Why is the iPod not a good enough mp3 player?

[ProtegeManiac]

Ironically, I have an S9 and I just don't use the EQ. I;ve always thought some iPods were good enough but I'm too lazy to convert everything to ALAC first, which is why I'm stuck with the Rockboxed Video. I'm just holding out on getting a 64gb iPT4 (with FLAC Player app of course) and Pure i20  in case the upcoming X3 delivers as promised and I can live with never having my audio player sitting upright for easy viewing of the display, and with a remote. Unless Fiio whips out a dock with lineout for it.

 

[ZARIM]

Sansa Fuze, Cowon J3, Sony X1060 direct comparison with iPods (Classic, Touch, Nano) through HP jack shows X1060 offers more clarity(highs, mids, bass), separation, soundstage, imaging and bass. But Sony others DAPs like E series are inferior and iPods has lineout to connect with external AMPs for much better soundquality than it's HP jack.

 

[wind016]

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I guess precision is something that people value in EQ. Different strokes. BBE is separate from J3 EQ I believe, at least when reading that post I found. BBE is a completely different animal. I had BBE on my Nationite N2, and it was only acceptable with certain tracks, no matter how it was tweaked. Different implementation, but same BBE.
 
Here is more from a HF discussion.
 
 

BBE with its implementation on the Cowon players is only unique to the Cowons. You do not get the same sound with anything else because it's an hardware implementation, not software. I've heard BBE on VST plugin form and it was unusable for music listening. It does not sound remotely the same.
 

 
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The iPod is fine. The market changes ever six months or so and products only have a lifespan of 18-24 months.

It's not worth deeply investing in.

Something new and better is always just around the corner.

I treat portable gear as disposable while going for the long term in home hardware.

If you're not trying the other players, you really don't know the how EQ hardware has progressed. You may not like using EQ, but then again, if you don't experiment, you don't really know what you're missing out on. Ipod EQ is unusable trash in comparison. EQu is just barely acceptable (only because of its pin-point tuning). Cowon's BBE EQ should be a standard.
 
Comparing EQu to BBE is dead simple. EQu is slow, muddy phasing, heavy CPU processing, resonant. BBE is quick, clean, and detailed.

 

[Austin Morrow]

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Well first of all, you are stuck using itunes. Although I prefer the way itunes looks, most people don't like itunes because it doesn't support FLAC (you need to convert it into ALAC) and other things. The sound quality on the iPod isn't that great either, nothing to rave about. But lot of people use iPod classics here because of the 160GB storage it offers. 

These are the two very large juggernauts for me...

 

[flaming_june]

Ipod is just not to par with my ears.
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Because iPod is mainstream and audiophiles are hipsters.

Why you gotta call us out?  Now I gotta go buy an ipod.

 

[Uncle Erik]

BBE with its implementation on the Cowon players is only unique to the Cowons. You do not get the same sound with anything else because it's an hardware implementation, not software. I've heard BBE on VST plugin form and it was unusable for music listening. It does not sound remotely the same.
 

 

If you're not trying the other players, you really don't know the how EQ hardware has progressed. You may not like using EQ, but then again, if you don't experiment, you don't really know what you're missing out on. Ipod EQ is unusable trash in comparison. EQu is just barely acceptable (only because of its pin-point tuning). Cowon's BBE EQ should be a standard.
 
Comparing EQu to BBE is dead simple. EQu is slow, muddy phasing, heavy CPU processing, resonant. BBE is quick, clean, and detailed.

Let me get this straight.

I should have to buy a dozen or so players every year, costing a couple thousand total, so I can evaluate the EQ of each.

Assuming one of those has a good EQ sound, the device only has a lifespan of 18-24 months, where I'll have to either replace it or buy another to cannibalize for parts.

In the meantime, newer ones will come out with more storage, new features, different EQs, and so on. Of course, those will be engineered for about a 24 month lifespan, too.

Wait, I forgot to mention that I don't use EQ. I always turn it off.

So what's the point here?

I acknowledge that I'm not going to get ideal sound from a portable device. The quality I look for is good enough. Like the $2 hot dog I had for lunch. I don't compare the hot dog to the seafood brunch I had at the Polo Lounge. But I genuinely enjoyed that hot dog.

So I don't find it a good use of time or money chasing perfection in something that is designed to break shortly out of warranty and will be outclassed by newer products when that happens.

When the iPod goes south, I'll buy another. It's good enough. If I want to seek perfection, I'll do that with gear designed for a few decades of use and can be repaired at home.

