[QUOTE=Victor Van Dort]- Tony -, 7, Acharjay, A_Big_Fat_CoW, Cazor, Cool Matty, Dj Yoshi, DrkJedi82, Emon, Glyde Bane, Impi, JKTrezy, KnightRider2000, MFalse, Numenor King, quesadilla_red, Roach, Rob, Rogue Leader, SiliconC, TheJkWhoSaysNi, Vegiemaster, and Vincent Valentine have never owned an iPod. iPods rock.[/QUOTE]

I've used them too, and I can't tell you how nice it is to have something that doesn't have to install 2 gigs of malware to work right. Plug in, copy, paste, eject, and unplug, that simple.

No, you guys just have crazy sensitive ears :p I have pretty damn good hearing. I just can't hear the difference between my CD and my iPod. They both sound really crisp. Maybe you guys just use crap headphones with your ipods and good ones with your other mp3 players >.> <.<

"EYE OLNY LISTENZ TO MUSIK ATLEAST THAT EZ ATLEAZT 102498642024kbps!"

[QUOTE=Victor Van Dort]I love how people complain about the audio quality on iPods. The quality sounds just as good as if I was listening to the mp3 on my PC, or if I was listening to it right from the CD. I don't have freakishly overly sensitive ears like you people.[/QUOTE]

I own an iPod and know the audio quality isn't top-notch. Too much treble, not enough bass - and I'm usually a person who doesn't really care for bass so for me to find it lacking means the quality is a little shotty. However, it's nothing to make me doubt my purchase.

iPods have bass boost and all that good stuff you know right? You can adjust the music like WOAH! I just found out a few days ago after having my mini for a while that you can fiddle with the settings.

Ipods are far cooler and way more stylish. I would never be seen in public with a crappy off-brand like iRiver or whatever the hell it is.

edit: Also, I don't care about the audio quality. If I buy an mp3 player, it's to look cool, not to listen to music.

I have a Creative Zen Xtra, 30gb. My main gripe with it is the size, as it is much bigger than an iPod. Other than, I'm pretty pleased with it.

If I hook my iPod up to my surround sound... it sounds just fine. There's no problem with the bass... It's just your headphones.

Dell Digital Jukebox. Looks classier, and I like the interface a lot better.

[QUOTE=Victor Van Dort]I love how people complain about the audio quality on iPods. The quality sounds just as good as if I was listening to the mp3 on my PC, or if I was listening to it right from the CD. I don't have freakishly overly sensitive ears like you people.[/QUOTE]
Man has a point. Kinda.

What you people seem to ALWAYS forget is that these are PORTABLE MUSIC PLAYERS. If you want the best freaking sound available, stay at home and use your bloody stereo. I'm not saying you shouldn't get good sound out of a portable player, but for God's sake.... THINK. It's meant to go with you when ever you want it, not replace the damn stereo system. Convenience over quality.

What also gets me.... is how many of you go on and on and on about quality of music and how X codec is better than Y codec. How X bitrate is better than Y bitrate. And how X headphone is better than Y headphone. Now granted, all three can make a noticable difference, TO A POINT. But some of you act like there's only ONE true sound. That doesn't exist. It never has. What sounds beautiful to one person can be obnoxious and full or bass to someone else. Where does that place your perfect sound then? It certainly doesn't make it a fact that what you're listening to is the perfect audio. It DOES make it an OPINION (heaven forbid we have one of those here) that what you're listening to is the perfect audio.

Every person on the planet has a different set of ears. And every single person hears things slightly differently. There is no end all perfect audio solution as a result of that. Stop acting like there's one out there.

Oh, and you can mark me down for the iPod. I have a 512 Shuffle. I luffs it. Audio can sound rather flat, but it hardly bothers me. If I want the good stuff, I listen to it coming out of my Audigy through my Z640s.

What he said...

My iriver H10. I love it.

Well...I think phoenix solved that issue. I say, NAZIS! Argument over

Not really...at all. I can listen to 128 (though 192 is better, it's the highest I've heard with any difference at all.) The iPods have horrible DACs. Seriously, it's not just one of those little things--it's one of those big things. When you can pay the same price, or LESS for something that's better audio-wise (shut up Bill, it doesn't count if you get it for free) and has more features, why not? Why pay for the iPod if you're paying for inferior sound quality (that someone like me, who doesn't make a huge deal out of sound quality, can tell the difference on) with less features (I mean honestly, saying you don't need a radio is silly. It doesn't matter if you need it--it's an optional feature you don't have to pay for in the future if you ever want it.)?

