Hmm.. the iPod. A wonder of technology. A status symbol if you will. If you've got the money, it's a great piece of technology. But why does the sound quality suck so? If Apple is going to spend millions of dollars designing some new model people like, and put an accelerometer into it, and pack it full of a bunch of use(less) [cabbage] such as "shake to shuffle", why does the music that comes out of it so horrible?. It doesn't make sense! Could they not spend a few thousand developing an iPod that sounds better? The entire point of an Mp3 player is to listen to music. It's like making some super hardcore computer with 16 gigs of ram, a crazy graphics card and a 4.2 GHz processor just to make it compatible with a monitor that supports 256 colors. I just don't get it.

 

 

 

Can anybody come up with any good reasons why Apple would do such a thing?

The world has gone mad due to competition. Today I just learned that I really do eat crap everyday because companies just want to put their products on the market and sell - they don't care about us even slightly anymore. It's all about the $$$.

 

 

 

But yeah I always thought Ipods were overrated. I got a Zen, and it might have a few faults but for as cheap as it was, it was definitely well worth it.

I bought my first MP3 player, an 8GB iPod Touch, for $50 from a friend 100% un-used 3 weeks ago. I think they're great, but I wouldn't justify spending more than $100 on any MP3 player.

Maybe the new ones are different, but the sound quality on my 80GB Classic is just fine, by my standards at least.

Yeah I found the sound quality on my old 20GB iPod to be fantastic.

Meh. I've never owned an iPod. My 30GB Creative Zen does the job perfectly.

The sound quality is fine on my Nano. It really depends on the quality of your outputs [read], and the bitrate of the MP3s you put on it.

If you take your iPod, connect some decent headphones, and listen to a song at 256 kbps, it will sound fine. But if you take the same headphones, connect them to something else (say a computer) and listen to that same 256kbps song, you will notice the difference. The normal iPods (video, classic, etc) are even worse than the nano/touch/other flash drive based iPods. The old iPods I believe have a better sound quality (or it might be that they're worse.. one of the two) than the current models.

 

 

 

But anyway, numerous people have done tests confirming that the sound quality is atrocious on iPods. Maybe Apple is lazy, or realizes most people can't tell the difference?

Maybe Apple is lazy, or realizes most people can't tell the difference?

 

 

 

I'd be willing to bed that they're banking on most people not being able to tell the difference. There's very few people who can, and if you're one of those overly picky people who actually notice then they're willing to let you go buy some other MP3 player while they save money and continue to dominate the market.

 

 

 

Personally, I can tell the sound quality isn't the absolute best with iPods, but it's not bad enough to deter me from buying one.

If you take your iPod, connect some decent headphones, and listen to a song at 256 kbps, it will sound fine. But if you take the same headphones, connect them to something else (say a computer) and listen to that same 256kbps song, you will notice the difference. The normal iPods (video, classic, etc) are even worse than the nano/touch/other flash drive based iPods. The old iPods I believe have a better sound quality (or it might be that they're worse.. one of the two) than the current models.

 

 

 

But anyway, numerous people have done tests confirming that the sound quality is atrocious on iPods. Maybe Apple is lazy, or realizes most people can't tell the difference?

 

 

 

I honestly don't understand what you're complaining about. I listen to music to listen to music. As long as I can hear what's going on in the song, I'm going to be happy.

Most mp3 players sound like [cabbage] anyway.

History has shown that people don't care too much about sound quality, they care about convenience. Ipods are convenient. Vinyl records have the best sound quality of any physical medium, yet they got beaten by first cassettes and then cds, which had WORSE sound quality, yet they were convenient.

I'm sick of all this hate on iPods. Seriously, get over it. Nobody cares how much you hate iPods, nobody cares how much the iPod fanboys hate Zens or Zunes. Stop making all these posts about how much iPods suck!

 

 

 

We. Don't. Care.

 

 

 

I'm not talking to just Thomas, I'm talking to everyone who posted in my thread about the new Nano complaining about iPods being terrible.

There is NO Problem with iPods ... The sound quality is great .. Ofc ill get better of a big machine that has the capability to give better quality but I cant carry that around all day at college.

I have a Ipod Nano Video (only 4gb waaaaahhhh) and the sound is good, but the screen is amazinggggg.

i couldnt care less. first of all because i dont have an ipod and will never have. and secondly, because around 70% of the stuff i listen to is poorly recorded death or black metal.

Most mp3 players sound like [cabbage] anyway.

 

Agreed.

I have a 30gb video, no problems with it, and the sound quality is good enough for me to hear the bass without it being to boomy and being able to hear the drums with decent headphones.

Even with the standard headphones I've never really had much of a complaint against the sound quality. It's not the best if you're trying to listen to a very intricate orchestral piece, but in that case i'd just stick a decent pair of headphones in. With my dad's Bose earphones the sound quality is superb.

I was able to get a refurbished 30gb Creative Zen last winter for only $100, and it's worked perfectly. The sound quality is fine, and the video screen quality is pretty good, especially for $100.

 

 

 

Try upgrading your headphones, that's probably where majority of the problem lies.

It's not the iPod that's the bottleneck, it's the headphones. ANY iPod sounds marvellous if you equip it with ANYTHING other than the standard Apple buds! Apple spends millions on the development of new iPod generations every year, but their earbuds are still pretty much year 2000. I own a 5g ipod and when I compare the standard buds with my Koss Porta Pro's which I'm using now, the difference is like day and night. The latter have notable bass, high pitch notes, even mediums sound richer and fluid. Hell, I'm no audiophile, and I've known to be wrong in many occasions, but most people who moan about the iPods sound quality are still using the standard Apple buds. It's exactly like jogging with a blindfold. You can do it, but you will have no idea how beautiful your surroundings are, because of the blindfold.

 

 

 

Don't blame the company, instead blame your ears or buds. ;)

Only ever had 2 mp3 players.

 

 

 

A small little crappy one that the headphones broke, which then meant I got an:

 

 

 

Ipod nano 2nd gen which i still have ang got for my birthday a couple of years ago.

 

 

 

Never really had any problems from it apart from when its froze a few times, quality wise ive never attempted to compare it to anything else. So as far as I know its quite good, I suppose you could say "ignorance is bliss", im happy with it. The acctually ITunes program gets on my nerves though.

I recently bought some Sennheiser ear things because the iPod ones just broke. The Sennheisers sound much better. :thumbup:

I got a 30gig iPod video for Christmas a year ago. I'm not a diehard music lover, I just listen for fun. Sound quality is fine. It's my first mp3 so I have no base of comparison, but I'm alright with it. iPod is probably trusting that people like me won't notice any sound quality difference. But frankly I don't care for the quality, as long as it sounds like the original and I can hear everything as it's supposed to hear.

lol this thread is complaining about an mp3 player