The iPod, good sound, and me.
My initial impressions of the iPod were a little lackluster. I received the 80 gig iPod as a gift along with a set of Shure e2c in-ear monitors (iems from here on out). I loaded some music on, plugged in my earphones, and pushed play.
The shures give a very warm sound, with a distinct high end roll-off at around 10khz. I liked the tonal quality except for the lack of bass below about 50hz. Iems are finnicky when it comes to bass as you have to make sure you have a good seal with your ear (for those unfamiliar, the experience of wearing iem style earphones is much like wearing a rigid earplug. I actually like the shure e2c, specifically because I don't have to force them as far in my ear. The larger body of the e2c rests against the inside of my earlobe and keeps the entire thing in place. It seems my ears are perfectly shaped to take advantage of this). I double checked the seal and played some bass extension test tracks on my PC. The e2cs weren't the problem. So I turned on the eq of the iPod.... Ouch. Horrible, horrible clipping.
At this point I assumed the iPod was the problem and in a sense it was. There is however an easy fix. Modern CDs are mixed and mastered hot. To read more about it go here. (Wikipedia Article) The EQ in the iPod is digital. The iPod manipulates the digital waveform and boosts certain frequencies depending on the EQ setting. If the digital file doesn't have any headroom (which non have considering how loud modern recordings are), you'll get terrible terrible clipping (if you have the included earbuds you probably won't even notice. Yes, the earbuds are that bad). The best solution I have found is a program called mp3gain (link). This program psychoacoustically analyzes mp3 files and will balance your mp3s gain tag to give you more headroom. It is a lossless reversible process. This means that if you don't like the end result you can reverse it. Here's a link with a short tutorial on how to use it. (Tutorial). Quick note though, track gain does it by song, album gain runs the program by album. I suggest doing album gain so the sound levels are consistent with the original CD. I also suggest using the 89 db default setting, unless you have a more difficult to drive pair of headphones, in which case you need an amp anyway :p. If you have to turn your iPod above 60-70% BEFORE using mp3gain, then you either need new ears, lower impedance headphones, an amp, or a lesson in not listening to your music too loud. If you do need to turn your ipod up that high you probably won't like the additional headroom mp3gain will give your files. My suggestion is to get an amp.
OK, back to my experience. I mp3gained my collection and and now sitting pretty with all the bass I could ever hope for. Well, almost. let's just say I have this, and this on order.
I'll post some initial impressions when I get the pa2v2 and Silver LOD in. On another quick note, they don't have rockbox working with the 80 gig iPod yet...
The shures give a very warm sound, with a distinct high end roll-off at around 10khz. I liked the tonal quality except for the lack of bass below about 50hz. Iems are finnicky when it comes to bass as you have to make sure you have a good seal with your ear (for those unfamiliar, the experience of wearing iem style earphones is much like wearing a rigid earplug. I actually like the shure e2c, specifically because I don't have to force them as far in my ear. The larger body of the e2c rests against the inside of my earlobe and keeps the entire thing in place. It seems my ears are perfectly shaped to take advantage of this). I double checked the seal and played some bass extension test tracks on my PC. The e2cs weren't the problem. So I turned on the eq of the iPod.... Ouch. Horrible, horrible clipping.
At this point I assumed the iPod was the problem and in a sense it was. There is however an easy fix. Modern CDs are mixed and mastered hot. To read more about it go here. (Wikipedia Article) The EQ in the iPod is digital. The iPod manipulates the digital waveform and boosts certain frequencies depending on the EQ setting. If the digital file doesn't have any headroom (which non have considering how loud modern recordings are), you'll get terrible terrible clipping (if you have the included earbuds you probably won't even notice. Yes, the earbuds are that bad). The best solution I have found is a program called mp3gain (link). This program psychoacoustically analyzes mp3 files and will balance your mp3s gain tag to give you more headroom. It is a lossless reversible process. This means that if you don't like the end result you can reverse it. Here's a link with a short tutorial on how to use it. (Tutorial). Quick note though, track gain does it by song, album gain runs the program by album. I suggest doing album gain so the sound levels are consistent with the original CD. I also suggest using the 89 db default setting, unless you have a more difficult to drive pair of headphones, in which case you need an amp anyway :p. If you have to turn your iPod above 60-70% BEFORE using mp3gain, then you either need new ears, lower impedance headphones, an amp, or a lesson in not listening to your music too loud. If you do need to turn your ipod up that high you probably won't like the additional headroom mp3gain will give your files. My suggestion is to get an amp.
OK, back to my experience. I mp3gained my collection and and now sitting pretty with all the bass I could ever hope for. Well, almost. let's just say I have this, and this on order.
I'll post some initial impressions when I get the pa2v2 and Silver LOD in. On another quick note, they don't have rockbox working with the 80 gig iPod yet...
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