I think it's alright if you already own an iPod--you don't need to go out and purchase a new DAP. But why buy an iPod if you can get more features/more storage/better audio quality for the same amount?

PS--I don't have oversensitive ears. And my headphones destroy my speakers audio-quality wise (technically...in reality I can't tell MUCH of a difference). And yet I still know the iPod has worse audio quality than most players. Odd, that.

Pheonix is...sort of correct. While most people's perceptions are subjective, there are very finite and very measurable charactaristics of audio quality that tell you how well they reproduce sound. The more accurate and neutral something reproduces sound, the better (to most people, not stupid audiophiles with Grado headphones and tube amps with 20 high voltage tubes in them).

The main reason why I wouldn't buy an iPod is for the lack of codec support. I use Ogg Vorbis. It provides a better quality:size ratio than MP3, period. It saves space. So that's what I've been encoding in, and I don't want to transcode (which degrades quality) just to conform to a trendy iPod when there are great alternatives available. Some of these alternatives often sport other features such as FM radio, increased battery life, better DACs and output stages for a higher quality output.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not some anti-Apple jackass. But nor will I simply hop onto the bandwagon and conform to what everone else uses, despite the fact that it doesn't fit my needs.

I think the sound quality argument is mainly based in price. It's the fact that other players do better for the same or less. If you had to pay three times an iPod to get slightly better output quality, no one would be making that argument. iPods are trendy devices driven by excellent marketing, they aren't targeted towards the enthusiast, which many of us are. So there's no suprise that they don't meet our requirements. And iPod users need not get defensive, that's just silly. Yeah, there are technically superior products out there, but that doesn't make your iPod any worse. Yeesh.

MY iriver H10 is GOOOOOD and towels are Good tO!!!

For starters, what is your "surround sound?" No offense, but if it's any HTIB it's probably a piece of junk anyway and will have totally exaggerated bass no matter WHAT signal you give it. Second of all, you're probably docking with the thing, which will be using the line-out available through the dock, not the headphone out, which is amplified and may have some bass rolloff.

[QUOTE=Victor Van Dort]iPods have bass boost and all that good stuff you know right? You can adjust the music like WOAH! I just found out a few days ago after having my mini for a while that you can fiddle with the settings.[/QUOTE]
You shouldn't have to equalize a source to get it to put out a decent amount of bass. Doing so may have cause distortion and other nasty effects anyway. I wouldn't be suprised if Apple cut corners with the iPod's output on purpose, because the stock buds have serious bass rolloff below 200 Hz anyway.

It is HTIB... but it's pretty nice. You can adjust the volume for each speaker... and it's also got a 12 band equalizer and support for DTS sound... so it definately does the trick. It's got fiber optic input and all that as well. It's got all the bells and whistles of a 3000 dollar reciever, but at much less the price.

Yamaha isn't Aperion Audio... but it isn't bad either.

EDIT: And the fact is, I use a Monster Cable composite audio from the headphone jack... I don't have anything else atm.

EDIT 2: And also, it works well enough for me to spend that extra cash on a bigger tv... so since I don't get any distortion unless I go at least 10 dB over equalized, I'm cool with it.

Bells and whistles do not equate to quality sound. You can have all the gadgets you want, if the drivers are still ****, it'll sound like **** (just saying).

The only decent HTiB setup I'm familiar with is the Athena Micra 6, which doesn't even have a reciever. So I guess it's not really an HTiB.

Trust me. I have heard crappy htib... this is not crappy.

So, after skimming through some posts where not only does SAJN ignore that some of us actually have used iPods and still don't prefer them (*gasp*!) but we go on to "Oh teh nos! teh r teh portible muzak playrz so liek kwality dosn't madder!" and suddenly people agree? I'm sorry, I realize the iPod has "bass boost and all that good stuff" but my iRiver has custom EQ settings, as well as the ability to play just about anything I throw on it, an FM radio, and a recorder, all at a cheaper price than an iPod with similar storage. ****, you guys have opened my eyes and made me realize how foolish I was for sticking with it over the ever-so-trendy iPod. Thank you all.

Glad to help, Roach.

I tried both the iRIver H10 and the Zen Micro and I have to say I prefer the nano still.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]But why buy an iPod if you can get more features/more storage/better audio quality for the same amount?[/QUOTE]

The iPod has features that people want. As I said before, my car stereo has an add-on kit that allows me to directly interface with the iPod - I plug it, shove the iPod somewhere out of the way, and use the stereo to scan through and play my music. With any other MP3 player, I'd have to simply get a player with auxiliary input, and use the MP3 player itself to play the music.

