So, as previously posted, I had sent my assumed-to-be-defective iPod back to the service center to be "serviced." As predicted, they did a "reset all settings" and assumed nothing was wrong with it.
But the problem remains. Most songs on the thing sound great, especially with $140+ headphones. But then there are some songs that sound like absolute crap. These, at first, I noted with embarrassment that they were songs I had ripped from my CD collection. I thought perhaps I had ripped them from CD and coded them badly. That would make my entire Apple-bashing platform moot.
So for the hell of it, I tried normalizing an already-coded song that I use as my "test song" for "the crap effect." Normalizing didn't help. On a lark, I decided to try the same exact song from Apple's iTunes Music Store. I figured it absolutely had to be encoded well if they were selling it.
The problem remains. In sections of heavy bass, the sound distorts like crazy. I am using the EQ function, and the only way to remove such distortion is to use the "bass reducer" preset. Most songs sound great, but I am somewhat of an audiophile and distortion really drives me nuts, even on a few songs.
My question is this. I know a few of my readers (well, casual glancers, at least) have iPods. Has anyone had a problem with something like this? Does every song sound crystal clear?
Comments
Eh, I don't know what your problem is, nor what type of output you're using. Still, is it possible that regardless of the encoding/decoding, the output just really badly distorts low-frequency sound? Maybe a cheap DA converter or bad amplification unit? I know I had a portable CD player once that just couldn't handle low-frequency sound output, though that was with pretty much any song that had any really heavy bass. I read somewhere later that they were known for having really bad headphone jack outputs.
I'd think that with the number of people that have and love ipods, you'd hear from many people (at least those that care about sound quality) that they had distortion issues. Then again, most people just like the coolness factor of technology and few pay attention to the quality.
Posted by: jansen | January 21, 2005 1:36 PM