Using iPod with home stereo

[Big Ed]

Recently upgraded my home stereo, and moved the "old" one to my den/workout room. I didn't buy a second CD changer, so i figured I'd just hook up the iPod for tunes on this system. I bought a 3.5mm to RCA jack to wire it up, there you go.

Except, it sounds like crap. The high end seems clipped off, reminds me a bit of listening to cassettes in the 80's using Dolby C noise reduction. Do you think this is a result of the compression of the data to fit on an iPod, or should I get another cable?

I'm so disappointed.

[Dave L]

I regularly use my Ipod though a dock on my home stereo (B&W DM602 speakers) and I have no sound complaints. Be sure the EQ on the ipod is set to off. I rip my music at 192kbps but have lots in the standard Itunes 128kbps. For a cable I have a cheap $10 Maxell cable that seems to work fine. I would try adjusting a few settings as it should work just fine.

Once you have it sorted out you might want to get a dock as this will give you IR so you can use a remote. I control mine with a Harmony which does my whole system as well.

[911teo]

I have the same problems.

I put it through a Proton pre, Krell Power ampli and Martin Logan speakers and it's just so bad...

But then again I spent a long time in finding the "right" CD player....

I guess you trade quality vs easy access to you music collection. I use it when the kids are around. When I want to listen to some music I fetch the CD and put it into my Krell KAV 300CD.

[gassy]

Buy the best cable you can--that helped my sound a lot but I'm not really an audiophile.

[gr8fl4porsche]

Do not use the headphone jack as output. It is made for headphones - thus the name.

Use the line-out at the bottom. You should notice the difference.

BestBuy carries a cheap chinese docking station under the Dynex brand that works well for me.
It cradles the pod, charges it, has a remote and uses line-out. Not bad for $50. $30 w/o the remote.

As mentioned, turn off the EQ.

Lots of .mp3's are flat because they are ripped with too low of a bitrate. All the top and bottom frequencies are removed to make the file small.

[Big Ed]

Originally Posted by gr8fl4porsche

Lots of .mp3's are flat because they are ripped with too low of a bitrate. All the top and bottom frequencies are removed to make the file small.

How do I know what bitrate mine are? I imported all my CD's using iTunes, and don't recall a choice of bitrates ever. God help me if I have to do THAT again.

[gr8fl4porsche]

In itunes, you can set the options or preferences on the quality of the rip. By default it will rip at 128kbps. You can set it to rip at whatever you want but itunes will still not be of the best quality. If it comes upon a defect in the source material, ie a scratch in the disc, it will just keep on going. Then you will get crackles or skips/pops in the sound.

Do some research on high quality cd ripping for ipods and you will come across a wealth of information. I use a program called Exact Audio Copy to do my ripping. It will read the disc about 100 times trying to get a perfect digital copy before it tells you it cannot read it correctly.

To tell the bitrate, simply hold your cursor over the song file while in windows explorer and all the info on the track will pop up. It will tell you the album, track, artist, year, bitrate, filesize, etc.

[911teo]

Randy

how is the Ipod as a reader?

I spend months in choosing my CD player and it was not cheap. I am inclined to think (maybe wrongly) that no matter how good digital data you feed it it will spit out relatively flat music.

It would be much better if you could somehow get the digital signal out and have the CD player/Amplifier/Minidisc whatever perform as a DAC unit.

[gr8fl4porsche]

I think if you get a good clean rip, do not compress such as .mp3, use the line out at the bottom of the pod, then you are probably in the same sound quality as a lower line cd player. Maybe the $99-$159 range of cd players. I have done some testing on my home equipment and while the pod does not sound near as good as a cd played over the system, it is not bad.

Actually the sound is very good considering the benefits of the portable music player.
The unit will store, organize, catalog, self power and play back music over a home stereo, car stereo and even while walking down the street. All for less than a few hundred bucks. Even lets you store and play back a movie while sitting on an airplane.

Try to get those benefits with a $30,000 audiophile system.

Considering what it is and what it is designed to be used for - quite impressive.

Ever try to carry your entire music collection to a friends house for a party? I do all the time in my front pocket.

[nostatic]

By default it likely rips at 128kbps AAC. That will sound as good or better than higher bitrate mp3.

I've discovered the total trick setup though - AirportExpress and Airtunes.

I use an AirportExpress as my wireless router in my apartment. It has a 3.5mm jack (analog *or* digital - very cool) that you can connect to your stereo. Viola...stream your iTunes library on your computer to your stereo. And the best part is that it converts to Apple lossless for the stream, so there is no quality degreadation. And if you rip in a lossless format, you stream 44.1khz/16bit quality sound to the stereo.

Not sure if Airtunes is Mac-only though...don't know if the windows version will do that.

[nostatic]

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/505apple/index.html

And note that you don't need to spend $40 for a Monster Audio cable set. You can get a 3.5mm-toslink cable from Monoprice for under $4

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10229&cs_id=1022902&p_id=1556&seq=1&format=2

[daepp]

I had the same problem but using the Dynex with the bottom line out. I find the sound quality is much better if:

1) EQ is off
2) Raise volume on the dock substantially
3) Set volume on amp as desired.

