My iPod Rocks Through My Maggies!!

[JimOfOakCreek]

Now here's something to upset the audiophile purists! I bought a pigtail cable with a mini jack on one end and a pair of RCA plugs on the other off of eBay for a buck ninety-nine.

I use it to connect my iPod 4G to my Panny XR50 reciever. I just hook it up to the analog CD inputs. I think the high-quality of the sound thru my MMGs would surprise many of you. Plus it's nice having your entire music collection and half of the Public Library's on one device. I can make unbelievable playlists.

Since I use the digital-optical connection for my CDP, that leaves the analog CD inputs free for my iPod. The signal is not as strong as a CDP's so I have to turn the gain up on the reciever's volume control. One day I'll get a tube preamp for the iPod!

 

[Rip Van Woofer]

You naughty devil, you!

Speaking of iPods, this is hilarious:

http://erasing.org/i_ate_ipod_shuffle/

 

[JimOfOakCreek]

Heh...heh..heh..I never liked the taste of my iPod anyway!

 

[WmAx]

Now here's something to upset the audiophile purists! I bought a pigtail cable with a mini jack on one end and a pair of RCA plugs on the other off of eBay for a buck ninety-nine.

Stereophile presented a thorough analysis of an Ipod, using an AP analyzer. It did not demonstrate any behaviour that would cuase suspicion of it being non-transparent.

It seems the only limitation of sound quality will be the quality of the audio files you play back.

Note that this is considering relative high impedance load terminations, such as is representive of using the device as a source that is feeding an amplifier. However, an Ipod has been demonstrated to have certain non-linear behaviour, when forced to drive very low impedances, such as 25 ohms or lower, that may possibly be of sufficient magnitude to become audible.

-Chris

 

[JimOfOakCreek]

It seems the only limitation of sound quality will be the quality of the audio files you play back.
-Chris

Did they give any THD or other usefull numbers?

 

[WmAx]

Did they give any THD or other usefull numbers?

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/934/index5.html

-Chris

 

[JimOfOakCreek]

Thanks for the link. I enjoyed reading the article immensely. I have to display this quote from the Stereophile article: "The iPod's measured behavior is better than many CD players."

I didn't expect the iPod to be THAT good, although after listening for several months I can certainly agree! Another pleasent surprise. Isn't HiFi a GREAT hobby.

 

[jaxvon]

It's almost depressing to see how Stereophile can write awesome, objective stuff like that...and still hype $2000 cables. It's a strange world we live in.

On a side note, if you're thinking of using your iPod with Sennheiser headphones, make sure they aren't really high impedance. It gets barely up to good listening levels with my friends HD595s. Different story with my MDR-7506s though

 

[JimOfOakCreek]

I use Senn. PX100 phones, low impedence and awesome! However, I have been considering purchasing a headphone amp.

re: $2000 cables, I think Stereophile may be under pressure from their paid advertisers and also the stereophile shops. There's GOT to be a huge marke-up on those 'hi-end' cables. Hopefully one has enough common sense to see thru the BS.

 

[WmAx]

I use Senn. PX100 phones, low impedence and awesome! However, I have been considering purchasing a headphone amp.

r

Under many cases, a headphone amplifier is a wasted expenditure unless your portable device simply can not drive the headphones to a sufficient amplitude due to lack of insufficient output voltage. In some cases, the device may also have DC coupling capacitors that are of insufficient value to prevent serious bass rolloff into a low impedance, the same goes for the output stage electronics that may raise in distortion to audible levels under some circumstances.

I measure all of my headphone equipment, correlating the measurements with perceptual data, in order to insure that it behaves in a transparent or near-transparent manner. I suggest you measure the Ipod before deciding on a headphone amplifier accessory. You can contact me with the IM feature of the site, or e-mail me, if you don't know how to go about basic load terminated measurements of FR, THD and IMD.

-Chris

 

[WmAx]

It's almost depressing to see how Stereophile can write awesome, objective stuff like that...and still hype $2000 cables. It's a strange world we live in.

Stereophile has had extremely useful objective data on most reviewed products for years. You simply have to ignore the main subjective components of the reviews, and read only the testing/measurement components, which are clearly isolated from the subjective components of the reviews. However, I think that they need to start doing such reviews/measurements on equipment that people can actually purchase. Primarily, they review/measure hardware that is strictly classified as 'hi-end', as far as price is concerned. The IPOD review was a rare departure from their normal stuff.

-Chris