Audio Do iPods have poor sound quality?

esanthosh

esanthosh

Skilled
My intention is not to start a war :hap5:

When I wanted to upgrade my old Creative Zen V Plus a few months ago, I read lot of reviews on the net. I finally did end up with Cowon S9 because of my preference for using it purely for audio and very, very rarely for video. I have not even listened to any Apple device - iPod, iTouch, iPhone etc.,

One interesting thing I came across during my "research" was the divided opinion among the iPod and the Non-iPod camps. According to Anti-iPod camp, iPod sucked at sound quality. Apple camp claimed that not only has the SQ improved in iTouch 2G and 3G, but using LOD and a Headphone Amp, iPod trumped others. Most of the opinions were just too biased for me to conclude anything.

My question is not about the smooth UI or the endless gamut of applications or the variety of ways in which iPod can be used. But pertains only to SQ.

I'd like to get the impressions of those who had a chance to compare both an iPod and a Cowon/Sansa/Sony/Creative and test SQ objectively.

Does iPod suck that much in SQ to hate it? Or is the impression only an outcome of going against the popular trend?
 
@esanthosh,

My first player was ipod nano (1st gen). I thought that it's audio quality was amazing.

After 2yrs of rigorous use, I thought of going for a better player and so after lot of research, went for Cowon D2. The sound quality of this one is amazing but you need to do lot of work on BBE to get the right audio output.

At that time, the audio quality of ipods was bad. ipod nano was in it's fatty generation and ipod touch was kind of lacking the audio quality that I wanted. Have no idea about ipod classic as I never tried it (ever).

few months ago, I sold off my Cowon D2 as I got 5800Xm but I started msising the amazing audio quality of Cowon D2.

Recently, I helped a friend to setup ipod Touch gen-3 and I really liked the audio quality of this 3rd gen ipod touch.

I too used to hate ipods for having inferior audio quality. But not anymore.

ipod touch especially has evolved into a full fledged multimedia device. AV quality is superb, gaming is fast, loads of apps to use, ebook reader helps me to read books that I download using kindle or ipdf.

Budget:

<5k: Sansa
5k-9k: Cowon, Sony, Creative
10k-20k: Apple, Cowon
 
esanthosh said:
My intention is not to start a war :hap5:

When I wanted to upgrade my old Creative Zen V Plus a few months ago, I read lot of reviews on the net. I finally did end up with Cowon S9 because of my preference for using it purely for audio and very, very rarely for video. I have not even listened to any Apple device - iPod, iTouch, iPhone etc.,

One interesting thing I came across during my "research" was the divided opinion among the iPod and the Non-iPod camps. According to Anti-iPod camp, iPod sucked at sound quality. Apple camp claimed that not only has the SQ improved in iTouch 2G and 3G, but using LOD and a Headphone Amp, iPod trumped others. Most of the opinions were just too biased for me to conclude anything.

My question is not about the smooth UI or the endless gamut of applications or the variety of ways in which iPod can be used. But pertains only to SQ.

I'd like to get the impressions of those who had a chance to compare both an iPod and a Cowon/Sansa/Sony/Creative and test SQ objectively.

Does iPod suck that much in SQ to hate it? Or is the impression only an outcome of going against the popular trend?
Click to expand...

well lets put it in perspective a sansa fuze will kill an iPOD anyday - the sansa has a balanced mid range (the area most neglected by retards who like bass and treble - a theory goes with time we lose our hearing ability around the lower and higher ends of the spectrum hence we often like rock or Jazz equalizer settings in a music system).

I can write pages on this subject but as asked I have had all the systems (except sony) and in order of SQ I would say Sansa FUze~Cowon D2>Creative~Sony>iPOD.
 
