sound quality, ipod vs. cowon vs. creative vs. iRiver
pchemist -- Sat, 11/25/2006 - 17:16
In the January 2005 issue of AVGuide Monthly, Jerry Sommers compared the sound quality of the ipod 40GB (G4?), Dell DJ20GB, and iRiver H340 40 GB. Principally because the ipod was the only one that allowed for lossless encoding, Mr. Sommers ranked it #1 for sound quality. But today things have changed -- lossless encoding is available not only for the ipod and ipod nano, but also for players from Cowon, Creative, and iRiver. I'd love for Mr. Sommers to revisit this topic , but in the meantime I'd like to know if anyone on this forum has had the opportunity to do a direct and serious audiophile comparison of the sound quality of any of the these players (using identical headphones and identical lossless audio tracks).
User reviews on the internet indicate that the Cowon is supposed to have the best sound quality within the group (and some also put the Creative and iRiver ahead of the ipod), but I don't know how much credence to lend them. As an audiophile, I know that what makes something sound better to many people often represents lower fidelity rather than higher (e.g., boosted highs and a boomy bass). I'm hoping that by posting this question on this forum, I'm more likely to get a response from someone like myself. [If it's helpful, my principal interest is in a player that gets the midrange right -- full but not dark, and detailed/open but not bright or strident; I'm willing to give up some bass power and extension in exchange for tightness.] [Delicate, extentend highs would also be nice, if its not too much to ask!]
Thanks in advance!
Which Cowon, Creative and iRiver?
Honestly, I'd be happy to hear if anyone has done a comparison (of the type I described) between the ipod or ipod nano and *any* of tbe Cowon, iRiver, or Creative players that offer lossless encoding capability. That's why I didn't limit my request to specific models.
Cowon offers FLAC lossless encoding on several models, but I can't find a Creative or iRiver that offers FLAC. WMA, which is offered by Creative and iRiver, has a lossless scheme, but most players that support WMA can't do the bit rate needed for WMA lossless.
News at 11 on the Cowon.
Thanks for the clarification -- since the iRiver and Creative support WMA, I assumed they support lossless; but as you explained, in practice that's not enough if they don't also support the needed bit rates.
So at this point my question perhaps reduces to how the flac-capable Cowon players compare to the ipod and ipod nano.
According to http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0703/midmonth/bestportab..., some of the older *portable CD players* can sound quite good, particularly the Sony D25 (c. ~1989). I used to own an old Magnavox portable CD player, and if memory serves it sounded quite a bit better than the same song encoded at 320 kbs and played on my 1G ipod shuffle. As the shuffle does not do lossless, and as I no longer have the Magnavox, I can't do the apples-to-apples comparison -- but I suspect that if I compared my Magnavox to an ipod using lossless, the former would sound better.
So I suppose for me the bottom line is that I'd like to find a portable HD-based or flash-based music player that, when using lossless compression, approaches the quality that used to be available from the best portable CD players.
What headphones are you using?
Ah, that gets us into a whole new ball of wax :). I'm also currently trying to decide on the best headphones to use with a portable. Currently, I have the Sennheiser MX500 earbuds, which are merely adequate. [I also have a pair of Stax electrostatics, but these are strictly for home use, as they require an amplifier -- and as you know, this doesn't mean a headphone amplifier, but rather an honest-to-goodness loudspeaker amplifier.]
I'm basically interested in having two sets of good headphones for my portable: one for exercise, and one for just sitting around in my office.
For the latter, I just backordered a pair of AKG501's (at the great price of $99), which can be used with a portable if you also employ a headphone amp. [I tried the Sennhesiers, and found them uncomfortably tight. Also, none of the Senns that can be had in the ~$100 price range sounded good to me; the 280s were thick and closed-in in the vocals, the 555's sounded grainy, and the 590s (the best of the three) were thin through the mids.]
For the former (exercising), I'm trying to decide whether I want to go earcanal (in which case the top candidates, in ascending order of price, are the Etymonic ER6i, UE Superfi 5, and Shure E4c), or earbud (in which case I might consider the B&O A8 ).
Tying this all back into my original question, the folks at headroom.com tell me that the best way to get good sound out of an ipod is to use a portable docking device in combination with a headphone amp. According to them, the docking device takes the line-out from the ipod, thus bypassing the lower-quality op amps in the ipod. Of course, a cleaner solution -- and indeed what motivated my original question -- would be to find a portable that already came with high-quality analog output circuitry. [Indeed, it's likely the quality of its analog output circuitry that made the Sony D25 portable CD player sound so good; I assume that the digital stages of a 2006 ipod, including its D/A converters, should be superior to those in a c. 1989 CD player.]
tmartin wrote:Cowon offers FLAC lossless encoding on several models, but I can't find a Creative or iRiver that offers FLAC. WMA, which is offered by Creative and iRiver, has a lossless scheme, but most players that support WMA can't do the bit rate needed for WMA lossless.
According to http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html, the iRiver iHP-120/iHP-140/H320/H340 (as well as the ipod) support the FLAC format via the free (open source) Rockbox firmware replacement.
Also, if you have a 4G ipod and are willing to spend $200 and lose the headphone output (which thus restricts you to using an external amp with a volume control), redwine audio will modify the analog output circuitry in a way that is supposed to significantly improve the sound quality (http://www.redwineaudio.com/iMod.html). Sounds a bit involved to me.
Yes, a bit involved!
I want to use my iPod to store music currently on CD's, and then rout the signal from the earphone jack to an input jack on my stereo. Will the sound quality from the iPod be as good as from a standard (e.g. Sony 5 disk carousel) department store CD player?
That depends on a few things. First, if you want to equal your Sony, you need to store the CDs on the iPod in lossless format. Second, there is the question of how the Sony carousel changer's D/A converter compares with the iPod's D/A. That depends on which Sony and which iPod. Since you have all the equipment, why not just try a few discs?
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