Inferior Sound Quality

Is anyone else finding that the matched version is inferior quality to your original ripped version?
I have a pair of Adam A7 monitors that are pretty revealing. On a quick listen (15min) I found these obvious differences:
The iTunes Match version of Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising force is a lot darker than the original... not necessarily a fault but nowhere near as detailed and slightly distorted.
The iTunes Match version of Bohemian Rhapsody has a tiny dropout in the "wh" of “wind” in "Any way the wind blows". There is no dropout in the original.
It worries me that if there is a fault in a classic song such as Bohemian Rhapsody, how many other faults are waiting to be discovered? I re-downloaded the songs to make sure the problem wasn't related to a transfer error. My originals are 224kbps MP3s that sound very close to the CDs to me. I was in the process of moving my library from MP3 to iTunes Match but at the current quality it's only good for listening in the car. Also, I have not done a side by side test but I don't think the matched songs sound as good as the purchased iTunes songs.
I was originally convinced that ITunes Match was going to revolutionise the music world, for the better… now I’m worried it’s going to degrade it. Please make me feel better or put my iTunes Match fantasy to death once and for all.

My experience can't speak to every track on the iTunes Store, but I can say that what gets matched can only be matched to what is in the store. And those tracks may not be the best quality. However I think lower quality tracks may be the exception, rather thant the norm.
I can't speak to the Malmsteen track, but I do believe the Queen albums have been remastered within the past couple of years. If the record labels have not provided Apple with the remastered tracks for the iTunes Store then it is highly possible your tracks (if they come from the remastered CDs) may sound better than what is on the store. Incidentally, I just listened to my copy of Bohemian Rhapsody that I bought from the store and it sounds fine. But perhaps my ear is not as discenrning as yours.
I can say that the matches of the recent Pink Floyd albums are exactly like the CDs I bought. So, unfortunately, we are essentially at the mercy of the record labels for the quality of the tracks we can get from the iTunes Store.

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The new chip is very compressed and has hissing artifacts. It sacrifices sound quality for reduced energy consumption. This is a problem for me because I am building a musical instrument app that is adversly affected by the new cirrus logic chip. Audio fidelity is suffering.
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You are not addressing Apple here. This is a user forum.
http://www.apple.com/feedback

IPod Classic 160GB Sound Quality Questions

My question relates to this older thread found here http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1126861
Basically, it's that the new iPod Classics have inferior sound quality compared to older models because of the new Cirrus DAC, with reports of it sounding too bright/fatiguing/metallic/too much treble.
I love warm and laid back sound, so this concerns me and is the only thing stopping me from purchasing one. However, I am going to mainly use it in my car hooked up to a Pioneer P6100BT through USB which bypasses the iPod's DAC and uses the Pioneer one. Since I won't be using the iPod's DAC, will these sound issues not apply to me?
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The Apple Discussions thread begins in September 2007 - old 160GB iPod Classic.
This long thread suggests that the latest 160GB model has improved sound quality.
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f15/7th-gen-2009-ipod-classic-160-sq-448992/
Richard

Help! Poor Sound Quality

I have had my Shuffle for 5 months, all of a sudden the sound quality is horrible (connecting to tape deck in car and also in headphones). i have 'restored' factory settings and put all of my music back on, but the sound is still poor (lots of hissing and i have to turn the volume up real high to even hear the music), PLEASE HELP!

In my experience, the FM transmitters have an inferior sound quality to the cassettes. Could be the transmitter I have though.
I tried a modulator again recently with my shuffle (after I gave it up 6 or so years ago when I didn't have a car CD player); with the modulator, getting the radio to tune to the right frequency (the modulator also had a dial to select a freq of between something like 87.9 and 91.1) was tricky and I needed to turn the shuffle volume way up.
My friend bought a satellite radio that came with a built in FM modulator, as well as a car adapter kit that had a cassette interface. For her, the cassette also sounds much better.
Steve

Why is the sound quality and volume in itunes so different than when I use other media players

