4th gen better sounding than 3rd?

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Hect0r

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I was listening to a friend's 4th gen with the stock apple headphones and then loaded the same song onto my ipod and both with apple phones and the shure e3's the sound was noticably more vibrant on the 4th gen. All songs sounded more lifelike than I have ever heard on mineI dont know much about the software on my ipod, but I know my boyfriend loaded the most recent version as of 6 mos ago onto my ipod. For what its worth both are 20GB models.
 

Ipodium

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Apparently the new portal player chip of the 4G is superior in terms of audio quality than the one used in earlier versions of the Ipod.

Just do a search, I think you should find a few threads on the subject.
 

Adam

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I remain skeptical.

If Apple are saying the 4G is smaller because they shaved a millemetre off, then surely their hype machine would be in overdrive if the sound quality was upped.
 

SolidGun

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I don't know why people ask this question so often. If they are audiophiles, they wouldn't be using these players that utilize any type of compression in music.
 

Hect0r

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iam not really an audiophile, but I found the sound difference to be noticable. my 3rd gen always sounds empty and the 4th sounded full. Thought maybe it was software or something.

SolidGun said:
I don't know why people ask this question so often. If they are audiophiles, they wouldn't be using these players that utilize any type of compression in music.
 

AndyH

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Hect0r said:
I was listening to a friend's 4th gen with the stock apple headphones and then loaded the same song onto my ipod and both with apple phones and the shure e3's the sound was noticably more vibrant on the 4th gen. All songs sounded more lifelike than I have ever heard on mineI dont know much about the software on my ipod, but I know my boyfriend loaded the most recent version as of 6 mos ago onto my ipod. For what its worth both are 20GB models.
If your boyfriend updated your firmware 6 months ago, it's outdated and has been replaced with newer firmware which Apple has stated has better sound quality. Download and install it to your 3G iPod, then compare to a 4G iPod.
 

aquatika

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I remain skeptical.

If Apple are saying the 4G is smaller because they shaved a millemetre off, then surely their hype machine would be in overdrive if the sound quality was upped.
I don't know about that, Apple have remained tight lipped regarding sound quality on all of the iPod's. They seem to prefer focusing on the features rather than the sound, with only the barest mention of sound quality. They seem to prefer to let owners/ reviewers decide for themselves.

IMHO, (Unlike some companies) Apple don't seem to promise anything that they can't deliver on. Sensible really ;)
 
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evilgoat23

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Sound quality is very subjective but after testing with the same bitrate, Shure E2s, I found that to me it does sound better. Stock headphone don't really reveal the difference but higher end ones do. Now I wish they'd fix the EQ.
 

Stevie61

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It could be you are encoding you songs at a lower bit-rate and you boyfriend is encoding them higher and or he is using the EQ on his iPod.
 

Hect0r

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both are with no EQ and the 4th gen songs were encoded at a lower bitrate and still sounded better. and then I put one of my songs onto theirs to compare exactly. a noticable difference still. My ipod has never really sounded that good, I havnt been able to compare to other 3rd gens yet. Id say the quality of my music equals that of the radio and i encode cds at 224 in AAC format and listen with e3s. I thought AAC was supposed to be better quality, could that be my problem?
 

AndyH

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Hect0r said:
Id say the quality of my music equals that of the radio and i encode cds at 224 in AAC format and listen with e3s. I thought AAC was supposed to be better quality, could that be my problem?
Wow, I'd say your iPod might have a problem because 224Kbps AAc files should sound excellent played through E3's (at least they sure do through my E5's and Ety's).
 

br-

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I don't know why people ask this question so often. If they are audiophiles, they wouldn't be using these players that utilize any type of compression in music.
You know the iPod can play lossless compression, right?
 
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