[SirCastor]

A lot of people have been concerned about the iPod having low bass output and no equalizer. I'm pretty positive an equalizer could be put in via the open firmware. That doesn't seem too difficult, but I'm curious if the bass boost could be, I suppose if you can put in one, you should be able to the other, but I'm not sure... can someone answer this?

Thanks

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Does the iPod even have an open Firmware? I heard the whole OS is stored on the hard drive. If so then I think it is possible.

[ 11-09-2001: Message edited by: Severed Hand of Skywalker ]

[Todd Madson]

Can anyone even confirm the sound is allegedly bass-weak?
One guy with a Rammstein fixation says it, it's not necessarily
so.

[freaktornado]

Originally posted by Todd Madson:
<STRONG>Can anyone even confirm the sound is allegedly bass-weak?
One guy with a Rammstein fixation says it, it's not necessarily
so.</STRONG>

No, the bass if fine. I'm a pro musician and an audio enthusiast, I just got my iPod and hooked it up to my $300 studio headphones (Grado Labs SR325's). The iPod sounds very good (slightly underpowered, but that's normal for a portable device), although I haven't done a thorough test on many kinds of music yet.

I know from experience that many people like overloaded, boosted bass. I prefer accurate bass, meaning I want to hear the bass (and every other frequency, for that matter) the way it was recorded, as closely as possible.

As far as EQ's go. EQ is only desirable as a way to compensate for lousy speakers. If you have a clean system with decent speakers (or headphones) you shouldn't need to EQ. Of course, most computer speakers are abominable, so an EQ can help...but if you have a decent pair of headphones, EQ is superfluous.

[dtriska]

Originally posted by freaktornado:
<STRONG>I know from experience that many people like overloaded, boosted bass.</STRONG>

Yeah, that's me; I like my music heavy. My only concerns are the possible lack of bass, and the combination of a 90-day warranty and a Canadian winter. I'll be testing the bass out later today (in about six hours), but I'll have to risk the cold.

i just got my ipod today and agree that the bass is incredibly weak. and whether it is 'accurate' or not, the basic fact is that a vast majority of people prefer hearing heavier bass, so there should be a feature for this. i'm debating selling mine if they aren't going to fix this because i think it sounds pitiful and i'm very disappointed. and yes i have decent grado headphones.

[freaktornado]

Originally posted by &lt;wall&gt;:
<STRONG>i just got my ipod today and agree that the bass is incredibly weak. and whether it is 'accurate' or not, the basic fact is that a vast majority of people prefer hearing heavier bass, so there should be a feature for this. i'm debating selling mine if they aren't going to fix this because i think it sounds pitiful and i'm very disappointed. and yes i have decent grado headphones.</STRONG>

You shouldn't have Grado headphones if you want boosted bass. Grado's are known for a very flat, accurate frequency response. Paying good money for headhpones that strive for accuracy, only to distort the signal with EQ-ing seems counter productive to me.

I'd recommend Sony MDR-V700's if you want solid, boosted bass. I tested the iPod with the Sony's and the bass is thundering and powerful. The headphones feel like they're moving on your head. I can't imagine anyone would want more bass than that. Even the MDR-V300s ($49) give a decent punch in the bass.

I agree, however, that Apple should include an EQ on the iPod for those who want to alter the sound to match their headphones.

the grados have always been very clear with my mindisc portable usage in the past. but either way, i'm really getting used to the sound of the ipod. its quite good except for electronica (dnb, jungle, trance, etc)

Got my ipod on Saturday and I think it's fantastic. My biggest gripe right now is that I can really hear the quality or lack of of some of the MP3s that I have saved. Volumes are all over the place and a few songs need bass adjustment, in some cases less. Last nite I started looking at the changes with iTunes 2 and noticed that you can set eq settings for songs in the get info section along with making volume adjustments as you could in the the original iTunes. Before I start making adjustments with 5 gig of files, does anyone know if these settings are utilized on the iPod or are they just for iTunes?
Also, I thought I saw in one of these forums a comment on a piece of shareware of freeware that would scan a batch of MP3s and make the volume for each song more or less equal. Anyone have a clue on that?
Thanks
Kevin

[BobVB]

Originally posted by &lt;Kevin&gt;:
<STRONG>Also, I thought I saw in one of these forums a comment on a piece of shareware of freeware that would scan a batch of MP3s and make the volume for each song more or less equal. Anyone have a clue on that?</STRONG>

The excellent shareware program MP3 Rage can do this for entire volumes of MP3. It actually scans each file and sets the global volume to make all the files have similar loudness. You can even pick a properly set file and have all the other files adjusted to this level.

This is better than the 'maximizer' plugins that some MP3 software has which only makes soft sounds louder on the fly.

MP3 Rage has so many useful features I think every Mac owner would benefit from trying it out (full function shareware).

Got my iPod a couple days ago. I set up a test of a song with good bass. One EQ'd thru iTunes with heavy bass, a duplicate EQ'd with light bass/heavy treble. Absolutely no difference when transfered to iPod! It does not pass that data.

[Eug]

Like others have said, I suspect that the bass response is actually relatively flat. Thus, it's missing that boomy bass hump at 40-70 Hz so loved by many. (Dunno why it's loved myself - I hate that contrived bass.)

It would be interesting to see if someone has actually tested the bass response. If flat, then that's good. That said, I'm a bit surprised that Apple didn't include a simple equalizer function for those who prefer it.

[Immortal K-Mart Employee]

Originally posted by Eug:
<STRONG>That said, I'm a bit surprised that Apple didn't include a simple equalizer function for those who prefer it.</STRONG>

Well, they SORTA did. As you may know you can assign individual equalizer setting to songs in iTunes 2.0. Those settings are carried over to the iPod when you transfer the files.

