IPod touch sounds dull and the bass skewed if louder

Question

Hi there,
I'm experiencing that the sound of my iPod touch is not good.
The usage of the equalizer is almost not possible because the bass sounds ugly.
Even without any eq-settings hearing a little bit louder introduces distortions to the music.
It seems that the amplifier is simply not making it.
I'm using Sennheiser in-ear plugs which work fine with all other mp3-players.
Tried different eq-settings, automatic volume controll on/off - no improvement.
Same experiences anyone?
regards,
Greg

Answer 1

One thing to consider is that we're all listening to entirely different music, which makes all our opinions subjective. For example, listening to some recent music that is mastered incredibly loud (where the kick drum and other low elements are already harmonically distorted) comes through very loud on the Touch and distorts my car stereo speakers easily. Whearas older, "classic" music that was recorded and mastered in an earlier era will sound entirely different. keep in mind, many older classic recordings that haven't been remixed in the CD era were originally mastered for listening on LP records. A totally different experience than listening to an MP3-type file on a miniature computer with little earbuds or plugging into a car stereo AUX input. There are so many factors to consider, like the headphones you're using, the car stereo/speakers you're using, the music you're listening to, etc.
Personally, I find almost all the iPod's EQ settings make things sound much worse than leaving the EQ off, however I find the "classical" and "electronic" settings make a lot of classic pop/rock sound good to me, at least with ear buds. The "treble booster" sounds OK too.
I never use Apple's white earbuds; they sound really thick and midrangey to me. Anytime I get an iPod I leave them in the plastic forever. I'm using some earbuds that came with an earlier MP3 player of mine, a Rio Forge. They sound really good, considering their earbuds. You can't expect hi-fi from something like this, but I do like these.