@starky, better not use offensive words. Every person has his/her own liking and calling someone retard for liking bass/treble only makes others keep a distance from you in discussion.
 
i have a nano, the short fat one... it has awful SQ..

but certain generations of the nano, and almost all the classic's have had decent sound quality
 
My personal exp:

1G iPod nano ~ Decent SQ

5G iPod nano ~ Quite good SQ

I'm not among the elite audiophiles, so I don't need any purist devices. :p

Does iPod suck that much in SQ to hate it? Or is the impression only an outcome of going against the popular trend?
Click to expand...

No. Yes.



Think of it this way:

The iPod's SQ is quite good but if you really want to go the extra mile for awesome SQ, consider the likes of Cowon, iRiver etc.
 
Its quite good from a non audiophile point of view.its average otherwise.

No i ain't one of the cowon fanboys and have an ipod classic myself with some awesome pro hp and iem's.
 
Apple i-pods don't have poor sound quality but their stock earphones are sub-standard and easily get damaged + they are overpriced for what they offer.
 
desiibond said:
@starky, better not use offensive words. Every person has his/her own liking and calling someone retard for liking bass/treble only makes others keep a distance from you in discussion.
Click to expand...

apologize for my statement - at earnest. The problem is we all have been subject to philips and sony crap (music systems advertising PMPO) for such a long time- i think most of us seem to prefer that stuff.

PS: You have no clue that kind of discussion that happened over a 7 speaker bose set in a nissan 350z - my colleague who is an ardent bose fan went at length claiming excellent fidelity - i on the other hand suggested it was muddy and treble happy. We went to a few audio gurus - and a few listening sessions later - we now who was wiser. Apologize for the scrap though - i meant no harm.
 
I am very particular about sound quality. And I faced the same dilemma when I was about to buy my first portable audio player. I actually bought a pair of good quality sony earplugs and went about to test every other player in the market.

According to me, Creative & iRiver offer slightly better sound quality than the iPod. Why? because they tune their players to sound well over earplugs.

However, I still ended up buying the iPod. Reason? Because the "slightly" lower sound quality was not good enough to ignore the 2 biggest other advantages you have with the iPod:
1. Infinite accessories (You can find covers, shells for ipods even in villages these days)
2. Awesome UI

Moreover, over time, I have noticed that the sound quality also depends greatly on the quality of MP3 you upload to the device. Trust me, if you use 320 kbps MP3s, all players will be at par with each other. Then why go with crappy UI?

One last thing - the overall listening experience depends largely on the earphones/headphones you use. I use Bose QC2 with my iPod. And in my car, I have a powerful system with a bass tube. I even noticed that songs played from iPod on my Onkyo home theater sound far better compared to when I play them from my PC with a built in Intel sound card (no matter what EQ I use). So if you have the necessary gear to listen to the device, go buy the iPod. Upload 320 kbps tracks, set the EQ to Hip Hop and enjoy!
 
starky said:
apologize for my statement - at earnest. The problem is we all have been subject to philips and sony crap (music systems advertising PMPO) for such a long time- i think most of us seem to prefer that stuff.

PS: You have no clue that kind of discussion that happened over a 7 speaker bose set in a nissan 350z - my colleague who is an ardent bose fan went at length claiming excellent fidelity - i on the other hand suggested it was muddy and treble happy. We went to a few audio gurus - and a few listening sessions later - we now who was wiser. Apologize for the scrap though - i meant no harm.
Click to expand...

there. that's much better. not that it offended me. But it could offend those who like bassy tunes. and yes, I do prefer my 1k Panasonic circulaural headphones over 22k Bose headphones :)

coming back to the topic. 3G ipod touch is not near to the audio nirvana that cowon D2 provides. But Cowon S9 is not as good as Cowon D2 and if you compare it with ipod touch, I would say, it's better to go for ipod touch as the difference in audio output between these two is hardly recognizable and also S9 is pricier (if I am right).