This is an issue which has been vexing me for some time. I've researched it all over the web and have not found a worthwhile answer. Some other posts on these forums have asked similar questions without successful answers. But, none the less, I will try...
I have spent a lot of time over the last two years trying to get my itunes library organized as well as getting good digitized versions from my vinyl records as well as CDs. I was pleased with my results and then I added the songs to itunes. I could not believe how inconsistent the sound quality was. Invariably the volume is always lower. [Please do not post a reply such as: Check the volume controls in itunes proper as well as in itunes preferences (i.e., Sound Check, Sound Enhancer) & the Volume Adjustment in the Information pane under Options for particular songs.] I tried all of those means of adjusting volume. They do NOT work.
There is something more insidious at work in itunes which prevent good sound reproduction. I will give an example. I have played Frankie Valle and the Four Season's song "C'Mon Marianne" on the OS X system sound (i.e. clicking the play button to the song file when selected on the desktop or wherever it resides) as well as in Amadeus Pro. The song sounds great. When I play it when it's in the itunes' library the first part of the song is too lound and then when Frankie Valle starts singing his voice is at a significantly reduced volume.
I have edited the foregoing song in Amadeus Pro to a very high volume (i.e., Effects>Amplify), reloaded it into itunes and it still does not inprove the volume of Frankie's voice in the song, even though the rest of the song is somewhat louder. I have played with the Equalizer in itunes to no effect. It just does not work.
Now, I would glading move away from itunes and use another media player. However, I have other Apple devices through which I listen to music. And the only way I know of to listen,e.g., on the iphone is through itunes.
The other related problem with itune, or should I say iCloud, is icloud match. The icloud Match has taken great sounding music and given me back music of an inferior quality, even though it is a Matched AAC format.
I'm am sorry if I am a little peeved about this issue. If anyone has some suggestions or input to a solution, I will be eternally grateful. Thanks a bunch.

fbuerg,
You are welcome. Glad my good fortune was helpful to you.
Time Keeper

GD580, its sound quality and its specs

I bought the GD580, and found, to my utmost annoyance: the sound quality is way below my cheapo Panasonic micro system. You know what: I paid USD250 for the GD580 and the same for my micro system.
At one point, I thought that because the GD580 included a decoder, it would enrich my sound if I toured the sound from my system through it to the Creative speakers, using the optical cable. Plainly wrong. Bad speakers or bad amplifier, or bad decoder, or all of those reasons.
Believe me, the sound from GD580 is no way as full as the sound from my system:
- Bass is OK, until you turn up the volume, and it's not bass anymore. I would not call it music.
- Lower Medium is OK,
- Higher Medium and Treble are where my little system would give the GD580 a run for its money!!! It's no way as full as I would have expected. Poor me, wrong decision.
Creative has been well known for its speakers and amplifier, I believed, so I was looking for reasons in the decoder itself. Hey, the website lists virtually no useful info. on the decoder specs. I was wondering if it's the same quality part as used in the stand alone decoder DST-100?
My little system states: they use a 24 bit / 92kHz DAC (digital to analog converter). The Audigy 4 uses a DAC of the same specs. Does anyone know if the decoder in GD580 uses that kind of part? Or just because the GD580 uses a 6 bit / 44.kHz DAC, sound quality is inferior to an average system?
What ever the result, I must say: stay away from this GD580. Anyone has any suggestion for a better system? Further info: I use it in an environment no larger than 5 sqm.
Thanks for reading this lengthy message to its end. But I was frustrated indeed.

Hi softiam,
One thing to note on the MacBook Air, is that it has only one speaker. Unlike all the other Apple portables, there is only one speaker (located in the area of the return, shift, question mark, apostrophe keys).
With mono, versus stereo, sound the quality will sound different but it certainly shouldn't sound washed out. What are you listening to, something through iTunes?
What are you doing on the machine when the fan ramps up? How are you using the machine, is it on your lap, on a desk? What applications are you running?

Sound quality: If you want to hear the difference between higher and lower bit rates

Have you ever wondered about the difference in the sound quality of music at different bit-rates? Can you hear the difference?
If you listen to 64kbps and 28kbps (either wma or mp3), you'll hear the great difference. However, if you listen to 28kbps and 92kbps (either wma or mp3), you'll find that there is little or no difference (to me, that is).
collegeboy wrote:
We all know that wma 28kbps sounds just as good as wma 320kb
ps.
the reason i and you go higher than 28 is because where able to. you can deny all you want.
If you want to experience better sound quality at higher bit-rates, the best thing to do is to listen to the music at a quiet place. This may sound like lame advise, but it really works. Try 320kbps for the best results. You'll be able to hear minor details you never had before.

SSR wrote:
Wayyyyyy back when I first started encoding MP3s I was using 28 with an inferior encoder. At the time I couldn't spot the difference, but now the difference is stark. Particular types of music (and more specifically instruments and combinations) do emphasise it though.
Actually, you cannot hear the difference when the background noise is loud, or example, public transport. I suggest that one uses a noise cancellation headset. $$$

Ipod youch sound quality

ive been an ipod user for 5 years and i must say im was very satisfied with everything....i use to own an ipod video was using it for 3 years for almost everyday...then just last week i upgraded to an ipod touch 2g...i was very dissapointed witht he sound quality...when i used it for music for the first time, i immediately noticed the inferiority of the sound quality. and i uploaded the same mp3's thatw as in my old ipod 5th gen... ipod touch 2g's too high pitched! even when eq setting is set to treble reducer. i use to listen to my ipod video for as long as 8 hours, but i cant even last an hour with the ipod touch 2g cause of the hihg treble, my ear starts to hurt after an hour! is apple doing anything about this? can they rectify this with future updates? i regreted upgrading to the touch. everything improved in the touch from the 5th gen except with the one thing that matters most. sound quality!

