I just noticed the very striking difference between my Ipod and my son's old CD player when the battery on the Ipod gave out and I switched to playing the same CD on my son's old portable CD player. What a difference in sound quality between the portable CD player and either the Ipod or listening on headphones on the computer--even playing the same CD. It almost sounds like it did when I could blast CDs on my awesome old stereo speakers in my old apartment--before I moved and can't do that any more. Any audiophile have an explanation for the difference in sound quality?

Additonal note: just played a CD copied from a download and don't hear the same quality of sound as I do from an original CD purchased from a store. Although this was an inferior MP3, the difference is striking. Would I have better results copying Flac files on CD and playing them on this CD player? Or would they play at all, I wonder...

[Edited 12/17/14 23:55pm]

There could be at least two things at play here:

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1) The files you're playing back in the iPod have been converted to mp3 or some other compressed format (to save disc space). This degrades the quality and the degree of degradation depends on how much you choose to compress (or how much space you want to save).

How did the files get onto the iPod? Did you rip the CD through iTunes?

There's a simple way to rule out #1, and that is to check the format of the files on the iPod.

2) The Digital to Analogue converter (otherwise known as the D/A) of the old CD player is of a higher quality than the iPods.

Digital to Analogue conversion needs to take place anytime music is stored in digital format, which is true on both a CD and an iPod. These come in varying qualities. Audiofiles and recording can spend ALOT of money on a good D/A.

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I will add in a third variable...

3) The files on the iPod may have come from a completely different source. ie they may have been a remixed or remastered version of the album that was downloaded from the internet which has nothing in common with the digital files on your CD version.

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The only way to be sure you're playing the exact same mixes/masters is to rip the album from your CD to your iTunes, making sure that the iTunes import settings are set to WAV, and then loading those onto the iPod to compare again to the CD.

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Hope that makes some kind of sense!

nd33 said:

There could be at least two things at play here:

.

1) The files you're playing back in the iPod have been converted to mp3 or some other compressed format (to save disc space). This degrades the quality and the degree of degradation depends on how much you choose to compress (or how much space you want to save).

How did the files get onto the iPod? Did you rip the CD through iTunes?

There's a simple way to rule out #1, and that is to check the format of the files on the iPod.

2) The Digital to Analogue converter (otherwise known as the D/A) of the old CD player is of a higher quality than the iPods.

Digital to Analogue conversion needs to take place anytime music is stored in digital format, which is true on both a CD and an iPod. These come in varying qualities. Audiofiles and recording can spend ALOT of money on a good D/A.

.

I will add in a third variable...

3) The files on the iPod may have come from a completely different source. ie they may have been a remixed or remastered version of the album that was downloaded from the internet which has nothing in common with the digital files on your CD version.

.

The only way to be sure you're playing the exact same mixes/masters is to rip the album from your CD to your iTunes, making sure that the iTunes import settings are set to WAV, and then loading those onto the iPod to compare again to the CD.

.

Hope that makes some kind of sense!

I didn't know you could convert files to WAV. Now, keep in mind I have an ancient Ipod that I bought second-hand on Ebay 7 or 8 years ago, and for some reason it still works with the original battery. Can I convert files with a classic Ipod (not a touch Ipod) and how could I do this, if possible? I have never bought anything from Itunes and most of the music on this Ipod was sourced from physical CDs that I have. But, I do have a few downloaded MP3s on this old Ipod--is it possible to convert to WAV with these--or do I need to buy an Ipod touch or a newer version of the old Ipod classic. BTW thanks for your response!

You can't regain any sound quality advantage by reconverting files back to WAV if they've already been compressed into a lesser quality format (another term for that is "lossy format").

.

Basically, once you've compressed a music file into a lossy format, you have indeed forever lost the extra detail that the music once had.

.

You'd need to start again by importing the CD into iTunes, making sure your import setting is set to WAV. Alternatively, you could also set the import setting to Apple Lossless, which is a compressed format that doesn't lose any detail and plays back identical to WAV (but save space, although not as much as lossy formats like mp3), but I'm not sure whether your older iPod would be able to play Apple Lossless format...the older iPods could definitely play WAV as I had one from around 2004 that I used to play WAV's on.

nd33 said:

You can't regain any sound quality advantage by reconverting files back to WAV if they've already been compressed into a lesser quality format (another term for that is "lossy format").

.

Basically, once you've compressed a music file into a lossy format, you have indeed forever lost the extra detail that the music once had.

