Help needed in improving ipod sound quality..

ssps

Member
Joined
Aug 31, 2009
Messages
42
Points
6
Location
chennai
I have connected ipod classic to amplifier ( craftel chennai made ) thru RCA cable but the sound quality is not good & i have to keep full volume on ipod & almost 75% on amplifier, whereas when i play music from usb of philips dvd player thru amplifier sound quality is great . Is there anyway i can improve sound quality? will ipod dock improve sound quality?
 
I do not have an ipod - but this is what I tried with my sony erricson. Connected the phone to the philips dvd's usb port through the usb cable of phone. Phone started in file transfer mode. Selected input on dvdp to USB. Then selected a music file in phone and chose the option "send". Sony erricson started sending, and philips player started playing.
Was painful as I could not do it in a playlist manner, and the phone was off during this experiment. Couldn't get more time to fiddle around - other things took priority :)
 
once you are done with above suggestions, and still want better quality, you may also try a dock which captures digital out from ipod (wadia, and an upcoming onkyo) and then use a dac. But this is significantly more costly.
 
The best way to improve the sound quality from IPOD is to switch to Creative or Cowon. Couldnt resist making this comment - Sorry.
 
The best way to improve the sound quality from IPOD is to switch to Creative or Cowon. Couldnt resist making this comment - Sorry.

I did notice your Cowon player. Do you find a marked difference in audio quality as compared to the iPod?
 
I did notice your Cowon player. Do you find a marked difference in audio quality as compared to the iPod?

yes sir - i used a ipod classic (5th gen) and also happened to fall by the cowon d2 of my friend that i used for some time. Hands on the cowon sounded richer with better sound stage and better and softer highs that go well with extended music listening (tested with seinheiser cx 300 IEMs). The iPOD had slightly tonal highs which goes well with hip hop etc. I never used any equalizer presets on any devices.

BTW before i get shot - the best audio quality i ever got from any pmp is from the sandisk sansa clip followed by sFLO (a chinese mp4 player).
 
yes sir - i used a ipod classic (5th gen) and also happened to fall by the cowon d2 of my friend that i used for some time. Hands on the cowon sounded richer with better sound stage and better and softer highs that go well with extended music listening (tested with seinheiser cx 300 IEMs). The iPOD had slightly tonal highs which goes well with hip hop etc. I never used any equalizer presets on any devices.

BTW before i get shot - the best audio quality i ever got from any pmp is from the sandisk sansa clip followed by sFLO (a chinese mp4 player).

Interesting, Supra. For myself I dont really enjoy listening to music with earphones or headphones. But thanks for slaking my curiosity.
 
Interesting, Supra. For myself I dont really enjoy listening to music with earphones or headphones. But thanks for slaking my curiosity.

agreed - the only time i listen to music on a portable device is when i am high above in the skies, bored after some kick#@# action in tekken on my psp, i revert to FLAC only (well psp doe splay flac after a small mod and loaded homebrew) - i gave up PMPs some time back (too uncomfortable and poor quality).

I felt so weird when most people swear by their musical tatses - and then use a ipod and normal apple supplied headphones for music using 128 bitrate mp3s as source. Very very bad.....
 
agreed - the only time i listen to music on a portable device is when i am high above in the skies, bored after some kick#@# action in tekken on my psp, i revert to FLAC only (well psp doe splay flac after a small mod and loaded homebrew) - i gave up PMPs some time back (too uncomfortable and poor quality).

I felt so weird when most people swear by their musical tatses - and then use a ipod and normal apple supplied headphones for music using 128 bitrate mp3s as source. Very very bad.....

Not too long back, Supra, I was just another of that exact group of people you describe:). I was lucky to find a community this helpful.
 
Not too long back, Supra, I was just another of that exact group of people you describe:). I was lucky to find a community this helpful.

we all start off from somewhere eh? :)

Anyway the SQ of the iPOD cannot be improved per say without any HW mod - advisable to get something like the sFLO/Sandisk clip to be used as a portable MP and refrain from using the analog out to an AMP - i tried that on multiple amps like norge and NAD with an iphone - the SQ plain sucks.
 
we all start off from somewhere eh? :)

Anyway the SQ of the iPOD cannot be improved per say without any HW mod - advisable to get something like the sFLO/Sandisk clip to be used as a portable MP and refrain from using the analog out to an AMP - i tried that on multiple amps like norge and NAD with an iphone - the SQ plain sucks.

Yes. Analog outs from pretty much most devices is very poor. PS3 for example is outstandingly worse. Interestingly in comparison the PS2 analog out is not too bad. A conundrum perhaps.
 
Yes. Analog outs from pretty much most devices is very poor. PS3 for example is outstandingly worse. Interestingly in comparison the PS2 analog out is not too bad. A conundrum perhaps.

now that we have hijacked the thread (totally unintentional) I agree with you on this. But I have had a observation (may be the only one) - the HDMI out of the ps3 into my onkyo 606 sounded better than thh analog outs. The case was true with Denon 1909 too. And the optical out of ps2 is in better quality that the analogue out of the ps2 (better gain, better soundstage).

But honestly i would refrain from the ps2/ps3 used as decent audio playback systems:sad:
 
Yes. Analog outs from pretty much most devices is very poor. PS3 for example is outstandingly worse. Interestingly in comparison the PS2 analog out is not too bad. A conundrum perhaps.

Like I noted in another thread, the Sansa Fuze is has a better DAC than the pod. It has become my portable player and I have dumped all ipods and cancelled my subscription to iTunes
 
I did notice your Cowon player. Do you find a marked difference in audio quality as compared to the iPod?

I used a creative before that got stolen.

Key observations.

1. Cowon D2 better than Creative better than Ipod (even with MP3 format)

2. Stock phones of all players are equally poor. I had a Sony MDR (forget the number) with creative. Now i am using Ultimate Ears 5, which actually costs more than the player.

All this holds good only till earphone listening. For in room listening, all of these may be weak choices. I have powered my Sony system with Cowon with acceptable, but not great results.

Regards
 
I should have said that I do not use stock headphones at all. My latest portable headphone is a Sennheiser MX 100 foldable ones. Not a big fan of noise cancelling ones
 
After reading all the suggestions and comments I could not refrain myself from answering this thread as I too use Ipod 5th generation but the difference is that I use a dedicated dock like the Onkyo DA X2 and I have all my music stored in apple lossless format. I won't say that this would beat the sound from a dedicated Cd player but its not far from it, it is not adviced to use the headphone out socket for connecting and listining Ipod's music through a good system but we should use a dedicated dock and I can swear by the difference in SQ then.
 
Yeah man..quite true. Once I played the Ipod connected to the dock and it definitely sounded much better than using the analog out from the iPod. But that is how the companies rip-off (read: Make money) customers by accessorizing their products...
 
do you mean that dock was able to get digital signal from ipod instead of analog? Which dock was that?

Yeah man..quite true. Once I played the Ipod connected to the dock and it definitely sounded much better than using the analog out from the iPod. But that is how the companies rip-off (read: Make money) customers by accessorizing their products...
 
Purchase the Audiolab 6000A Integrated Amplifier at a special offer price.
Back
Top