I would have assumed that the reversal of 2) and 3) would have been the ticket, but not so!

YMMV!

[cairns]

When at home I use the airport when I want to hear stuff I've downloaded. I do use the monster cable set when on travel (we usually rent a house with a stereo) and plug the ipod into an auxilary input. But nostatic is correct you don't need the monster set.

It should sound pretty good no matter what the bit rate is. If not, and presuming your ipod sounds fine on headphones, you've got either a cable problem or an input (pre amp) problem. Try switching to other inputs and if that doesn't do it get new cables.

[gr8fl4porsche]

You are correct that itunes uses aac by default - I forgot about that. I have read several test studies that challenge the belief that aac is near cd quality and sounds better than a properly endoded mp3. 128 acc vs 128 mp3 will most likely give the nod to acc but at higher bitrates, I would go with mp3.

I use EAC to rip, then compress using LAME set at 320kbps constant bitrate when making small files. To digitalize an entire cd collection - forget the mp3 or acc and just leave it in wav format.
Big hard drives are getting cheap.

[tchanson]

Originally Posted by nostatic

I've discovered the total trick setup though - AirportExpress and Airtunes.


Not sure if AirTunes is Mac-only though...don't know if the windows version will do that.

True that. AE/AirTunes works fine with PC's although Apple's instructions for synching it with a non-AirPort router are quite worthless. Once I tossed the a Apple instructions and did a little research, I plugged it in directly to my Netgear Draft N Router to sync, it worked beautifully.

The AirPort Express/AirTunes connects directly to an NAD processor in my main system, and sounds wonderful. I would highly recommend using only the digital connection, not the supplied analog.

I hardly ever touch a CD anymore other than to import it into iTunes, and can then listen to that library, along with the vast array of iTunes radio and podcasts on the main system from any PC or laptop in the house via the iTunes library sharing function.

The Airport Express/Air Tunes is the only way to go, in my opinion.




Tim

[911teo]

Originally Posted by gr8fl4porsche

I think if you get a good clean rip, do not compress such as .mp3, use the line out at the bottom of the pod, then you are probably in the same sound quality as a lower line cd player. Maybe the $99-$159 range of cd players. I have done some testing on my home equipment and while the pod does not sound near as good as a cd played over the system, it is not bad.

Actually the sound is very good considering the benefits of the portable music player.
The unit will store, organize, catalog, self power and play back music over a home stereo, car stereo and even while walking down the street. All for less than a few hundred bucks. Even lets you store and play back a movie while sitting on an airplane.

Try to get those benefits with a $30,000 audiophile system.

Considering what it is and what it is designed to be used for - quite impressive.

Ever try to carry your entire music collection to a friends house for a party? I do all the time in my front pocket.

I totally agree with you. The advantages are quite incredible.

And this is why I started using the Ipod to play back music when in a "I just want to listen to something and can't be bothered to find the right CD" mode.

I am in now way trying to diss the Ipod. I think it's great.

Just trying to improve (if possible) the quality of the playback.


Treat me like a 2 year old....
Do I need to re-rip all the CDs (now are on Itunes) with a different software?
If so which one?
After all the music is stored on a HD (which format?) how do I transfer it to the Ipod?

Thanks and sorry for being so lame...

[89911]

Welcome to the limits of MP3's. I have recorded the majority of borrowed CD's using "Lossless" settings from Apple. Every one that I own, I use 320. For almost every application (computer use, light background music, personal stereo), this is more then adequate. If I directly install this into my high end personal theater set up using my high powered Onkyo and powered Definitive Technology speakers, that is where the listening experience suffers. Anything less then 320 sounds clipped and has an "aural" sound to it (hard to explain, like the recordings where made in a room with poor acoustics) The CD's still sound great.

[gr8fl4porsche]

911teo,

If you are unhappy with the current sound quality then re-ripping may be required.

First you should do some checking to see if you can hear the difference.

1. Get a dock or cradle adapter and run the sound from the bottom of the pod.
2. Turn off the EQ on the pod.

Does this help? If not - proceed.

3. You will want to do some sampling. The best way is to rip a cd and put it on the pod a second time. You will need to name the album something a little different to allow the pod to accept the same thing twice. You will have to edit the tags to accomplish this.

4. To keep it simple, set the options on itunes to rip and compress into .mp3 at 320kbps constant bit rate. Your file sizes will increase.

5. Play the same 2 tracks which are ripped differently back to back over the stereo to see if you can hear the difference.

Let us know how it works out.

[Freybird]

Thanks for posting this! I'm throwing a dinner party on Saturday and will be connecting my Bose 901's to my Ipod for entertainment. This thread will be quite handy.

[Big Ed]

Thanks everyone, lots of good input here. I had ripped all my 400+ CDs in at 128kbps, and at the higher bitrate, the couple I tested sound noticably better. So now, I'll go through the hours and hours involved to update my catalog.

Another question -- I usually import discs in my office, as I'm doing other stuff. (I'm self employed, before someone says something). But looking down the road, I may want all my catalog on my home pc and use a setup like Todd has suggested. Is it possible to use the iPod to update iTunes for all the content ripped on another machine? I can't seem to figure this out.

Thanks again!