod, which is of course the reason I bought it - to play my music. I was curious about how much low end I'm missing with my EAC+LAME 3.96.1 (--apx) rips, so I used EAC to decompress the MP3 in question back to .wav ... I then analyzed the .wav it made, and the bass is still peaking at about 45-50Hz, still at -11db (the original .wav was slightly elevated at -9db but then again, this MP3 was normalized) ... I guess the point I'm making is that the 'quality of my digital file' is quite high, the bass is still present, as it should be. Well, present in the file, but not present on the iPod (which is the point of this thread, of course) ...

Oh, for some reason I thought you were using the Shure E5C. My mistake.

Wow interesting. Well if it's clean on your computer, and not the iPod, yea sounds like the DAC on the iPod. I need to try more bass heavy tracks now, as my original test with The Great Below performed well enough.

Just for kicks, try ripping the song on AAC lossless and see if the bass is extended any further. Your .wav test indicates that it probably won't, but I'm curious if the iPod was optimized for Apples format. It wouldn't suprise me at all. Plus, I seem to be getting great bass response out of my test track. I'm not exactly a bass head, I like tight clean accurate realistic bass. Impact is optional. But I do need the bass there. It adds a lot of harmony to the music.

I do agree that the iPod EQ leaves MUCH to be desired. I operate with it off or on electronic most of the time. On an unrelated note, I wish there was a portable in which you could use aftermarket DACs in them. Would be cool to roll a DAC from an EMU sound card into an iPod

I know Xin was working on an mp3/amp combo, but I think he stopped due to the supermacro.

http://www.fixup.net/tips/xinmp3/index.htm

A cool project if it ever sees the light of day. I really think there is an emerging market for super audiophile digital players. I'd shell out bucks for a high quality DAC with high quality op amps built in. So long as it had good file management, navigation, and space too.

Anyway, don't mean to side track.

 

[abitdeef]

Forgive me , but I thought the wolfson dac , was one of the best available for daps? I just got an ipod mini and didn't realise how damn good ipods sound. My other players sound harsh compared to the mini and less detail . I am using senn px100's I get more bass out of my other units: sony d-ne900 and iaudio u2 , but they sound harsh and muddy compared to ipod.

I am suprised, because whith the rock eq setting I get pretty good bass, I had always heard the bass sucks on ipod . Maybe my sonic taste is changing

. Seems the bass clipping has improved since generation 2 ... I also used senn mx 400's with that ipod. I was thinking about trying a creative zen micro , but I do really like the sound of the mini.

I suggest you try the cowon -iaudio m3 or m3l , as they have the same eq and bbe effects that my U2 has, and greater output "20 mw" a channel and you can really tweak the bass.

http://www.jetaudio.com/products/iaudio/m3/

 

[bigshot]

A bass boost is just that... it's raising the volume in the lower frequencies. If you normalize up to 90%, you can't boost anything over 10% without clipping.

If you are using a bass boost on everything, you shouldn't normalize so high. Try around 75% and see how that works. (If you trust the headroom provided by the recording engineer, don't normalize at all.)

The important thing to keep in mind that with equalization, everything is relative. If you want to boost the bass, but you don't have any more headroom, lowering everything else does the exact same thing.

If you find that the engineer has done a sloppy job of balancing, and some certain peak just won't work at any setting, go in with an audio editor and compress the peak a bit. I do that all the time. Engineering for pop albums ain't what it used to be. A lot of stuff passes today that would never get by in the 50s and 60s.

See ya
Steve

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mavis Well that's just *****ed up. I mean, seriously. We're talking about a track that has been reduced to 60% of 89.0db - there's PLENTY of headroom there, and it isn't like the Bass Boost setting on the iPod is doing +10db at 20Hz - even if it were, there's PLENTY OF ROOM for it. I just don't understand what the problem is ...

The bass boost is working on frequencies well above 20hz. (You probably can barely hear 20 hz if at all.) The boost is operating between around 20 and 200 hz or so, mostly between 100 and 200 hz. A +12 db boost to 40 hz isn't the same thing as your bass boost on your iPod at all. The stock setting on the iPod is much cruder and broader than that. If you applied the same exact same bass boost in iTunes, it would distort too. If you have ever looked at the waveform of low bass, you know that it requires a LOT of headroom because the wave is so wide. If it clips, suddenly there are huge plateaus chopped off the top of the curves.

