Why does my Shuffle sound better than my Nano?

Question

I have a 1st Gen Shuffle and a 2nd Gen Nano. I run them both from the same computer, using the same version of iTunes on the same account.
Unless my ears are playing me up the sound from the shuffle seems to be better. The nano sometimes sounds a bit fuzzy on bass notes, this is particularly noticeable on bass drum beats where the beat sounds almost crackly. I particularly noticed this on the Amy Winehouse album (May mean nothing to you)and thought it may be authentic crackle from a sampled drum loop, but it does not do this on the shuffle.
I have swapped the headphones and fiddled with the Eq on the Nano, which can sometimes improve but not remove the problem.
Is there anything I can do or is this just one of those things?
17 inch Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GHz,4Gb iPod Nano, 1st Gen iPod Shuffle   Mac OS X (10.4.7)   Also iMacG3 CRT Slot Loading iMac 600Mhz (10.1.5)

Answer 1

Unless my ears are playing me up the sound from the
shuffle seems to be better. The nano sometimes sounds
a bit fuzzy on bass notes, this is particularly
noticeable on bass drum beats where the beat sounds
almost crackly. I particularly noticed this on the
Amy Winehouse album (May mean nothing to you)and
thought it may be authentic crackle from a sampled
drum loop, but it does not do this on the shuffle.
I have swapped the headphones and fiddled with the Eq
on the Nano, which can sometimes improve but not
remove the problem.
Is there anything I can do or is this just one of
those things?
It's one of those things... the 1st Gen Shuffle has a different processor (sigmatel) AND a different digital audio decoder chip from the 2nd Gen nano (Samsung) which, in turn has a processor and digital decoder related to the 2nd Gen Shuffle.
It's one of life's strange turns that the 1st Gen Shuffle seems to have the BEST audio performance (although without builtin equalization) of the iPods.