As I said earlier, ipod touch is the ipod that stands tall among competition. ipod nano and shuffle are only to show that you have an ipod. Players from competition are much much better at that price point.
 
are you nuts??? iPods have the best sound quality among its competition... that's why they sells like hot cakes and more compared to their creative n cowon counterparts...

i've owned a shuffle 2G, nano 4G and my used my bro's ipod touch 3G and all three can kill cheap ones like clip+ and fuze stuff...
 
spawnfreak said:
are you nuts??? iPods have the best sound quality among its competition... that's why they sells like hot cakes and more compared to their creative n cowon counterparts...

i've owned a shuffle 2G, nano 4G and my used my bro's ipod touch 3G and all three can kill cheap ones like clip+ and fuze stuff...
Click to expand...

now, this is pure fanboism :)

have you ever used Cowon or Sandisk or Sony players for a decent period of time?
 
spawnfreak said:
are you nuts??? iPods have the best sound quality among its competition... that's why they sells like hot cakes and more compared to their creative n cowon counterparts...

i've owned a shuffle 2G, nano 4G and my used my bro's ipod touch 3G and all three can kill cheap ones like clip+ and fuze stuff...
Click to expand...

Anothen iFan :p
 
^^dont go by what he says :)

the SQ varies quite often, like the nano 2G was good, but the nano 3G was god awful. recently , the internal amp on the classic had also changed(from 5G to 5.5G i think), but audio-nuts go both ways, some liking the old one while some like the new one (wolfson vs cirrus logic)
 
thetoxicmind said:
I'm not among the elite audiophiles, so I don't need any purist devices. :p
Click to expand...
I was going to say why is sound quality important for a portable device that presumably, is used in not the best places to be listening to much at all.

Now OTOTH if you don't have better equipment at home, then would portables+earphones be the cheapest way to go about it ?

Pokey neighbours, ie parents+siblings might make it mandatory :D
 
I just went through half the thread and didn't read further cause most of them seemed to be biased opinions.No offense to anyone.First thing ,audio is very subjective so the best thing to do is trust your ears .Anyways I will just add my opinion ,if it helps the OPs original query.
Coming to his query , " Do iPods have poor SQ ? " In one word , No :p

Speaking in non-audiophile terms and from a general point of view , most ipods have pretty good Sound Quality.It's definitely not poor. By this I mean their SQ is far better than most el-cheapo players. What I've noticed in general is that ipods don't have a neutral sound.Most of them have high treble amplification and are a little bright sounding.
Yet , some of the older ipods which had the Wolfson DAC were considered as really good.So it depends on the ipod in consideration as well .The 5th gen classic has a Wolfson DAC as well and sounds pretty good.So to cut short , for an average joe with entry level earphones and someone who is not very concerned about the finest details etc. The ipod is a safe bet.

Coming to comparisons with other players like Cowon (D2/S9), Sansa Clip+ , from my experience I can say that the Ipod does have inferior Sound quality.The D2 has one of the best DACs -Wolfson WM8985G.It's sound quality is far more superior to the ipods in terms of transparency, detailing , clarity, sound stage and even amplification.The D2's amplification is so good that , one usually doesn't need an amp like Fiio E5 to drive IEMs like the RE-0,RE-1. Where as the ipod does need amps to drive the higher end earphones.
The clip+ which I got recently also performs better than the my older Nano ,a 5th gen Ipod and my Iphone 2G.It's much more neutral and clear.It's not as good as the D2 but almost there.
Also as the OP mentioned the Ipod sound lot better when used with a line out dock .I myself found it surprising when my Quattros sound better with the iphone +Fiio E1 amp (which uses line out) compared to the Clip + E5.It has a lot to do with the synergy with earphones as well but that's a totally different thing again.

Other than that ,there are audiophile grade players which sound better than the Cowons etc. The Amp3 Pro which I tried just blows away any other portable player I have tried till date.But then it doesn't have a very user friendly UI and also looks like a player from the 80s.

To conclude I would say , if you are looking for a decent/ good sounding player then the Ipod is a good choice.Though there can be better choices but the UI and ease of using a ipod is unbeatable. If you want something better sounding , that can match upto your hi-fi audio gear,Look elsewhere.
 
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