iPod Photo: Poor Sound Quality - Updates

Have to agree with Thomas,

The sound problem is with the photo ipod headphone output
the sound is OK when connecting headphones to the dock listing to the same track, but if reducing the sound levels in the problem tracks removes the distortion then this should be an easy fix, Apple should provide a software update ??

Thanks Norith I will give it a go. I have already upgraded the headphones to Sennheiser PX 200 this has helped with reducing the distortion and sounds great on all the other tracks.

So I'm considering a 30GB next week and this spooks me a bit. I mainly listen to my iPod in the car using iTrip and rarely use the headphones. Are these distortions evident via iTrip? My guess is that they would be given that iTrip uses the headphone jack. Would really hate for this to be a problem as I've really been looking forward to this purchase 😟

Despite what some of the messages say, not all of the iPods suffer from distortion (No, I'm not crazy, deaf or tone deaf. My iPod is fine. I had a 1 gen and a 3rd gen. I know what I"m hearing. Others may have different experiences which are no less real.)

That being said, using the iPod through an FM transmitter is less than accoustically ideal. Depending on where you are, you may have trouble finding a empty spot on you're radio dial. Also, different car radios seem to give different results. Static can be a problem. If you have a cassette deck in your car, a cassette adapter will be more reliable. I use an Monster iCarPlay FM transmitter and have been quite happy within the limitations of the technology.

My 60gig iPod Photo is one of the best electronic purchases I've made.

If you're really fussy about sound quality... don't get the iTrip... you will be dissapointed. The sound quality is somewhat "acceptable" though... to the average iPod user...

I don't get static, high pitch noises, hard drive noise...etc through my speakers when plugging the AV cable directly through the headphone jack or from the dock...

I also have the problem with my 30GB iPod Photo (new). I have a severe popping or crackling sound at high volumes with certain tracks. It is very obvious with the standard "white" earphones and occurs when the volume is louder than about 75%. . I first noticed it this weekend while on an aeroplane with the volume louder than I would normally use so I don't know if the problem is new or has always been there. No problem using a Podfreq in the car.

Alright people,

Instead of blindly barking at each other, let's actually do something productive. The bottom line is that we need an impartial test scenario. I don't have an iPod Photo, and have never owned an iPod either for that matter. I am currently planning on buying an iPod Photo, but all this talk about its audio flaws has kind of scared me away, and I want to find out whether this is true or not. Here's what I propose - I only need one or two iPod Photo owners to volunteer...

1. Pick a section of a song that you believe demonstrates the distortion artifacts well. 5-10 seconds will do. Important: rip the audio section from the original source (i.e. CD) - i.e. don't record it through line-in, etc. The goal is to preserve the media at this initial stage (i.e. a CD is digital, and should be digitally ripped). Save it as a WAV or AIFF and put it on the web somewhere so that we can all examine it. This will be the test audio signal, the true 100%, non-distorted, authentic original.

2. Import the file from stage 1 on your iPod. Do not encode/compress it! Leave it as the original WAV/AIFF format. We are trying to determine iPod Photo's audio output flaws, not encoding behavior here. If it turns out that the distortion is caused by encoding/compressing then I'd say it's a software issue rather than a hardware one. In that case, that would be a lot less disturbing than an actual hardware flaw.

3. Set the iPod's volume level to a normal setting and turn off the equalizer. Plug it into its dock and then connect its line-out to a decent audio card's line-in input (Audigy, etc). Play the audio signal on the iPod and record it through the sound card's input onto your computer (record at 44.1KHz and 16bit Stereo - I assume that's what your original audio signal was). If you are wondering what recording program to use, I recommend a demo version of Adobe Audition. Make sure you haven't turned up the recording volume of your sound card too high - you don't want to achieve artificial distortion that way. Or in other words, in your recording program make sure the audio signal's graph does not clip out of screen.

4. Save the recorded audio signal from stage 3, and upload it somewhere on the web so that we can examine it and compare it to 1. After this digital-to-analog-back-to-digital cycle, it is natural that the signal from stage 3 will be inferior to the original one from stage 1. However, this deterioration of sound should be minimal and nowhere near the descriptions I've read in this thread. If the real distortion is produced by the iPod, and is as distinctive as described here, then this method should definitely capture it, and readers should be able to judge for themselves.

If you don't have a place to put these files online, you can email me at dobomode@gmail.com and I will host them for you.

Let's try to figure this out! 🙂

Thanks!

dobomode

dobomode wrote:

3. Set the iPod's volume level to a normal setting and turn
off the equalizer. Plug it into its dock and then connect its
line-out to a decent audio card's line-in input (Audigy, etc).

That isn't going to work! The problem is almost certainly with the headphone jack's analogue electronics, and it is exacerbated by using low-impedance headphones. Most line-in sockets on PCs / amplifiers are high impedance, and will probably not show the problem even if you connect the headphone jack directly to them.

