Natural Science Forum / Physics / Acoustics / August 2006

On 15-08-06 16:37, in article
1155652677.924422.109560@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com, "Kevin T"
<kgtracy@gmail.com> wrote:

Thinking reasonable I would forget about distortions and noises coming
directly from the iPod, because they virtually don't exist: you've got
battery power (clean current), no mechanical parts inside (no rattles, hums,
sound vibrations). In terms of the audio quality of whole audio chain inside
can be compared to medium-class portable CD player. Of course there's
question regarding quality of D/A converters inside but I don't think it's
very significant factor.

Most of the distortions are coming from crappy earphones in that case,
because it's simply the weakest part. Unfortunately no one invented better
electrical-mechanical-acoustic converter so far...

And of course we're talking about excellent audio material, either
compressed or - even better - lossless.

Because we passed some limits in that case and most of us feel that. BTW I
hope you've read the conclusions John Atkinson wrote in article from
Stereophile which Angelo, have you?

" 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."