 

[nonsupremous]

Well the reason they need to keep coming out with newer models is because people just get restless.  This isn't the days of our grand parents.  They got something and kept it for life.  My grandmother just replaced the stove in her house that she's had since the 1950s!!!  And the only reason it got replaced is because it finally stopped working.   =)
 
I'm a huge Sony fanboy.  But if I take any of these players and listen to them with no EQ I'm taking the Ipod.  It's cleaner than the Sony IMO.  But all the different Ipods sound a little different too.  The new Nano is ok sounding but has one of the best radio tuners I've heard in any player.  The newest gen shuffle sounds better than my newest gen touch in my opinion.  In fact, I grab that shuffle over my touch ever single time.  I'm not really sure why people slam away on the ipod.  They all sound fairly decent with no EQ engaged. 
 
I agree with Uncle Erik, the big money should be left for the home audio equipment.  But I think it's fun to try out different portables.  They all seem to have a little something different to offer.  Kind of like headphones. 

 

[Shike]

Only problem I have with the iPod is software.  Most players will play mp3 files in-spite of the occasional header issue - boy was I shocked to find out the ipod throws the worst tantrum when it happens (forcing a hard reset before you can even get it to recognize it's hooked to a PC again too).  At least I use Media Monkey to get away from the bloat that is itunes.
 
The header issue should NOT happen though, most MP3 players realize the header may be wrong and keep going.  The ipod is the first MP3 player I've had that's ever done this crap, and has already left me with a sour taste.

 

[wind016]

I'm not home so I'll explain later if necessary but debating online especially with mods rarely changes anyone's minds.

If you don't even use a respectable equalizer at home, why bother paying more for portable ones? But I have never heard any equalizer that could compare to the Cowon's which includes even the oversampling linear phase PSP Neon HR 2. So if you use EQ, probably nothing else compares, but if you don't, practically all portable players will sound the same.

 

[lee730]

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I'm not home so I'll explain later if necessary but debating online especially with mods rarely changes anyone's minds.

If you don't even use a respectable equalizer at home, why bother paying more for portable ones? But I have never heard any equalizer that could compare to the Cowon's which includes even the oversampling linear phase PSP Neon HR 2. So if you use EQ, probably nothing else compares, but if you don't, practically all portable players will sound the same.

lol are you serious? If you use flat eq not all players will sound the same. I've never heard this before. My Sflo2 sounds nothing like my Sansa fuze. Nor does my Hifiman 601 when compared to my iphone 4. None of them sound the same at all. They all have their own distinct sounds signatures on flat and with EQ enabled. Now if you are using lowfi audio equipment/headphones/IEMs then it does make it much harder to judge the difference because the equipment isn't up to par to reveal the differences in the first place. And while cowon does have a nice eq on it that's not enough for me to take the dive and pay a premium for it. It lacks a dedicated line out dock and that is its downfall. The amp in the cowon is better than an ipod or a standard mp3 player and thus it will sound better in general due to this. But when you hook a decent portable amp to an ipod, even an sansa fuze via line out dock; they walk all over the cowon sound quality wise. I generally try to stay away from using equalizer as it can add distortion. But if you eq down and not up you shouldn't experience added distortion. Just to say that all DAP sound the same on flat is a joke to me as I can hear a noticeable difference between these players. The Hifiman 601 and Sflo2 outclass all the other DAPs I've heard by a great margin and that is even through their headphone outs compared to the other DAPs using line out to a good amp. The DAC will also be a major factor in the overall sound quality you can get from the player, not to mention other components within the DAP.

 

[lee730]

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Well first of all, you are stuck using itunes. Although I prefer the way itunes looks, most people don't like itunes because it doesn't support FLAC (you need to convert it into ALAC) and other things. The sound quality on the iPod isn't that great either, nothing to rave about. But lot of people use iPod classics here because of the 160GB storage it offers. 

I'm no fan of itunes myself. I actually run itunes because its still a requirement to synch with it after syncing my music via media monkey. So I use media monkey exclusively to put mp3 files on my iphone 4 and then I open up itunes and synch (it takes less than 30 seconds to do this BTW) and I'm done and it works perfectly. I don't use ALAC on my iphone though because there's just not enough room on it to do so plus the ipod really isn't revealing enough in my opinion to warrant using lossless. You will get a sound quality gain doing so but its bare minimum. Now on my Sflo2 and Hifiman 601 its Flac all the way as these players are very revealing and will show you the flaws in lossless recordings. Its not so bad with high encoded files but its still noticeable to these ears. The tracks sound hollow and empty to me in comparison, thin if you will and not as much space or air.

 

[lee730]

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Same here, in that I use lossless files exclusively on the IP4 and flac (not exclusively, but from my CD collection) on the iPod Classic and use an amp/lod. Again, glad my ears are not too good, because the lossless files on the IP4 (192-320k) don't sound hollow to me at all, but since I have the space, I do use the flac versions on the Classic. For the Sony, I use lossless too. Anyway, I don't have that many problems with iTunes, just not an issue. But to get back to the OP's question, I have owned "audiophile" players and none of them are still in my arsenal. Sold them all, because their UI's sucked in my view, and the sound, while good, wasn't that far ahead of the iPods. I have no faith in the long-term durability of players like the 601 and S:Flo2, to be honest, which is why I sold them both.