There are very few complaints on the forums about sound quality of the Touch. I've got 9 iPods at home and the Touch's sound almost on a par with the iPod 4G, different, but equal in quality to the Nano 2G, and far superior to the Shuffle 2G's. I've listened to them all through decent headphones and a high end stereo system. I would in no way characterize the Touch as having too much treble. If you want to hear gross treble reproduction, listen to a Toyota Sienna 2007 audio system. It's downright awful, not to mention the muddy bass. Your mention of the "slight uplift in treble..." doesn't really jibe with the OP's description anyways--that or he is grossly exaggerating, which I doubt. I'd be more inclined to think he has a defective unit, rather than him describing a normal-sounding Touch. But of course that's conjecture on the subject and I could be wrong.

Nokia N95 sound quality and DAC

[IMG]http://www.cnet.com.au/cnet/i/r/2006/mobilephones/22130769/sc003.jpg[/IMG]
Hi
Ive been searching everywhere including Nokia for info and was pointed to this forum! ->
Does anyone know any specifics regarding the nokia N95's Sound Quality??
Specifically:
1. The DAC used in the N95 build?
2. The SQ Differences between the N95 and N91 (build and technical)?
3. The sort of amplification used in the N95?
4. How the amplification (if any) runs through the 3.5mm jack?
5. A comparison to the SQ of a staple player e.g IPOD?
6. Is there a possibility for lineout? (purely a query)
Any help here would be most appreciated !!

Here is the official Nseries specs bout music:
Music Features
• Digital music player - supports MP3/AAC/AAC+/eAAC+/WMA/M4A with playlists and equalizer.
• Integrated handsfree speaker
• OMA DRM 2.0 support for music
• Stereo FM radio (87.5-108MHz /76-90MHz) with Visual Radio support
And I also learnt it has 8 band equalizer.N91 has a special music chip [forgotten who has made it] that was created to beat specially IPOD.Now IPOD has been redesigned but sound still sucks.
Already iREAVER, ZEN has beaten ipod.
I saw a tendency that whoever own this model barely [includin me] support this as best.
But its only upto nokia to keep it still best even after N95 released or not.
Instead can make another model over or as successor.
Plus, I donk think so mainly because y know HDD expansion is easier than SD MMC systems.
And play videos and songs better.
I am sorry that I could not give y a more depth technical feature.
But the fact is IT IS A MUSIC CHEAP ON WHICH LEADIN MUSIC COMPANIES GREATLY RELY ON.
And for nokia it is not impossible to make slightly inferior or superior to N91 Like sound machine and eventually all [music] phone will have this GOOD sound quality as standard....just a thought.
Hope y understand wat I mean.

Just Upgraded to iTunes 10 and Noticed WORSE SOUND QUALITY!! Please Help!

I have been using iTunes as my preferred media player ever since I can remember. I have never noticed a decline in sound quality. I recently upgraded to iTunes 10 and for the very first time found the sound to be simply inferior.
Initially I thought it was in my imagination, then i started testing to see if the speakers were at fault and they were not. I ignored it, but it kept on bugging me.. Eventually i loaded up old Windows Media Player and played THE SAME FILE and it sounded WAY BETTER!!
I tried fiddling with the sound enhancer and the sound check but it just isnt great.. I played songs off iTunes 9 on my sister's computer and the sound quality is higher..
Am I the only one having this problem? I have upgraded iTunes many times and this is the first time I'm experiencing this lack in audio playback quality.. I would hate to back up my library and re-install iTunes 9... Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

I do have my grumbles with iTunes, the biggest being the installer.
It's not good at removing problems from previous versions and can bring up new problems on newer versions too, they just get carried across or are made worse. Basically they should have an option to do a clean install, (remove all trace of iTunes on the computer, not including the library, just runtime files.) I think you'll find it can mess up registry keys on new installs.
Make sure you backup your iTunes library first.
So you're probably better off finding a way to COMPLETELY remove the iTunes runtime files, and re-installing it again and see what happens.

IPhone 5s Call Sound Quality

Hey- I have a brand new iPhone 5s with AT&T and I've noticed that the call sound quality is worse than my old iPhone 4. The call sound is more muffled and a lot less crisp. Is this a common issue or is it just my phone? Thank you!

