Is Apple tuning out audiophiles? or is Michael Hiltzik an idiot?

[Acer]

blooz wrote:
I knew a guy years ago who had a basement room with classical music albums on packed shelves which went across a long wall. he had big speakers placed strategically for him to get the best sound where he sat and an audio equalizer built into the wall by his sofa.

That was an audiophile.

What? No toilet built into the chair so he did not have to interrupt a movement?

Pfffft. Pretender.

[Will Collier]

"Audiophile" is a poorly-chosen word here in any case. I can sympathize with the desire to have much more capacity than an iPhone/Touch (although not enough to want to lug around another device), but that's still not an "audiophile" complaint, it's an avid music-fan complaint.

The two are not synonymous. An audiophile would bitch about the sound quality; an avid music fan would want more capacity.

[Carnos Jax]

M A V I C wrote: Real audiophiles never liked the iPod anyway because of its crappy DAC (so I've been told, anyway.)

Wow, and I had the impression from reading around (which may be wrong) that Apple had good (audiophile level) DAC's.

I am hoping that as the Touch evolves it'll acquire more memory. My brother is picky about his music and stores it in an uncompressed or lossless format.

[RAMd®d]

Wow, and I had the impression from reading around (which may be wrong) that Apple had good (audiophile level) DAC's.



The iPod's measured behavior is better than many CD players—ironic, considering that most of the time it will be used to play MP3 and AAC files, which will not immediately benefit from such good performance. But if you're willing to trade off maximum playing time against the ability to play uncompressed AIFF or WAV files, the iPod will do an excellent job of decoding them. Excellent, cost-effective audio engineering from an unexpected source.—John Atkinson

Apple does use good DACs. Great, maybe not. Steller, no.

Some audiophiles may call them crappy, but I'd take them with a pound of Leslie's Iodized. There is a HUGE market in the "audiophile" world for external DACs. Apple's OEM gear will not measure up to any of that. Nor will most most of Denon's, Yamaha's, or any other consumer based product.

Read a few issues of Stereophile and you'll see there is always somebody who will find fault with anybody's OEM circuitry. That is the nature of the "audiophile".

Many if not most of those who lay claim to that title lack the ears to support said claim.

Others don't banish objectivity in pursuing their love of music.

[davester]

What Ramd@d said. There have been quite a few tests of iPod DACs and all the ones I've seen indicated that quality is better than most of the other portable player DACs and that you have to buy very expensive "audiophile-grade" DACs to do much better.

I don't get what what4 is getting at. The iPod is capable of cataloging and playing albums and playlists that you set up and can store and read quite a few different formats, with a range from severe compression to completely lossless. What else would you want? I've bought very few tunes from the iTunes music store and it hasn't been an issue for me.

[Silencio]

I too have no clue about what4 is complaining about.

Do you not realize that the iPod and iTunes predate the iTunes Store by a good number of years? The only way to get music onto an iPod for quite some time was to rip your CDs yourself (or "borrow" MP3/AAC files from others).

And how is dragging and dropping folders of music onto an iPod from the Finder less awkward than using iTunes to manage your music and your iPod? Using iTunes is much easier, much more consistent, and offers much less of an opportunity for users to screw things up. Add music to iTunes library, drag music onto iPod in sidebar of iTunes. How hard is that?

What exactly are the "irritating omissions" for people who listen to audiobooks or rip their own audio? I'm not a big fan of the built-in encoder in iTunes, so I use XLD to do my rips, and it puts the results straight into my iTunes library.

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M A V I C wrote:
Real audiophiles never liked the iPod anyway because of its crappy DAC (so I've been told, anyway.)

You've been listening to uninformed people. Real reviews by professional reviewers attest to the exact opposite. A few of examples:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1772280,00.asp
"From 30 Hz on up, the iPod mini is in full control, reproducing sound cleanly and accurately right up through the limits of human hearing. Unlike some other players, the iPod mini remains largely clean with EQ on, and what increased harmonic distortion we did see was well within acceptable limits. We measured less than 0.1 percent distortion on both channels."

http://www.techradar.com/news/audio/port...ers-159251
"...according to AVI mogul Ashley James who spoke to Tech.co.uk last week. James said that although Apple products like Mac minis and iPods are slightly hard-sounding, they are still more pleasurable to listen to than some high-end CD players."

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsource...index.html
"... even with the noise overlaying the plots, the iPod's behavior suggested good DAC performance on these tests... I used the Miller Audio Research Jitter Analyzer to look for word-clock jitter...The overall result is superbly low, at 225 picoseconds peak-peak...The iPod's measured behavior is better than many CD players...Excellent, cost-effective audio engineering from an unexpected source."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10354314-27.html
"... the new iPod Touch is the best-sounding MP3 player I've ever heard, comparing favorably with a decent CD player"

http://www.machrone.net/mt/archives/2010..._nano.html
"In terms of overall frequency response and lack of distortion, it's right up there with the very best players...The overall sound is open and spacious...amplification is very accurate across the spectrum... I found the nano to be utterly enjoyable with flat EQ,"

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DRR wrote:
The DAC is a good one (again, for a portable device) but once you start compressing the signal you're going to lose quality. Still, 320kbps AAC preserves probably 95%+ of lossless quality, and to even get close to achieving that you're going to need studio monitor headphones anyway.

iPods supports AIFF, WAV, and Apple Lossless, all of which are uncompressed formats.

And, as you'll see above, most iPods have DACs that are comparable to or better than those in even high-end CD players.

[Lew Zealand]

Simple answers:

• iPod DACs are generally better than their competitors.
• iPod DAC quality can be exceeded by external audiophile DACs which then use the iPod as a convenient music data storage device.
• Hiltzik is bemoaning Apple's apparent inattention towards increasing the data storage capability of the iPod on behalf of audiophiles and comes off as a whiner.
• His point will be moot as hard drive storage is surpassed by Flash RAM, but not for a couple of years.

Film at 11.

[Sam3]

I just wish the iPod would support ogg. It's an open format, and wouldn't cost Apple any sales, but maybe increase them as it would make the Linux crowd happy.