I guess in that regard I have to agree to disagree lol. I do like the iphone4 but sound quality wise it doesn't compare to the Sflo2 or Hifiman 601. Now I do understand about the UI interface. The sflo2 is a nightmare made in hell . But I worked around it and can manage it. The only issue is that I received two consecutive defective units (the most current unit takes 8 hours to charge, unacceptable!). So I'll most likely just return it for a refund and keep the 601. In all honesty the 601s interface isn't so bad. Its better than the sflo2s in my opinion and more minimalist which I prefer anyways. I'm definitely looking into the X3 but the lack of any internal memory may put me off from it. I mean they should have at least put 2 micro SD slots into it to make up for the capacity issue or a compatible SDXC slot for future proofing. The T59 should be coming around the corner so I may just end up waiting for that.
 

 

[Shike]

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lol are you serious? If you use flat eq not all players will sound the same. I've never heard this before. My Sflo2 sounds nothing like my Sansa fuze. Nor does my Hifiman 601 when compared to my iphone 4.

 
Considering it's measurably rollled off like the HM801 and has other oddities in the measurements I can't say I'm surprised.
 
I'd say any similarly measuring players sound alike - assuming output impedance is similar too of course (it rarely is, but if they're hooked to a low output impedance amp they should).

 

[wind016]

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lol are you serious? If you use flat eq not all players will sound the same. I've never heard this before. My Sflo2 sounds nothing like my Sansa fuze. Nor does my Hifiman 601 when compared to my iphone 4. None of them sound the same at all. They all have their own distinct sounds signatures on flat and with EQ enabled. Now if you are using lowfi audio equipment/headphones/IEMs then it does make it much harder to judge the difference because the equipment isn't up to par to reveal the differences in the first place. And while cowon does have a nice eq on it that's not enough for me to take the dive and pay a premium for it. It lacks a dedicated line out dock and that is its downfall. The amp in the cowon is better than an ipod or a standard mp3 player and thus it will sound better in general due to this. But when you hook a decent portable amp to an ipod, even an sansa fuze via line out dock; they walk all over the cowon sound quality wise. I generally try to stay away from using equalizer as it can add distortion. But if you eq down and not up you shouldn't experience added distortion. Just to say that all DAP sound the same on flat is a joke to me as I can hear a noticeable difference between these players. The Hifiman 601 and Sflo2 outclass all the other DAPs I've heard by a great margin and that is even through their headphone outs compared to the other DAPs using line out to a good amp. The DAC will also be a major factor in the overall sound quality you can get from the player, not to mention other components within the DAP.

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For me, no reason to explain. And no real chance anyone will change their minds. But I don't really agree that without EQ, practically all players sound the same. Set to no EQ (flat), the iPhone4 sounds different than the Sony A865 which sounds different than the iPod Classic which sounds different than the Nationite N2 which sounds different than the Highsoundaudio Studio I or Rocoo (the players I currently own). As noted, I tried the J3 and no longer have it. And set to flat (no EQ), I thought it was the worst sounding player I have ever heard.

I don't think you two understand me. When I mean the same, I mean average. Yea, sure they have slight differences in sound signature. My Iphone 4 and the Samsung P2 have a warmer sound than the Cowon S9/J3, but none of them are exactly improvements. They all sound average. How good can a portable sound? How good do you need a portable to sound? I don't even want to argue about the Hifiman "audiophile" quality again. I've done it enough. I've heard the Hifiman and IMO spending that much money on a Hifiman is ridiculous unless you really need to run serious full size headphones on the go. 

 

[lee730]

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I don't think you two understand me. When I mean the same, I mean average. Yea, sure they have slight differences in sound signature. My Iphone 4 and the Samsung P2 have a warmer sound than the Cowon S9/J3, but none of them are exactly improvements. They all sound average. How good can a portable sound? How good do you need a portable to sound? I don't even want to argue about the Hifiman "audiophile" quality again. I've done it enough. I've heard the Hifiman and IMO spending that much money on a Hifiman is ridiculous unless you really need to run serious full size headphones on the go. 

I understand your point. I don't use full size cans on the go though. That would draw too much attention in my opinion plus I'd feel stupid out in public with Denons lol. I disagree on the Hifiman only being suitable for full sizers though. Full sizers are better suited for home use although some portable rigs can drive them to satisfaction. I get a noticeable improvement using the Hifiman and Sflo2 with my IEMs and its worth the extra refinements to me on the go. If I'm not caring so much about the sound then I'll either use my iphone4 or Sansa fuze. I still use them with my UHA4 via line out though as its a small setup and worth the extra improvements IMO.