iPod 160GB - the good and the bad new
I received my iPod 160GB this morning. Here are some of my first impressions.
The good news:
I was a bit worried about speed issues and/or crashing as posted on this forum, but my iPod seems to work without any major speed issues, and I haven't encountered any crash so-far. The content is about 60GB of music, lots of covers, 2 movies, agenda and contacts. Even cover flow has a very acceptable speed (faster than on my dual G5 PowerMac), though I wonder its suitability with an amount of covers associated with 160GB of music. The only performance issue I encounter when I go back to the main menu, where arbitrary cover art is shown using Ken Burn effects. I guess a bit of caching can solve this issue.
The bad news:
Sound quality. The good thing is that it's more crisp than the iPod Video 5G 60GB (more loudness > 8kHz) adding to a pronunced sort of accuracy with cymbals and percussion beats, but a bit too crisp from a timbre standpoint of view (reminds me a bit of my iPod 3G). It also has less energy in the lower mid-range (200-800Hz), so it misses some push and harmonics. Overall this results in a less harmonic sound, less spatial (the scene is inside your head instead of around your head), a bit too much emphasis on high treble, and "less silence between the notes". It sounds more technical, and less acoustical/realistic. The output of my PowerMac G5 resembles the iPod Video much more than the iPod Classic. I suspect there is a mismatch in the group delay of the treble, where the treble arrives "faster" than the lower frequencies. That's a typical error in DA-conversion and filtering, that can be fixed by FIR filtering, or masked by a slight attenuation (0.1-0.3dB of treble starting from 8kHz).
Some say it is a small issue, but I think it is a huge issue.
Annoyances/strange things:
- Sound quality. A bit more natural and acoustical instead of technical.
- When the screen blanks during playing, it shows a clock, and a battery indicator. When music plays I'd like to see where in the track I am, what number is playing etc., without having to touch the iPod to wake its screen up.
- EU sound limit. With my Sennheiser HD650 and some soft recordings, it is too soft. I hope for a fast update of GoPod, to be able to accomplish normal sound levels.
- Clicker hardly audible through the headphones.
- Everywhere album art in the main menu, except for the "Now Playing" menu, which only shows a title.
Some bugs:
- The time shown when the screen blanks is always in US (no AM/PM!) format instead of the selected 24h format in the preferences.
- The date is always shown in US format (m/d/y instead of d/m/y).
- Home addresses and office addresses in the address book are all mentioned as home address on the iPod.
- The camera connector doesn't work.
- Equalizer heavily distorting. It is amazing that this is the case since the 1G iPod, and nothing has ever been done to fix this.
I hope a firmware update will solve things quickly. Especially the sound quality issue should be solved; this is the primary reason to buy an iPod.
Marc
The good news:
I was a bit worried about speed issues and/or crashing as posted on this forum, but my iPod seems to work without any major speed issues, and I haven't encountered any crash so-far. The content is about 60GB of music, lots of covers, 2 movies, agenda and contacts. Even cover flow has a very acceptable speed (faster than on my dual G5 PowerMac), though I wonder its suitability with an amount of covers associated with 160GB of music. The only performance issue I encounter when I go back to the main menu, where arbitrary cover art is shown using Ken Burn effects. I guess a bit of caching can solve this issue.
The bad news:
Sound quality. The good thing is that it's more crisp than the iPod Video 5G 60GB (more loudness > 8kHz) adding to a pronunced sort of accuracy with cymbals and percussion beats, but a bit too crisp from a timbre standpoint of view (reminds me a bit of my iPod 3G). It also has less energy in the lower mid-range (200-800Hz), so it misses some push and harmonics. Overall this results in a less harmonic sound, less spatial (the scene is inside your head instead of around your head), a bit too much emphasis on high treble, and "less silence between the notes". It sounds more technical, and less acoustical/realistic. The output of my PowerMac G5 resembles the iPod Video much more than the iPod Classic. I suspect there is a mismatch in the group delay of the treble, where the treble arrives "faster" than the lower frequencies. That's a typical error in DA-conversion and filtering, that can be fixed by FIR filtering, or masked by a slight attenuation (0.1-0.3dB of treble starting from 8kHz).
Some say it is a small issue, but I think it is a huge issue.
Annoyances/strange things:
- Sound quality. A bit more natural and acoustical instead of technical.
- When the screen blanks during playing, it shows a clock, and a battery indicator. When music plays I'd like to see where in the track I am, what number is playing etc., without having to touch the iPod to wake its screen up.
- EU sound limit. With my Sennheiser HD650 and some soft recordings, it is too soft. I hope for a fast update of GoPod, to be able to accomplish normal sound levels.
- Clicker hardly audible through the headphones.
- Everywhere album art in the main menu, except for the "Now Playing" menu, which only shows a title.
Some bugs:
- The time shown when the screen blanks is always in US (no AM/PM!) format instead of the selected 24h format in the preferences.
- The date is always shown in US format (m/d/y instead of d/m/y).
- Home addresses and office addresses in the address book are all mentioned as home address on the iPod.
- The camera connector doesn't work.
- Equalizer heavily distorting. It is amazing that this is the case since the 1G iPod, and nothing has ever been done to fix this.
I hope a firmware update will solve things quickly. Especially the sound quality issue should be solved; this is the primary reason to buy an iPod.
Marc
Mac OS X (10.4.10)