As it's been stated, the difference in audio quality is a moot point for a lot of people. For a lot of us, we can't tell the difference. Perhaps the best way to label this is, "Ignorance is bliss."

The iPod is simple and easy to use. It was designed for English and Philosophy majors, those one-touch-screw-up-the-computer types. I enjoy its simplicity.

(As for features like FM radio...well, there's a reason I bought an MP3 player, and that was so that I'd never have to listen to radio again)

I wholeheartedly agree.

To be honest, I pick a playlist, stick it in my pocket and let it play music. When I bought it, there was nothing as good on the market at just doing the job. Everything else tried to beat the ipod on features that I just didn't want. Like FM.

But that's just me.

And me.

Et moi, aussi.

<3!

For me it isn't about audio quality, but about price and the convenience of not having to reencode my music. I've got oggs, mp3s, wmas, mpcs or whatever I get from my friends. I don't want to bother with having to reencode everything.
Granted, atm I just use my cell phone, which has crappy quality, can only play mp3 and has some weird way of sorting the files.
But if I went out of my way to go and buy a music player I will choose it based on price, storage capacity and what file formats it can play.

Honestly guys, you act like you're just spending 300 dollars and it's nothing. It's three hundred dollars. I want the best value for my money. That's three hundred dollars of value.

Well you know I spent £1200 on my mac having very little prior experience with them - the £220 I spent on my iPod was at the time the result of me working really hard at my old job (it'll be worth it, I can buy an iPod...). It was what I wanted - and like I said before, there was nothing on the market that did exactly what I wanted like my iPod did.

Have you seen/used the iRiver H3** line? Have you seen/used the iAudio X5 or X5L? Point is--most people are ignorant and blow 300 dollars on crap that is much worse than the alternatives. There are very few scenarios I could see justification of buying an iPod over other brands--the main one being that you use iTunes exclusively for music downloading.

That makes perfect sense. Everyone knows iPods make you look "cool".

i owned the first mp3 player i saw came on the market
it is a creative muvo 128 mb and that was sweet it was top of the line in its time
i loved it cas it worked on so many media players or you could just drag and drop and it accepted any format i tried
though it was early days, but i was content with that for a while

recently i bought an i audio
well i really like it, the sound is really great
though i can see why its not number one,
its just its not very user friendly
apple is very user friendly
and so is the ipod, my new mp3 player has more features its just it took a day or two to figure all of it out and i am still figuring it out
so i think thats why they are going to lose on a selling point.

personally
i would rather use something that has more choice as opposed to user friendly
but that is my oppinion and if all you need is something that does the job and that you have heard does the job from your colleagues or whoeever then good on you.
it makes sense, i am just a little bit of a music enthusiast to say the least

but yah the sound quality to me sounds quite inferior(i borrowed my mates mini for a month or two)...

The one advantage the iPod has over any other player I've used is the clickwheel. I love that thing. My friend literally has over a hundred artists on his iPod, and I can jump from the beginning of the list to the end in a snap.

The only other player I've seen that I could do that with is the Creative Zen Touch, but it is annoying to have to lift your thumb just to scroll further. If every DAP incorporated the clickwheel, patents be damned, I would be ecstatic.

Other.

I love my Creative Zen Extra.

I want to get the Creative Vision:M.

That is one thing I love about my creative.

It doesn't have the features that I want. I just keep saying that I, personally wouldn't get one. Isn't that the point of this thread? Then some people get defensive about it. But understandably Yoshi et al keep pushing their "omg you guys are idiots you could have gotten something better for the same amount of money!!" which I understand would upset you.

...because they could have? I'm not calling them idiots, just uninformed...they know iPod, and they 'heard' about other players but instead of weighing their options they went with trend factor and what they know. It's two things at work:
1) Name-brand recognition
2) Advertisement.

The iPod is not by far the player most full of features or quality. It's sleek, it's popular, and it's seen everywhere PLUS it integrates with the biggest audio store on the internet.

Honestly, why do you keep reiterating that you wouldn't get one? We got that. We don't care. I'm giving Knight reasons not to get one over other players.

sarcasm, right? i hope so.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]...because they could have? I'm not calling them idiots, just uninformed...they know iPod, and they 'heard' about other players but instead of weighing their options they went with trend factor and what they know. It's two things at work:
1) Name-brand recognition
2) Advertisement.

The iPod is not by far the player most full of features or quality. It's sleek, it's popular, and it's seen everywhere PLUS it integrates with the biggest audio store on the internet.

Honestly, why do you keep reiterating that you wouldn't get one? We got that. We don't care. I'm giving Knight reasons not to get one over other players.[/QUOTE]
So an informed person would not purchase an iPod?