Has anyone noticed a big change in the sound quality over the 5G video. My old 30G has a nice open soundstage, the 80G classic I bought sounds confined for lack of a better word and not as warm as the older iPod. I also had to turn the volume up higher on the classic than I would have on the 5G to get the same sound volume. That along with the slow response times made me dash back to the Apple store and return it. The store's help seemed clueless about any issues.
Thanks for your information, it is exactley as I experienced. I used three sets of earphones from the apple buds to custom inear monitors. I thought it was just me. Makes me wonder if I should go hunting for a 5.5G 80G iPod.
Comparing 80 gb from 8 months ago to new 160 gb, using Sennheiser 650's, don't hear much difference.
Played old Sleater-Kinney pre-KRS, some old Bryan Ferry and Bad Co., and even the Pasadena Symphony playing A.S. Zarathustra (the $40 gold CD). There could be some minor difference in the highs, since I don't have an A-B box to compare that way, however, my players say the difference is small enough that you'd have to be a Stereophile/Absolute Sound reader to appreciate it.
To change the quality of the sound try reimporting your music using AIFF instead of ACC which is what itunes 7.4 is set to...
1. In itunes go to edit and click on preferences
2.At the top go to the Advanced tab
3. Go to the importing Tab
4. where it says import using click on AIFF encoder
5. I also changed my settings to custom
I put the sample rate at 48.000khz
I put the sample size at 16 bit
and put the channel on stero
6. Dont forget to click ok
This is my question (note my previous comments how I tested the iPods):
I bought an 80 gb iPod about 8 months ago, and it sounds about the same as the new 160 gb iPod. Is that 80 gb a "Classic"? Is it supposed to have the old chip? I compared many tracks on some very expensive headphones, heard almost no difference.
I found a 5.5G 80GB at Costco for 200.00, now I can wait until Apple puts out a full screen with more memory. Thanks to everyone for their information. I don't know why Apple would mess with a winner and change the sound.
I can't believe they changed the codec chip! The 5.5Gen sounded so good! I noticed a narrow-ness (is that a word?) of the stereo image in the Apple store, but I thought it was just the headphones they were using...
I just bought another 80GB 5.5Gen on ebay for $249... I fear that may be the last good iPod model for a while from Apple. 😟 can't have them screwing with the sound..
It was a north side suburb of Minneapolis, it was the last one left. I would call others in your area to see if they have any, the selection on old iPods was very slim, I was surprised to see the new classic was $10 cheaper than the Apple Store, I didn't think anyone could sell for less .