ipod pro-audio interface dreams need to become reality

[Milkmansound]

Here is my new dream product:

I just bought an ipod and I am not thrilled with the sound at all. It is bassy, and not very realistic. I was thinking some company could expand on the digital interface of the ipod and make an external converter with stereo analog I/O, digital I/O, input LED's, and the ability to record at least 44.1 16 bit. Fit it into something a tad larger than the itrip FM thingy.

Think of how sweet that would be for live recording (for us FOH engineers) or whatever you want to get in there. Someone needs to manufacture something like this ASAP!

[rimbaud234]

They do... it's called a DAT machine.

[Frost]

what headphones are you using because I find the ipod to sound better than my expensive portable CD players. Are you using the Ipod DSP?
Frost

[Quest Poetics]

I Pod too Basey? That must be your headphones because these units sound great in my opinion...Send the signal of your i pod to some speakers that you're use to ...Then you can see if it's really "basey" or if that's just your headphones...

Peace!

[harrison]

uhhh....like this?

http://edirol.com/products/info/r1.html

[marcusb]

isn't there some lame 'loudness' preset EQ thingy on the ipod that could be the cause of your disappointment ..

to be honest .. I can't see the point in having a pocket sized device and needing a rack of outboard D/A to make it sound good .. kinda defeats the purpose and make you look like a right dick on the bus on the way home

cheers,
marcus

[tylerbcrawford]

If you want to know how to make your Ipod sound better, head over to http://www.head-fi.org

Headphone geeks over there know all the ins and outs and practically everything you can do to make your Ipod sound as good as it can.

[maz]

isn't there some lame 'loudness' preset EQ thingy on the ipod that could be the cause of your disappointment ..

to be honest .. I can't see the point in having a pocket sized device and needing a rack of outboard D/A to make it sound good .. kinda defeats the purpose and make you look like a right dick on the bus on the way home

cheers,
marcus

yeah, there's tons of EQ presets and they mostly all suck. I don't think they are turned on by default but they might be... it's under settings, I think.

[Milkmansound]

no - its not an EQ issue. I have trued the various settings. Basically, when I use the line out to run into the PA in my club to play music in between sets I notice that I have to put the HPF on the ipod, otherwise the bass is out of control. My thinking is: wow, it would be neat to have some small, stylish interface so that I can record onto the ipod (and maybe as a bonus have a digital output or something).

The iriver player does this kind of, but it is still larger and bulkier than the ipod.

I will try and listen to the ipos through my studio monitors and maybe find an EQ setting that is not out of control in the low end.

Maybe just live sound engineers notice this because we have huge 18" subs that pound out more bass than is noticable in a studio? Other FOH guys that come through the club complain about the same thing.

Maybe I need to just re-enconde at a higher kbps setting?

I don't know - I thought people would be more excitied about this prospect...

[rob@SigmaDelta]

dont feel bad I dont have any portable mp3 players I think they all sound like shit, and Ive tried most of them so far. Creative, sony, apple etc...

Oh well, cd player is find with me. Certainly a lot better, but not perfect.

[maz]

I don't know man, but that's certainly not my experience.

All my stuff on the iPod is encoded at either 192kb MP3 at the minimum, up to 160kb AAC.

The 160AAC stuff in particular is really hard to distinguish from a CD for general listening. Sure I can tell in the studio, but it's not like "Oh wow there's a ton of bass now that must be the AAC"

Did you say which gen iPod you have? Mines the 3rd Gen (no moving parts). I'm sure they are always changing the guts on these. Maybe the 4G ones don't sound as good?

You know you can put a full 16bit / 44.1 file on an iPod- you could try that to rule out file conversion issues.

[tylerbcrawford]

http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/H120.aspx

The site says it has an optical I/O. Is that more like what you're looking for?

I think it's 1/8" optical I/O. I don't have any idea how 1/8" optical works though.

[Milkmansound]

mine is the new one. Hmm...

I will play around with it more.

I mean, I am not really complaining that it sounds like shit - I am saying that it could a) sound better - and b) be cool if I could record the live shows I do every night onto it.

[maz]

mine is the new one. Hmm...

I will play around with it more.

I mean, I am not really complaining that it sounds like shit - I am saying that it could a) sound better - and b) be cool if I could record the live shows I do every night onto it.

Yeah, the whole recording thing pisses me off. I bought the first little mic they made for it, knowing it would be 8 bit mono but it was even worse than I thought. So my minidisc player stays around for recording shows and rehearsals and rainstorms.

[cactus]

while we're somewhat on the subject... is there an iPod-kind-of-thing that interfaces with a car stereo so i can reference mixes without having to constantly burn CDs?

if you're thinking "cassette," you're probably right, huh?
anything iPod-ish?