ipod photo sound quality

i'm been doing some research as i am considering getting a mp3 player. my brother has the ipod mini which is nice for the size but i want to hold more music and i am looking @ the 20 gig ipod photo. however i've been reading about some owners saying the ipod photo has worse sound quality than the non photo ipods. can this be verified by any users out there?? secondly is there any other mp3 players that are compatible with itunes?? i love the ipod's user interface and design which are TOP NOTCH as well as the integration with itunes but i am not really impressed with the sound quality so if there are other alternatives please recommend. BTW, i am not knocking the IPOD as i may still get one b/c i want to be able to use itunes with it.

Of every MP3 player I have ever dealt with, the iPod has definitely been my favorite. Granted, the price is obviously going to be higher, and you can nearly always get more GB with other brands for less money, but as far as using them every day, I love the iPod.

However, if I didn't have the money for an iPod, I wouldn't be horribly disappointed going with another brand. Other MP3 players are still going to be good machines and you can really find very reasonable, cheap prices for large amounts of space.

As far as sound quality from the photo, we have a 30GB photo, and I really do not notice a sound difference from my 20GB iPod [non-photo]. Good luck in whatever you decide, update your thread to whatever you decide on, especially if it's another brand, tell us how it is.

For the Money, and capabilities the ipod brings to the table, its a great deal. The iPod its self is a great a machine and produces near cd quality audio. BUT, the apple headphones that come with it... Are absolutly Horrible. you couldn't ask for anything worse. Their not even heavy enough to be a paperweight. there is no word that could possibly sum up my disapointment in these headphones. So trust me, The ipod is great but after go out and spend an extra 50 bucks on sum half decent headphones. You will be doing yourself a favour.

There's nothing wrong with the sound quality for the photo iPod, I've been testing the 60GB for some time because I plan to upgrade from my 20GB 3rd gen because I have run out of space for my music. From using it in the Apple store, the sound quality is just as good. I also used my own headphones to test it and compared the difference between a song that was on both iPods (an early Coldplay song i believe) the photo sounded a little off compared to mine but I was informed by a sales rep that it was only ripped at 128kbps where as I have mine ripped at 256kbps.

Computer.Geek said:

i'm been doing some research as i am considering getting a mp3 player. my brother has the ipod mini which is nice for the size but i want to hold more music and i am looking @ the 20 gig ipod photo. however i've been reading about some owners saying the ipod photo has worse sound quality than the non photo ipods. can this be verified by any users out there?? secondly is there any other mp3 players that are compatible with itunes?? i love the ipod's user interface and design which are TOP NOTCH as well as the integration with itunes but i am not really impressed with the sound quality so if there are other alternatives please recommend. BTW, i am not knocking the IPOD as i may still get one b/c i want to be able to use itunes with it.

Click to expand...

Not trying to be the devils advocate here...but consider the PSP as well. It can play MP3s, videos, and a whole lot more...

Redbrick said:

Not trying to be the devils advocate here...but consider the PSP as well. It can play MP3s, videos, and a whole lot more...

Click to expand...

Thats true but... it only accepts mp3s... nothing else. And you'll need to buy a memory stick to make it worth while. 256kbs!!! jesus man... U only need 192kbs bit rate. And by the way if you used the same song file for the 2 same coldplay songs. Then theres no way it could magicly change its bitrate. You either got totally lied to by a rep or u used 2 diff song files that were the same song or u re-ripped

only ipod is compatible with itunes.

Hey,

I've used the Shuffle, Mini, 40GB, and 30GB photo and they all sound great. Honestly, i think it's nearly impossible to hear the difference between them. As mentioned above, the headphone set is key for great sounding music.

vj

MacMan3.0 said:

Thats true but... it only accepts mp3s... nothing else. And you'll need to buy a memory stick to make it worth while. 256kbs!!! jesus man... U only need 192kbs bit rate. And by the way if you used the same song file for the 2 same coldplay songs. Then theres no way it could magicly change its bitrate. You either got totally lied to by a rep or u used 2 diff song files that were the same song or u re-ripped

Click to expand...

I used the same song, not the same song file. The song on my 3rd gen was ripped at 256kbps, the same song on the 60GB photo on display in the Apple store was ripped at the iTunes default of 128kbps, all I did was plugged my headphones into the photo iPod.

You may only need 192kbps as I once thought I did, but buy a quality set of speakers and headphones and you'll soon notice the difference. A lot of my music was previously ripped at 128kbps and 192kbps but after upgrading my speakers and headphones I had to re-rip my music at 256kbps to get the quality I wanted. I'd rather quality sounding songs rather than songs that took up less space.

PowerBookG4 said:

only ipod is compatible with itunes.

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Actually that's not quite true:
"iTunes 4 for Mac OS X: Compatible Players
Learn which digital music players and CD MP3 players you can use with iTunes 4 and Mac OS X.


iTunes 4 for Mac OS X has built-in support for digital music players and for CD MP3 players.

Notes
To play AAC and AAC Protected songs, your iPod must have iPod Software 1.3 or later installed. Not all digital music players can play AAC songs and only iPod can play AAC Protected songs.
Songs you import from an audio CD using the AAC format can be converted to MP3 files, which you can burn to MP3 CDs or play on third-party digital music players.
Songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store are encoded using the AAC Protected format and cannot be converted to MP3 format. You can burn them to audio CDs and play them in consumer audio CD players."

Digital Players Manufacturer Connection
iPod Apple FireWire / USB
Nomad II Creative Labs USB
Nomad II MG Creative Labs USB
Nomad II c Creative Labs USB
Nomad Jukebox Creative Labs USB
Nomad Jukebox 20GB Creative Labs USB
Nomad Jukebox C Creative Labs USB
Novad MuVo Creative Labs USB
Rio One SONICBlue/S3 USB
Rio 500 SONICBlue/S3 USB
Rio 600 SONICBlue/S3 USB
Rio 800 SONICBlue/S3 USB
Rio 900 SONICBlue/S3 USB
Rio S10 SONICBlue/S3 USB
Rio S11 SONICBlue/S3 USB
Rio S30S SONICBlue/S3 USB
Rio S35S SONICBlue/S3 USB
Rio S50 SONICBlue/S3 USB
Rio Chiba SONICBlue/S3 USB
Rio Fuse SONICBlue/S3 USB
Rio Cali SONICBlue/S3 USB
psa]play 60 Nike USB
psa]play 120 Nike USB
SoundSpace 2 Nakamichi USB

CD MP3 Players Manufacturer
RioVolt SP250 SONICBlue/S3
RioVolt SP100 SONICBlue/S3
RioVolt SP90 SONICBlue/S3



But these are nearly all older models of players that were out before the iPod was released.

I had a 40GB iPod Photo, but had sold it to get an iPod mini (just b/c I liked the size of the mini better). I never noticed any problems at all with the ipod photo's sound quality vs other MP3 players. The key is what file type and bitrate you import that music at.

I do believe that some people were complaining about Harddrive noise with the 1st Gen iPod Photos, but I never noticed it.