The normalization settings I use on Peak are percentages, not DB. I don't know what 89.0 db means in this context. But if you are normalizing up to 89%, you're leaving the bare minimum headroom. The bass boost probably has a curve, with the biggest boost of +10 or 15 db (or even as much as 20) going to around 100 hz. Clipping between 100 and 200 hz is going to be VERY noticeable.

The solution is to either roll off the frequencies that are so low that they won't make a difference on portable headphones to try and eliminate clipping in frequencies that don't matter to the sound (below around 50 hz); or normalize the whole track down, so you have room for the peak. You could also just lower the volume of the one peak and leave everything else the same. You might try a combination of all three.

See ya
Steve

 

[Jahn]

my portable setup (see my sig) bring the bass in spades. i dont feel i'm missing anything when walking around. i never use EQ.

 

[chadbang]

My E2s ALWAYS crapped out with the bass on "into the void" on Nine Inch Nails' "The Fragile" out of my iPod. It's a combination of factors in my opinion, but don't hit "bass booster" without expecting something to be overtaxed. Hell, don't freak, reinvent. Get some PX100s and you'll have bass up the wazoo. I wasnt' exactly ready to trash my ipod because of one song. Any it was only a couple notes out of, oh I don't know, maybe a billion others that play just fine.

 

[bangraman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chadbang My E2s ALWAYS crapped out with the bass on "into the void" on Nine Inch Nails' "The Fragile" out of my iPod. It's a combination of factors in my opinion, but don't hit "bass booster" without expecting something to be overtaxed. Hell, don't freak, reinvent. Get some PX100s and you'll have bass up the wazoo. I wasnt' exactly ready to trash my ipod because of one song. Any it was only a couple notes out of, oh I don't know, maybe a billion others that play just fine.

I'd agree with this too, but from what mavis has written I have a feeling that he's on the neverending portable quest that I'm on as well. I thought I'd just give him a push

 

[TWIFOSP]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bangraman I'd agree with this too, but from what mavis has written I have a feeling that he's on the neverending portable quest that I'm on as well. I thought I'd just give him a push

Yea.

I would suggest anyone who isn't happy with the bass of the iPod to snag a pair of Shure E5C. They have pretty kickin' bass straight out of the jack. Amp em, and thumpity thump.

I still say the iPod is neatral enough that the file, cans, and amp will have more to do with the bass response than the iPod itself.

 

[Thisp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eagle_Driver Unfortunately, almost EVERY SINGLE RECENT PORTABLE PLAYER, regardless of type, brand or model, suffers the same problem - rolled off bass with low-impedance headphones and serious clipping with any bass boost turned on at all whatsoever.

Correct, but it depends on the player and mainly the size of the capaciters. The iPod has smaller ones, so the bass rolloff is down 9 dB @ 20 Hz, the Rio Karma is down about 4 dB @ 20 Hz, and the massive sized older nomad players have little to no rolloff at the lower frequencies. Flash players especially are affected by this as they're created to be the size of a handball. The Karma has less than half the rolloff, although it is also shaped like a brick. And the older Creative players with no rolloff using low impedance headphones are bigger than many modern PCDPs!

I haven't tried the iPod enough to confirm that it distorts with everything that is bass heavy without an EQ, but I can believe that it is rolled off in the low end and that most bass boost EQs distort like crazy. If you use higher impedance headphones, the bass rolloff on the DAPs won't be there(the lower the impedance, the worse the rolloff) and perhaps the bass boost preset won't distort. Also, if you use headphones with an elevated low bass response such as those E5cs, it will combine with the rolloff of such players to create a neutral bass response, so you won't need such an EQ.

 

[bangraman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thisp Correct, but it depends on the player and mainly the size of the capaciters. The iPod has smaller ones, so the bass rolloff is down 9 dB @ 20 Hz, the Rio Karma is down about 4 dB @ 20 Hz, and the massive sized older nomad players have little to no rolloff at the lower frequencies. Flash players especially are affected by this as they're created to be the size of a handball. The Karma has less than half the rolloff, although it is also shaped like a brick. And the older Creative players with no rolloff using low impedance headphones are bigger than many modern PCDPs! I haven't tried the iPod enough to confirm that it distorts with everything that is bass heavy without an EQ, but I can believe that it is rolled off in the low end and that most bass boost EQs distort like crazy. If you use higher impedance headphones, the bass rolloff on the DAPs won't be there(the lower the impedance, the worse the rolloff) and perhaps the bass boost preset won't distort. Also, if you use headphones with an elevated low bass response such as those E5cs, it will combine with the rolloff of such players to create a neutral bass response, so you won't need such an EQ.

