The Trouble with Trebles [Updated x2]

A few days ago I wrote about my iPod Classic, and how I and several others are a little grumpy about the album-art-intensive, slow-for-the-hell-of-it, why-oh-why-Apple-did-you-do-this-to-us? interface. Before I typed up that gem, The Original Dan wrote briefly about crashy/freezy glitches in the ‘Pod software that are crippling some Classic users.

Not in the mood to be merciful towards the media monstrosity (and loving an opportunity to kick something — anything — while it’s down), I now point you in the direction of this Apple discussion thread, where several iPodders of the Classic variety are complaining that the device’s sound quality took a noticeable hit with the “upgrade.”

It also has less energy in the lower mid-range (200-800Hz), so it misses some push and harmonics. Overall this results in a less harmonic sound, less spatial (the scene is inside your head instead of around your head), a bit too much emphasis on high treble, and “less silence between the notes”…I suspect there is a mismatch in the group delay of the treble, where the treble arrives “faster” than the lower frequencies. That’s a typical error in DA-conversion and filtering, that can be fixed by FIR filtering, or masked by a slight attenuation (0.1-0.3dB of treble starting from 8kHz).

If that makes sense to you…well la-dee-da. What do you want, an award? How about I set up a whole congratulatory ceremony just for you, since you know what “treble,” “faster,” and “attenuation” mean. Mr. Genius Audio Guru. Yeesh. Learn some humility.

In my humble opinion, that simply means one thing: it doesn’t sound as good as the old 5.5G iPod, at least from an audiophile perspective. The original poster, Marc, did a ton of fancy comparison studies and created colorful graphs (because he knows not all of us are audio know-it-alls) to illustrate the problem.

There’s obviously some debate about the whole issue, so take a look at the thread and Marc’s blog, do your own scientific studies, then relay your conclusions back here in the comments. Does it sound as good to you? Worse? The same? Who-gives-a-damn? Let us know. I can tell you that my Classic sounds just fine. Then again, my comparison criteria only included “Can you hear music?” Not as advanced as Mr. “Decibel” Marc over there, but that just goes to show you: for some people, these nearly-inaudible differences don’t really matter.

[Updated x2 (he isn’t making this easy for me)]: In the comments, Dan Frakes notes that the other side of this debate — that the audio quality of the Classic isn’t worse than older models — is being ignored by those giving press to Marc and his analysis. Since I only like to ignore my little brother and annoying professors who talk too much, I’ll give the “other side” some air time, via Frakes in the comments:

…Vinnie from Red Wine Audio, a company that upgrades iPods with higher-end components, has said that the classic actually sounds better than the 5G/5.5G models:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=259258

Addendum: Also take a look at this thread:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=260271

The thread started with another “horrible sound quality!” post, but ended up with lots of good info, including what appear to be more accurate measurements, as well as opinions of people with good headphone setups.

There you have it. Now, go forth and formulate your own thoughtful conclusions, dear members of the Mac Elite. For it is you the world depends on to solve this dire mystery!

Or, uh, something.

[via TUAW]