iPod Performance

Introduction

During my audio encoding investigation, I've also spend some time to get an impression about the overall performance of the iPod. I've done the following things:

• Measured the iPod.
• Compared the iPod to other sound producing engines.
• Tried out other headphones.

Conclusions

Measurements show that the iPod is well designed, apart from the lack of bass using the headphone outputs. Listening and comparison reveals that the iPod 3G though detailed, sounds a bit harsh or canned, and lacks some bass. Thought the sound quality is not top-level, but is good enough, and probably quite impressive for people who are not used to high-end audio like me. There is room for improvements, but overall it's very satisfying (dynamic), and on par with other portable devices. On a scale of 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest), I would give it up to a 7 for its headphone sound quality, which means a bit more than reasonable, and a 8 for its line output, which means good.

Combining the iPod with a good pair of headphones is a must!!! The original earbuds are just not good enough, as is common with about any headphone combined with a portable device.

Overall, the iPod is a great product that I really like. The experiments mentioned on this website have been carried out because of my curiousity, but normally I'm just enjoying music, and not wondering about the sound quality. Having about 300 to 400 of my CDs with me all the time is great. Handling and integration with SW on a Mac or PC is great, though it still can be improved!

My final conclusion, I warmly recommend the iPod to any music lover who wants to have some portability and a fair sound quality.