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http://www.apple.com/uk/ipodhifi/
My sister seems to believe the hype behind this product, is she wrong to?
My sister seems to believe the hype behind this product, is she wrong to?
ipod hifi
- Thread starter willd58
- Start date
What drivel, as the saying goes you can't polish a turd - heavily compressed audio is always going to be heavily compressed and therefore sound comparatively bad next to even an average CD player let alone anything 'audiophile'.
£249 is a complete con, for that price you could get cheap second hand amp and speakers to connect an ipod to which would sound a lot better.
Soldato
Goatboy said:
There are a few technologies that help sharpen up the clarity of compressed audio ie to bring back the peaks that get rounded off through compression. I can't recall the name of them but you see such things commonly on upto date car headunits. Whether the technology works or not I can't comment but it's at least one reason not to buy just any old amp.
Being fair, it's no worse than walking into Tesco and looking at the boxes of some of the cheapo tat that they sell.
Virtually everything you see is labelled as hi-fi and "awesome digital". The problem is that some customers actually believe it.
Virtually everything you see is labelled as hi-fi and "awesome digital". The problem is that some customers actually believe it.
Associate
I actually heard one of these yesterday at the Apple Store on Regent St. Admittedly it was in a noisy shop but it didn't sound that bad. Really. It does rather depend on what your reference is when you say something is "good" or "bad". They had an iPod connected (not surprisingly !) and I have no idea what bit rate the iPod was using but it was not dreadful in the way the real cheapy stuff sounds. Don't know how it performs when you wind the volume up though - Maybe the whole enclosure starts to rattle or something?
For some people it will be just what they are looking for and there are far worse they can do. For £249 you probably could get a better amp and speakers but that won't have a direct dock for an iPod and Apple are charging you for that convenience too.
For some people it will be just what they are looking for and there are far worse they can do. For £249 you probably could get a better amp and speakers but that won't have a direct dock for an iPod and Apple are charging you for that convenience too.
But that's not what Apple are selling to people on itunes and I doubt many people have anything uncompressed on them given the size of wav files, anyone who does have uncompressed audio files most likely uses a decent set-up at home already.
I use my Ipod with apple lossless, but then I have a 30GB unit, so I'm not too worried about space. Being fair, stupid product for just music as I'm really not a believer in moving parts being very reliable when on the move. Only reason I bought it was as a backup for my dig camera.
Back on topic, with the headphones and on the move, couldn't tell the difference between lossless and lossy, though I found it easy when using my stereo at home.
The biggest problem I have with any of this is that the public really are being duped. When marketing people says "CD quality", maybe that is true on the move, but certainly not with a good stereo. The second problem being that when you do get a better stereo, the £ you've spent on downloaded mashed up tracks sounds lousy. Go figure.
Back on topic, with the headphones and on the move, couldn't tell the difference between lossless and lossy, though I found it easy when using my stereo at home.
The biggest problem I have with any of this is that the public really are being duped. When marketing people says "CD quality", maybe that is true on the move, but certainly not with a good stereo. The second problem being that when you do get a better stereo, the £ you've spent on downloaded mashed up tracks sounds lousy. Go figure.
Soldato
I seem to recall that on the test CDs I made, few people actually got it right. Almost everybody picked out the 96kbps mp3 and one or two noticed the 128kbps but over that... I dont think one person got it right.
Compressed audio compressed properly at a reasonable bit rate is almost indiscernable from the CD in my experience (and from blind-testing people).
I couldnt possibly comment on the Apple product though, having never experienced one myself.
EDIT: Tech specs say:
Frequency response: 53Hz to 16kHz ± 3 dB
Considering the size of the thing, thats not bad... A comparable response to that offered by some of the rubbish that people quite happily purchase/recommend from RS.
Class D amplification inside it too. Not the best, but some people in here seem to like that kind of amplifiation
Compressed audio compressed properly at a reasonable bit rate is almost indiscernable from the CD in my experience (and from blind-testing people).
I couldnt possibly comment on the Apple product though, having never experienced one myself.
EDIT: Tech specs say:
Frequency response: 53Hz to 16kHz ± 3 dB
Considering the size of the thing, thats not bad... A comparable response to that offered by some of the rubbish that people quite happily purchase/recommend from RS.
Class D amplification inside it too. Not the best, but some people in here seem to like that kind of amplifiation
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