CDs win over iPod

Aeneas

I know this is a contentious issue and that there is a lot of stuff on the net about it. But recently I set up my old music system that has been languishing in a cupboard for a few years - ProAc Tablette 50 speakers, Musical Fidelity A-1 amp, Arcam Alpha 8 CD player. I got some new Monster cables and biwired the system. I connected my iPod using the Aux jacks on the amp, and the Arcam using the CD jacks. This enabled me to play the same song or piece of music simultaneously from the two sources and to switch between them using the source control on the amp. I am in no doubt that the CDs sounded better than the iPod - cleaner, more defined, more depth, better projection, better sound stage, overall more sonorous and somehow less tiring. That is not to say that the iPod music sounded bad. In fact it was pretty good and I will probably listen to it quite a lot because of the ease of use. But for a quality music experience I will be returning to my CDs.
So my conclusions are
1) an iPod connected to a good sound system beats most docking systems that I have tested - Bose, B&W, JBl. Even on a poorer system like my old Altec Lansing ACS 295s (2 satellites and a subwoofer) and using the headphone jack the iPod music sounded better than any of the more expensive docks.
2) on a good system CDs sound better than the same music on an iPod.

Jesus Shaves

The music on the iPod would be in mp3 format so it must be a bad quality one
Cd uses wave format which is a,ways going to be better quality

Stark

iPods typically use 128kbit/s AAC by default. Which is okay if you're going to be listening to music on cheap headphones but you'll notice the difference if playing on a decent setup. Try using a higher bitrate (192kbit/s AAC should be transparent) to encode your CDs or AAC lossless.

Aeneas

Thanks Stark. I use iTunes set at iTunes plus for copying CDs. This has a bit rate of 256kbps for stereo recordings. The highest bit rate on the iTunes ACC encoder when it is set at Custom is 320 and I may try some recordings at this higher rate to see if it improves things on the iPod.

C14N

If it's an iPod Classic, you could get away with ripping it losslessly (AIFF format) without using up all the memory. Just change the settings in iTunes to rip in Apple Lossless. This should be much closer to the original CD quality.

cnocbui

Does your amp allow you to balance the relative volume levels of the inputs, so when you switch between them they sound exactly the same volume? If it does did you do this using white noise to set the levels?

If not, then your test is likely biased, because it has been scientifically proven that very small differences in volume levels - where the sources are otherwise exactly the same - will result in listeners preferring the one that is slightly louder. Your CD player, if it's like mine, could be outputting 2v, something the headphone output from the iPod can't match. In our other discussion, I didn't say there would be no sound quality difference between the headphone and dock outputs, just that it is possible, but would likely be slight. If you are going to put an iPod up against a CD player, you should at least use the dock line level output.

My preamp can match input levels. When I did this and compared my Micromega Stage 2 CD player with my iPod connected via the dock, I couldn't hear a difference, neither could anyone else who I had have a listen. I used tracks ripped as AIFF or Apple lossless from the CD.

The other way your test can be biased is the placebo effect - whereby you expect there to be a difference and your 'expectation' biases your perception. I solved this myself by having other people listen while I switched volume balanced sources and asked them if they could hear a difference. They didn't know which source they were listening to. I know this isn't even best practice because not only can you have a placebo effect, you can have the experimenter convey expectations to test subjects subconsciously through subtle verbal and on-verbal cues, that the test subjects unconsciously pick up on and react to. In drug trials they have had to ensure that the experimenter does not know which patients are getting the drug and which the placebo as they found if they knew, it would have quite a strong influence on the results! There is only so much you can do in the home. :rolleyes:

A while ago I recorded the output from my CD player and from the iPod and spliced bits from each recording together.

Here it is: (50mb wav) <SNIP>, See Mod Comment below.

If anyone can tell which bits are iPod and which are CD player, I'll give them a marshmallow.

Slaphead07

Aeneas wrote: »

2) on a good system CDs sound better than the same music on an iPod.

You're absolutely 100% correct. Even allowing for the ipod tracks to be uncompressed it's utter nonsense to think a decent CD player wouldn't outperform an ipod/iphone. When you start getting into higher end CD players it is. and I've said this before, "chalk & cheese".
If you want to listen on headphones fine, even in the car... fine. But no amount of carefully selected internet articles will convince anyone who has heard real hifi that an ipod can produce high end reproduction of music. there really is no debate on the issue, it's just silly and uneducated to claim otherwise.

cnocbui

You will of course now tell us how you don't have to tell us where the edit points are in the file I provided are, because the truth is self evident.

:rolleyes:

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

http://www.stereophile.com/content/apple-ipod-portable-music-player-measurements

That review happened to be of the same model I have and which was used to record part of the file from.

Slaphead07

cnocbui wrote: »

You will of course now tell us how you don't have to tell us where the edit points are in the file I provided are, because the truth is self evident.