So you can do it, just not after it is on the iPod. I am positive this is something Apple will add soon as they probably just ran out of time.

Kmart,
I'm assuming from your post that you've got an iPod. How are you getting the settings to transfer?

Back to the earlier Grado discussions, I agree that these headphones definitely need some power to get acceptable EQ all around. This is something that most quality headphone retailers will inform you of when you make the (not inexpensive) purchase. To get the ideal sound with a nice pair of higher-resistance headphones you're going to need a good portable headphone amplifier. Which leads to the more general point that to get a good sound out of ANY portable music player, you can't depend on the music source itself. The amplifier (and "missing" EQ" in the iPod") for any portable piece of consumer electronics is generally garaunteed to be crap. Get rid of the cheap headphones that come with this thing (if any come with it) and invest in a real headphone solution. Apple never claimed to solve all your audio problems, but they did provide you a kickass way to carry more mp3's around, in a more stylish way, than anyone else in the market right now.

[Immortal K-Mart Employee]

Originally posted by &lt;tíncho&gt;:
<STRONG>Kmart,
I'm assuming from your post that you've got an iPod. How are you getting the settings to transfer?</STRONG>

Sorry I don't have one. I had a friend of mine to give it a shot in the store though. The iPod does not SHOW that it worked but you can try comparing 2 MP3's on the iPod.

[sirlexelot]

Originally posted by &lt;macpow&gt;:
<STRONG>Got my iPod a couple days ago. I set up a test of a song with good bass. One EQ'd thru iTunes with heavy bass, a duplicate EQ'd with light bass/heavy treble. Absolutely no difference when transfered to iPod! It does not pass that data.</STRONG>

k-mart, this was posted above in this thread. The iPod does NOT adjust the sound according to the EQ settings configured in iTunes 2 for each individual mp3. So, this sound quality issue persists in being the one thing keeping me from getting an iPod.

On the plus side, by the time they finally do address this issue (knowing Apple they'll ignore it until the next product revision), the iPod's capacity and feature set will probably both have improved as well

[Eugene]

I like the iPod the way it is, but a "Sound Enhancer" toggle might be a good idea for a future firmware patch.

[PixelPimpzNYC]

The bass sounds great with my Sony MDR-V700 headphones. Ear buds always have shit for bass, you really need headphones that cover your whole ear for maximum bass response.

[masaaki]

Apple will definitly do something about the EQ on iPod in the future. I was looking around the iPod HD structure... and iPod seems to synch the EQ information from iTunes along with other information...

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1"face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial">code:</font><HR><pre><font size=1 face=courier>
[eve:masaaki's iPod/iPod_Control/iTunes] newtype% ls -la ; cat iTunesEQPresets
total <font color = blue>11608</font>
drwxrwxrwx <font color = blue>8</font> newtype unknown <font color = blue>228</font> Nov <font color = blue>14</font> <font color = blue>22</font>:<font color = blue>11</font> .
drwxrwxrwx <font color = blue>5</font> newtype unknown <font color = blue>126</font> Nov <font color = blue>1</font> <font color = blue>23</font>:<font color = blue>30</font> ..
-rwxrwxrwx <font color = blue>1</font> newtype unknown <font color = blue>1536</font> Nov <font color = blue>14</font> <font color = blue>22</font>:<font color = blue>11</font> DeviceInfo
-rwxrwxrwx <font color = blue>1</font> newtype unknown <font color = blue>5242880</font> Nov <font color = blue>1</font> <font color = blue>23</font>:<font color = blue>26</font> iTunesControl
-rwxrwxrwx <font color = blue>1</font> newtype unknown <font color = blue>671066</font> Nov <font color = blue>14</font> <font color = blue>22</font>:<font color = blue>11</font> iTunesDB
-rwxrwxrwx <font color = blue>1</font> newtype unknown <font color = blue>14804</font> Nov <font color = blue>14</font> <font color = blue>22</font>:<font color = blue>11</font> iTunesEQPresets
-rwxrwxrwx <font color = blue>1</font> newtype unknown <font color = blue>248</font> Nov <font color = blue>14</font> <font color = blue>03</font>:<font color = blue>46</font> iTunesPlaylists
-rwxrwxrwx <font color = blue>1</font> newtype unknown <font color = blue>36</font> Nov <font color = blue>14</font> <font color = blue>22</font>:<font color = blue>11</font> iTunesPrefs
mqedhLpqeAcoustic
????i?¯^?c??¡¯|;pqed
Bass Booster
&©^???pqed
Bass Reducer
??¢??K??pqed Classical
?w,???Ew?Hj?TpqedDance
e????m?gem? pqedDeep
?c¯d?)??_À???
Electronic
©|x)?U}??&gt;??i¥pqedFlat
pqedHip-Hop
??©?,????,rz???pqedJazz
?,??j??,w!9j?CpqedLatin
???pqeLoudness??qedLounge
??????j?d`???pqedPiano
,???^,^¯??;pqedPop
j??????????i??dR&B
´<font color = blue>5</font>?%??,w
??CpqedRock
???,???<font color = blue>2</font>??<font color = blue>7</font>??}pqedSmall Speakers
&©^???????G??Speaker
??O/F???:?pqed
Spoken Word
???Z??¬??????pqedStudio Headphone <font color = blue>1</font>
U??dE????E?pqedStudio Headphone <font color = blue>2</font>
MF«?????<font color = blue>6</font>???»pqedTreble Booster
}?©&|-?pqedTreble Reducer
</font>[/code]

It seems to synch my own preset into the iPod too. It's matter of time until Apple add the EQ feature along with other stuff (hopefully)