The only way to measure this distortion is to be able to record the signal that is actually produced when driving from the headphone socket into a low-impedance load - you'd need to do something like connecting a cable in parallel with the headphones that is connected to the line-in on a soundcard. That would show the problem, but would require a bit of soldering and would not be for the faint-hearted. I'd volunteer to do it, but I'm not about to wreck $50 worth of headphones to prove something that I already know exists!

For what it's worth, I don't need any convincing - this problem is real, and I have seen enough reports of the same thing for me to believe it affects all iPod Photos. If you can't hear it, consider yourself lucky, and pray that you never find out what it sounds like - cos once you've heard it once and know what to listen for, it'll drive you mad, and you'll never be happy with the sound of your iPp again...

I still stand by my double blind tests with a small group of listeners and several different types of headphones.

No one in the group could identify the "distorted" sound of the iPod photo (from among the other iPods playing the same tracks) even once. Not even once.

But I suppose I got an entire group of people who don't have good hearing.

Then you didn't use the right track. Are you saying the sound was distorted on all of the players?

No matter how you look at it though, your tests were based on human subjectivity. What I am proposing is a test based on cold computer precision. Once I have access to the two audio signals produced as I had proposed, then I can do numerous audio processing tests to determine the level of distortion (if any). The best way to do this is to digitally subtract the two signals - the difference would be any extraneous audio information, in this case - the alleged distortion.

I still stand by my double blind tests with a small group of
listeners and several different types of headphones.

No one in the group could identify the "distorted" sound of
the iPod photo (from among the other iPods playing the same
tracks) even once. Not even once.

But I suppose I got an entire group of people who don't have
good hearing.

Oddly enough, that is a real possibility - the average listener simply isn't that critical. (How many people do you see using their iPods with the standard earbuds, which sound dreadful, compared to people you see using improved cans? By what proportion do cheap all-in-one stereo systems outsell expensive high-end separates? Most people just don't notice the difference...)

More likely is that you were playing tracks that don't show the distortion. Most files do indeed play fine, but I have a number of files which show very noticeable distortion on my iPp, and which play perfectly on my Creative Zen - and I *guarantee" you I could tell which was which, sighted or double-blind.

Three different tracks. One rock and roll with a piano solo, a guitar solo, and a drum solo. One classical Piano and Voice (together and separately at times). One full orchestral piece.

4 different iPods. 12 different people. To allow these people to participate they had to correctly discern (blind) between a 128 and 192 kb mp3 file. That doesn't mean they're audiophiles, but does show audio discernment.

I am 100% certain there is NOTHING different about the sound of MY ipod photo. Maybe there is something wrong with yours - I'll grant that to you no problem - but mine is fine.

I promise.

It might be helpful to state exactly which tracks were used in your test.

Hello,

I too have experienced the distortion described in this thread with my iPod Photo 40 gig. This is real problem, not an imagined one. The problem is most audible if you listen to solo piano music -- the audio is blurred and distorted through the headphone jack with low impedance headphones. After weeks of frustration I feel compelled to share a workaround for this problem.

Below is a bug report I sent to Apple with a work around for the problem. I hope the Radio Shack inline volume control will help readers with a solution and lessen the pain of spending $500 bucks on a flawed product. I’m a huge Apple fan, but a bit disappointed that this made it though their QA process. The only other headphones I have tried that have work with the iPod Photo’s headphone jack are the Bose Quiet Comfort 2’s. Although Bose does not publish any specs, I suspect these are high impedance headphones. These are expensive and sonically inferior to a $69 pair of Grado SR-60’s. If it is high-end sound you want, use Send Station’s pocket dock with line out and run it into a portable headphone amp, like the ones sold at headroom (www.headphone.com) They will drive any pair of headphones.

Hi Apple,

I would like to report a bug I’ve noticed with the iPod Photo 40Gig I recently purchased. There is audible distortion at certain frequencies while listening through the headphone jack on the iPod with non-Apple headphones. In particular, I’ve been using the Grado SR-60’s and RS-1 as well as the Etymotic ER6-i. This is most clearly heard when listening to solo piano music at normal listing level (50-75 percent on the iPod volume scale).

It is important to note that this distortion is not audible when I use the iPod as a source on my home system via line out on the doc and listen with the same headphones driven by my integrated amp.

I have been able to alleviate the problem by inserting an “inline volume control” made by RadioShack between the above-mentioned headphones and the iPod’s headphone jack. The key is to set the iPod volume to maximum and use the inline to control the volume. Here is the link to the RadioShack vc http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalogname=CTLG&productid=42-2559. It looks like this is a potentiometer with a 1000 ohm resistor. Not sure why this should work, but it does. Perhaps with the vc in the signal path the iPod realizes an increase in load resistance over the headphone’s impedance.

All my music is compressed with the new Apple Lossless Codec.

Hey Chris,

How well do the "Gold-Plated Volume Control Cable for Stereo Headphones" from RadioShack work?

I have heard from another similar thread that the source of the problem is the ipod photo itself, so that even through the docking-line out port will still inhibit this problem.

The Radioshack thing looks somewhat unattractive