I have no interest whatsoever in your files. While they seem to be very important to you they are irrelevant to me.

the only bit of your quote that is relevant is "The iPod's measured behavior is better than many CD players". Nobody could disagree with that. Frankly it's damming with faint praise, there are €19.99 out there that are "better than many CD players", that's because many CD payers are crap and not because the ipod is wonderful.

If you read/understand the rest of the quote he's basically saying if you don't mind listening to compressed files then it's fine. Once you've done that you've stepped away from hifi.

Aeneas

I see your point cnocbui about loudness and it did occur to me when I was switching between sources. I tried to adjust so that the levels were much the same. Three of us did the test. The other two participants were not told which source was being used; and everyone thought the CD's sounded better. Now there may be several reasons for this - small differences in loudness levels is, as you say, one; another is that I use iTunes plus as my default for copying discs, perhaps lossless would give me a better transfer; and maybe most important of all I was using the headphone jack from my iPod to connect to the amp. Even so the iPod was impressive and this system gave me far better sound than I have managed to get from other players. I will certainly use it and maybe begin the drudgery of transferring my CDs again using a higher spec encoder. But when I want to sit back and enjoy the full sound and richness of, say, a symphony orchestra I will probably slot in the CD. I'm not really into the more esoteric side of Hi Fi and know very little about it. I just did the test for fun and to see what would give me the most enjoyable music experience. Thanks again for your advice.

cnocbui

Didn't read it did you? :cool:

Best of all—and, to my ears, completely indistinguishable from the original CD—was AIFF. Dynamics were impressive, imaging was nuanced and detailed, and the frequency extremes sounded extended and natural. On my reference rig, I could listen with immense pleasure for hours on end to files ripped in AIFF. In fact, I did.
.
.
But is it a serious piece of kit worthy of serious consideration by an audiophile? Surprisingly enough, I believe the answer is yes. The open nature of the iPod's playback format—or, more properly speaking, its lack of a single playback standard—means that the player can offer the sound quality its owner demands of it. Presumably, that could even include options not currently supported, including space-hogging, hi-rez digital files. However, that will happen only if audiophiles take hard-drive-based players seriously enough to participate in the ongoing dialog concerning their use and possibilities.
Fortunately, that's already happening, as a quick Google of the subject will reveal. Users are actively seeking better sound, even as they trade stories about how much fun they're having with the product as it currently exists.
And why shouldn't they be happy? With the iPod, you can have your cake and eat it, too. On the outside, all that the rest of the world will see is that you're one of the iPod-totin' beautiful people; no one will ever know that under those headphones you're listening to monstrously good-sounding, hi-rez digital copies of your favorite demo discs. Baby, you're a rich man!

Those are the words of Wes Phillips I believe.

Oh I know, you don't care -blah blah blah.

Does Stereophile, and John Atkins in particular, review and measure €20 CD players? I am sure you can provide links to where they do....or maybe not.

For the slightly more open minded, this thread might prove of interest:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=63450

cnocbui

Aeneas

Go for whatever gives you the most enjoyment - I do. The convenience of smart playlists, shuffle from thousands of available tracks and not having to swap discs or mess with their storage requirements is so advantageous I would be prepared to sacrifice some sound quality for the convenience, but I don't think I have to, so it's all win as far as I am concerned.

Slaphead07

maybe you didn't read all my first post...

no amount of carefully selected internet articles will convince anyone who has heard real hifi that an ipod can produce high end reproduction of music.

As I've said to you previously, I really don't care what you do at home or what you believe but I do care when you misinform people and might influence their buying decisions.

im invisible

vinyl all the way lads!

Slaphead07

im invisible wrote: »

vinyl all the way lads!

Your'e right of course but.... :rolleyes:

Slaphead07

cnocbui wrote: »

For the slightly more open minded, this thread might prove of interest:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=63450

that thread is pure comedy gold. The usual internet forum standard. I'm sure someone somewhere is laughing at much of this one.

Aeneas

Looks like I unwittingly stumbled into an old argument amongst old friends! For what it's worth here's what I think. I never thought vinyl was better than CD and all those arguments that analogue had a better "sound envelope" and "warmer feel" than digital were not convincing and did not correspond to my experience. I had a pretty good system and an extensive vinyl collection but CDs seemed to me to offer better, more reliable and more convenient sound. Like many others I liquidated my vinyl collection and moved to the new medium. Many of these arguments seem to me to be replicated in the debate about CD versus iPod, except that here my experience is that overall the CD, played on a reasonable system, remains the better sound source - fuller, richer, more sonorous. But CDs cannot compete in the market place with the convenience (and fun) of iPod/Mp3 formats and are doomed to go the way of vinyl. Those of us who have an existing collection may prefer to listen to CDs (as I will) but it is clear that the future is with hard-drive based players. The challenge for advocates of the hard-drive is to give audiophiles the same listening experience on high end-systems as CDs. For me, and for the moment, the jury is out on this but it looks to me as if we are not far from the moment when even the keenest audiophile will not be able to tell the difference between music from an iPod source and a CD. When that moment is reached arguments about whether one or the other is really Hi Fi will be irrelevant. What counts is what you hear.