.

You'd need to start again by importing the CD into iTunes, making sure your import setting is set to WAV. Alternatively, you could also set the import setting to Apple Lossless, which is a compressed format that doesn't lose any detail and plays back identical to WAV (but save space, although not as much as lossy formats like mp3), but I'm not sure whether your older iPod would be able to play Apple Lossless format...the older iPods could definitely play WAV as I had one from around 2004 that I used to play WAV's on.

Thanks for the info--I'll try to find WAV settings for this older Ipod. Didn't know that.

purplethunder3121 said:

nd33 said:

You can't regain any sound quality advantage by reconverting files back to WAV if they've already been compressed into a lesser quality format (another term for that is "lossy format").

.

Basically, once you've compressed a music file into a lossy format, you have indeed forever lost the extra detail that the music once had.

.

You'd need to start again by importing the CD into iTunes, making sure your import setting is set to WAV. Alternatively, you could also set the import setting to Apple Lossless, which is a compressed format that doesn't lose any detail and plays back identical to WAV (but save space, although not as much as lossy formats like mp3), but I'm not sure whether your older iPod would be able to play Apple Lossless format...the older iPods could definitely play WAV as I had one from around 2004 that I used to play WAV's on.

Thanks for the info--I'll try to find WAV settings for this older Ipod. Didn't know that.

.

There are no WAV settings for the iPod itself. It will play any compatible file type you dump on it (WAV, Apple Lossless, AAC, mp3).

.

Also, I thought I'd mention that mp3's can be of very good quality at 256kb and higher...at 320kb it's debatable whether humans can detect the difference between it and WAV. But once again, they need to be set at the higher quality bit rate from the start when first ripping from CD, you can't increase the quality of a 128kb mp3 by converting it to 320kb.

.

Now that hard drives are quite big, I've always got my import settings on Apple Lossless whenever ripping a CD. It's exactly the same quality as WAV (hence the "lossless") but only uses half the space.

.

I think it's just a matter of time before Apple changes the format of albums they sell on their store to lossless. File space and download time of such large files was a big issue 10 years ago, but not in 2014.

.

nd33 said:

purplethunder3121 said:

Thanks for the info--I'll try to find WAV settings for this older Ipod. Didn't know that.

.

There are no WAV settings for the iPod itself. It will play any compatible file type you dump on it (WAV, Apple Lossless, AAC, mp3).

.

Also, I thought I'd mention that mp3's can be of very good quality at 256kb and higher...at 320kb it's debatable whether humans can detect the difference between it and WAV. But once again, they need to be set at the higher quality bit rate from the start when first ripping from CD, you can't increase the quality of a 128kb mp3 by converting it to 320kb.

.

Now that hard drives are quite big, I've always got my import settings on Apple Lossless whenever ripping a CD. It's exactly the same quality as WAV (hence the "lossless") but only uses half the space.

.

I think it's just a matter of time before Apple changes the format of albums they sell on their store to lossless. File space and download time of such large files was a big issue 10 years ago, but not in 2014.

.

Which is about the date of this Ipod. Thanks again for the info.

Because the younger generation has ruined EVERYTHING.

purplethunder3121 said:

I just noticed the very striking difference between my Ipod and my son's old CD player when the battery on the Ipod gave out and I switched to playing the same CD on my son's old portable CD player. What a difference in sound quality between the portable CD player and either the Ipod or listening on headphones on the computer--even playing the same CD. It almost sounds like it did when I could blast CDs on my awesome old stereo speakers in my old apartment--before I moved and can't do that any more. Any audiophile have an explanation for the difference in sound quality?

Additonal note: just played a CD copied from a download and don't hear the same quality of sound as I do from an original CD purchased from a store. Although this was an inferior MP3, the difference is striking. Would I have better results copying Flac files on CD and playing them on this CD player? Or would they play at all, I wonder...

[Edited 12/17/14 23:55pm]

Because everything sounds better on the Batman CD player

Though for the best IPOD quality choose the Bat IPOD

Nothing beats this...

kpowers said:

purplethunder3121 said:

kpowers said:

PurpleJedi said:

kpowers said:

purplethunder3121 said:

purplethunder3121 said:

kpowers said:

kpowers said:

purplethunder3121 said:

purplethunder3121 said:

kpowers said:

kpowers said:

purplethunder3121 said:

purplethunder3121 said:

kpowers said: