Apple Shuffle Headphones...suck?

[VitB6]

Just got my shuffle tonight. I ordered the Sony ex71's yesterday. Listening to music, the bass is pretty distorted and the words seem to not be clear (mainly those that ends with an 's' or a c-sounding word). My songs are all CD quality and those sounds aren't there through my crappy PC speakers. Is this because the Apple headphones suck and it will go away with the Sony's?

[swy32x]

There is an option in the shuffle that puts all of your music into 128 aac for space saving onto the shuffle.

This could be the problem. Also, what bitrate are the songs you are importing?

[VitB6]

The songs are like 196. Why would I want to downgrade to 128 besides for space saving and how could that cause distorsion?

[slicky]

If I've heard correctly Apple has setup iTunes to transcode >128kpbs tracks to 128kbps for Shuffles by default. I don't own a Shuffle, so I can't confirm this. Check your Preferences to see if this is the case. And yes, transcoding from one lossy format to another/the same format will lower audio quality. Check out the Transcoding (converting) *lossy* audio formats (http://forums.ipodlounge.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77728) thread in the Digital Audio Formats forum for an explanation.

If Apple has indeed set this up as a default setting then they're setting up customers to consider Shuffle audio quality as poor. An effort to explain the consequences of the process should have been made so that customers can make an educated choice in the matter.

~slicky

[VitB6]

If I've heard correctly Apple has setup iTunes to transcode >128kpbs tracks to 128kbps for Shuffles by default.

Slicky can you try to confirm this or can you show me where you got this info? That would make no sense to me at all. All my MP3's are 192 or higher and I don't want to listen to 128 for space saving. The 512 shuffle holds more songs then I'll ever listen to in one sitting and I wouldn't want iTunes to downgrade the quality to 128. This is completely off topic now so I'll post this in the shuffle forum as well but can you direct me to the where you heard this.

Thanks

Vit

[slicky]

This is from the iTunes help file.

To maximize the number of songs that can fit on your iPod shuffle, choose Edit > Preferences and click the iPod tab. Then select the "Convert higher bitrate songs to 128 kbps AAC for this iPod" checkbox. You can also drag the storage allocation slider to the left to allow more of the free space to be used for music (this won't affect any documents or other files stored on your iPod shuffle).

Again, I don't know how it's setup by default since I don't have a Shuffle and it doesn't show up as an option for non-Shuffle users. It's been explained to me that Apple doesn't mention anywhere that setting this up to transcode automatically lowers audio quality. If true, I see this as a disservice to the consumer and Apple both.

Anyway, that's what you might have going on.

~slicky

[Mr. E. Mann]

Still, 128 kbps is a good bitrate. It has not caused any distortion with any of my songs. If it sounds fine on the speakers, you could just have a pair of defective headphones. Try listening to your music with a friend's headphones or something... If it sounds fine, just get new headphones. If it is still distorted, go to a nearby Apple Store and talk to the Genius Bar. They'll help. Bring you earbuds too...

That's just what I would do.

[slicky]

128kbps is fine when it's been encoded from CD. 128kpbs can sound horrid when it's been encoded from an already lossy source.

~slicky

[boltjames]

The Shuffle's not set up by default to downconvert to 128 AAC's. You'd need to open preferences, tick the box, and then drag in all the music. Not likely to happen to a first-timer.

BJ