The Ritz

Mod Comment:

@cnocbui,@Slaphead07,

Your respective positions on this issue have been clearly set out here not for the first time - bearing in mind that your positions are pretty diametrically opposed, I'd be grateful if you could avoid baiting each other on the issue.


@cnocbui,

Posting files and challenging people to hear a "difference" on them as a way of reinforcing your point of view is, frankly, pointless. There is no guarantee that the means of playback will replicate the means used to record the files and furthermore even if some poster guessed/identified whatever it is you're supposed to have recorded, all you have to do is reject their answer in order to "prove" you point. I can recall you posting something similar fairly recently and was inclined to let it slide at that time, but repeating the exercise again here is a step too far.

These forums are for discussion, giving your point of view and being informed by the point of view of others. This type of "challenge" is not in the spirit of the forum and I am asking you not to post one again, for the reasons set out above. Accordingly, I have deleted the link to the file you posted.


Thanks.


/mod hat off.

Posting on a personal note, the business of what your ears hears happens inside your brain - its up to you to decide what you like to listen to and whether one thing sounds better than another.

As far as I'm concerned, there are no absolutes and I find it difficult to accept general simplistic statements when the vast majority of people I know accept as common sense that there is a continuum of difference and improvement to be gained in most technologies, through changing components and mixing and matching to achieve an optimum performance of a given budget - in my experience this is true in computing, video systems, motorsport and audio systems.

Ritz.

C14N

Aeneas wrote: »

But CDs cannot compete in the market place with the convenience (and fun) of iPod/Mp3 formats and are doomed to go the way of vinyl. Those of us who have an existing collection may prefer to listen to CDs (as I will) but it is clear that the future is with hard-drive based players.

Maybe I'm in denial but I hope you're wrong. I still buy everything on CD because it's usually the only way to get music in an uncompressed format. I haven't checked recently but iirc the quality on the iTunes store was usually a "super high quality" (to paraphrase Steve Jobs) 128kbp. I never actually listen to the CD, I just rip it to the computer in several versions and play it off the hard drive (or flash memory if it's my phone) but I never rip as low as 128kbps.

I don't think there's much motivation to increase that quality either. If Apple were to host all the songs on iTunes in an uncompressed format like Apple Lossless, it would cost them a fortune and a very small number of people actually care.

Aeneas

I hope I'm wrong too, because like you I still buy my music on CD and copy it to my players. I use iTunes plus which has a rate of 256 kbps which gives me a generally acceptable result for most of my listening -headphones, dock, car etc - but is inferior to CDs on my ProAc set up. But as I say above I will try lossless to see if that improves things - I like the ease of use of hard-drive media. I think (hope?) it may be a while yet before the CD dies but have you recently wandered around a music store? How many people were looking at CD's; and from what age group? In the end I think the market rather than audiophiles will determine its longevity. And the market is clearly shrinking.

Slaphead07

Aeneas wrote: »

But CDs cannot compete in the market place with the convenience (and fun) of iPod/Mp3 formats and are doomed to go the way of vinyl.

CDs are definitely on the way out but not in the near future and not quite the way of vinyl. Vinyl is seeing a bit if a revival at the moment with nearly all real music being released on 12" and quite a few on 180gm vinyl and 2 disc 45prm releases from the like of Elbow.

The move to computer audio, in hifi terms, is to external hard drives and purpose built audio DACs rather than ipods - that's quite another market altogether.
The advantage of HD storage, from a sound point of view, is that you can now download hi-rs "master tape" files that previously couldn't be stored on a CD.

I've heard some very serious computer music systems and while impressive none have actually improved on a high end CD player - this leaves ease of storage the main reason to move to a HD system. Of course the best DACs are taking vinyl as a standard and not CD.

C14N

Aeneas wrote: »

have you recently wandered around a music store? How many people were looking at CD's; and from what age group? In the end I think the market rather than audiophiles will determine its longevity. And the market is clearly shrinking.

You're right about this. The music section of every HMV I've been in lately is getting pushed away from the main entrance of the shop. You still get the new releases at the front but the actual library is usually down in the basement. At the same time though, while there's rarely much of a line, it's never deserted. There's always a couple of our type down there.

CDs are also handy for gifts. Sending someone an iTunes link for Christmas just isn't as nice.

Slaphead07

C14N wrote: »

You're right about this. The music section of every HMV I've been in lately is getting pushed away from the main entrance of the shop.

Well don't take HMV as typical. Their music customers (very mainstream) are at least as likely to download music as buy a CD. HMV are keeping afloat on DVD, Bluray and games sales. Really onlive sales of music, no matter what format, is hurting real record shops. I'll only go to an online store if the music I want isn't available from a human in a shop. Bricks before clicks folks.....