The E5c's have an impedance of 110 ohms, well beyond the effect of the low impedance roll-off. Also, as he will undoubtedly point out again, Mavis is speaking as an E5c owner. The long and short of it is quite simply that the iPod EQ does not work properly with bass boost. Mavis is not getting the level of bass he wants with the E5c.


All the flash players I've used recently can be tweaked to give significantly more bass than the iPod, and none of them distort to the level of the iPod. The small caps theory is a nice theory, but it has no real meaning in practical terms. Neither has Eagle_Driver's generalised comments. The iPod is simply a non-bassy player. That is not to say that the iPod can't do bass. It does very good, well defined lows. It's just that Mavis (and many others who complain about this issue) seem to be looking for the excessive car-subwoofer-like large bloom bass... which I will also admit liking on an infrequent basis. However, that is beyond the iPod's capabilities.

 

[mavis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bangraman The E5c's have an impedance of 110 ohms, well beyond the effect of the low impedance roll-off. Also, as he will undoubtedly point out again, Mavis is speaking as an E5c owner. The long and short of it is quite simply that the iPod EQ does not work properly with bass boost. Mavis is not getting the level of bass he wants with the E5c.

The E5c has an impedance of 110 ohms at 1KHz, but with the LOW bass (20-80Hz) the impedance drops significantly, to 30 ohms. Therefore, I would think that the E5c would definately suffer from the iPod's rolled off bass ...

http://www.laaudiofile.com/eseries.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by bangraman That is not to say that the iPod can't do bass. It does very good, well defined lows. It's just that Mavis (and many others who complain about this issue) seem to be looking for the 'slapped on with a trowel' car-sub like large-bloom bass... which I will also admit liking on an infrequent basis. However, that is beyond the iPod's capabilities.

Right. The bass is there, on most songs it's more than adequate. However, that LOW bass is missing, I'm talking about the kind of bass that peaks in the 40-50Hz range. I've finally gone to the trouble of analyzing the few songs in my library that have that really low, subwoofer-only bass, and they all are peaking in that range, so at least now I know exactly what it is that I'm looking for. And, exactly what it is that the iPod is having trouble with.

For most music, you wouldn't really notice the rolloff in that frequency range, I mean as long is there is ample bass in the 100Hz+ range, people tend tend to think of the headphones/speakers/song as being bass heavy, but that's not what I'm looking for. My ideal curve would be a boost of like +10db @ 20Hz, sloping down to about 90Hz, and then flat the rest of the way. I don't like bloated bass, I don't want the midbass turned up (actually, I HATE the way that sounds) - I just want the 20-80Hz range to be present, or boosted. The music I'm talking about is MEANT to have a solid showing in that range, and with the iPod's bass rolloff + unusable EQ, it's sorely lacking. Hence, this thread.

But you're right, bangraman - I am on a neverending quest for the ultimate portable experience. What I've got now is great for portability, and when I'm on the train/bus, the sound quality (lack of bass included) is more than enough to make happy. Unfortunately I spend a lot of time listening to my portable setup at work, sitting at my desk - and in that quiet enviroment, when I'm actually sitting down and LISTENING to my music, that's when I want the GOOD sound. That's why I came to head-fi in the first place, truth be told. I have a feeling my quest may end (or pause, at least) once I get my SuperMacro at the end of the month, at least that's what I'm hoping ...

 

[bangraman]

If the graph is correct and the E5 is affected by the falloff, it wouldn't explain why the bass response on the E5 decreases by the expected amount when you raise the overall impedance of the E5, whereas say with the difference between the ER-4P and the ER-4S, the difference in the lows on the iPod is easy to tell as there is less difference than using the two phones on other players.

I'm just reading the above paragraph through and I hope it's clear.


It's also interesting that the iPod, Sony NW-HD3 and Creative Muvo TX have roughly the same bass levels when unequalised through the E5. However, both of the former are capable of considerably more bass than the iPod.