When I hold my iPhone 5S in my left hand to my left ear the sound is muffled. I remember Steve Jobs saying you're holding it wrong. Although this had nothing to do with the problem we're having now it got me to thinking. I looked at my hand holding the iPhone my thumb was on the left edge with my to two Center fingers on the right edge. My index finger was up close to the noise canceling mic on the back of the phone and my palm was down by the regular mic. I could see as I talked the voice could hit my palm travel up my hand to my index finger which was close to the microphone on the back.
I called my wife on the house phone using my iPhone 5S. She said that my voice was muffled. I took my index finger away from the microphone and moved it next to my two Center fingers on the right side of the phone. This moved my palm away from the microphone at the bottom. I did this while she stayed on the line. She said that now she could hear me clearly. I then moved my index finger to completely cover the back microphone. Once again she said that the sound was still good. I then moved my index finger a small amount away from the microphone and she said that my voice was muffled again.
I believe that the way I was holding my hand acted as a megaphone to the noise canceling microphone in the back. The noise canceling microphone thought my voice was noise and was suppressing it.
I work in a noisy environment, so I like the idea of the noise canceling microphone. Going to the settings and turning off the noise canceling microphone or putting a small piece of tape over the microphone is really not a good option for me.
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Poor sound quality in timeline and export; fine in Source?

Hello all.
Newbie to Pr but experienced pro in digital audio. I'm stumped and know I'm just missing something somewhere.
I've made a music video for one of my songs. The graphics are all done (in AE), imported to Pr and eveything looks great. I import the final mix of the audio and it sounds very low quality when played from the timeline and in the final output, regardless of format (I've tried several presets and custom settings as well). I played around and noticed that the audio sounds fine when played from the Source window inside Premier.
The Pr session is comrised of 18 video tracks (not all playing at once, of course) and one stereo audio track.
I've tried re-exporting the audio from Logic at different bit depths, sample rates and file formats (mp3, wav, AAC, etc) but the results are the same every time: Source (Pr)sounds fine, Logic output sounds fine, rendered / timeline playback sounds like very low quality mp3 and final product sounds just as bad.
I've tried everything I can think of. I hope one of you can show me what I'm missing.
TIA!
Mark
Premier Pro CC
Processor 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory 8 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256 MB
Software OS X 10.9.1 (13B42)

Thank you for the reply!
I was experiencing the same results no matter what export settings I used. Plus the poor sound quality was present in the timeline itself, without even exporting the project.
I finally threw my hands up, started a completely new project, drug the same audio file in... sounded fine. Copied / Pasted the video clips from the original, broken project and boom, eveything is fixed. Yeah, corrupted Pr file it turns out. All I had to do was start a new project and import all the old components.
I've had to do this in Logic a lot (increasingly, these days). I just wish I'd tried it 10 hours earlier! Ha.
Anyway, problem solved, and thanks very much!

Poor sound quality on podcasts after upgrading to leopard

I upgraded my Powerbook G4 to Leopard yesterday. Currently, my podcasts from Bloomberg on the Econonmy are almost uninteligible as they skipp words, have static etc. Before the update, everything worked fine. Is this a compresssion issue? What can I do to improve sound quality? Please feel free to respond directly to [email protected] thanks

Sorry to here about your problems since upgrading to Leopard, Charles.
I don't know whether there's a cause/effect relationship of one and the other going on there but you've posted on the iTunes for Windows side of these boards and although for the most part we're a pretty nice bunch of people here - if I do say so myself - generally speaking you'll be better off if you post your question over on the iTunes for Mac side.
Good Luck.

The sound quality of my speaker suddenly got really poor when playing music or videos. Sounds like an old AM radio or Sputnik. Pretty sure it's hardware related but maybe not. Thoughts on what the problem might be and if it can be repaired?

The sound quality of my speaker suddenly got really poor when playing music or videos. Sounds like an old AM radio or Sputnik. Pretty sure it's hardware related but maybe not. Thoughts on what the problem might be and if it can be repaired?

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Has Apple addressed poor sound quality issues with new 160GB iPod classic?

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Based on your observations here, they apparently have not changed the sound quality since the original 160GB classic. I noticed a clear narrowing of the sound stage (ambiance) between the 5.5G 80Gb and my 6G 160GB. You're describing the same characteristic. I don't own the newest 160GB version and came here today to see if it might have improved the sound quality back to the 5.5 spaciousness. Note that the 5.5G has a higher signal to noise ratio than the 6G, making it difficult for me to enjoy it through efficient balanced armature in ear monitors like the Shure SE530s or Ulimate Ears Triple.Fi 10s.

Inferior Sound Quality

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