[GK]

My iPod is arriving on thursday, today I have learned that there are problems with some sort of a whine in many iPods. Has anybody experienced that ? Apple is looking into it (yeah great, that should have been done before the product was released). Also, has anybody returned the iPod because of the whine.

[Ron Goodman]

Why don't wait you wait until it arrives before you start complaining about it? Who knows, you might even like it.

[GK]

Actually, I'm not complaining, there are just numerous people over at discussions.apple.com, who have this issue. And, uhm, if I wouldn't like the iPod, I wouldn't have ordered it.

[Kristoff]

Send it to me and I will evaluate it

I heard there was a problem with iPod owners whining

Dude, it has a hard drive in it. Expect it to make hard drive like noises.

[mrtaber]

GK, I have an iPod (just got it recently) and I love it. Mine "whines." Let me explain--in relatively quiet passages of music with lots of dynamic range (classical, jazz--think "notes dying off", etc.), I can hear a faint whine when the volume is high--75%+ of the way up.

I have pretty good ears (come from a musical family), but some people have even better ears and it really bothers them. It doesn't bother me much; I listen to all kinds of music. I'm sure Apple will fix this when they track down what part of the MP3 decoder is responsible for it; it should be a simple firmware update.

In the meantime rock-, jazz-, classical-, dance-, electronica-on! I'm doing all of it on my iPod--over 1,000 songs recorded at 160kbps. The complete Beatles catalog Tons of stones. Atlantic and Motown R&B. Club electronica.

Oh, and if you go down to the 'About' menu item and hold the selection button for about 5 seconds, a 'Breakthrough' games comes up for you to play! (while you're listening to tunes, of course)

I think you'll love it. I love mine. Gotta get a case for it soon, though, since I've created some little scratches already, and it's too pretty to let that happen to it.

Cheers,
Mark

[BobVB]

Originally posted by mrtaber:
<STRONG>GK, I have an iPod (just got it recently) and I love it. Mine "whines." Let me explain--in relatively quiet passages of music with lots of dynamic range (classical, jazz--think "notes dying off", etc.), I can hear a faint whine when the volume is high--75%+ of the way up.

I have pretty good ears (come from a musical family), but some people have even better ears and it really bothers them. It doesn't bother me much; I listen to all kinds of music. I'm sure Apple will fix this when they track down what part of the MP3 decoder is responsible for it; it should be a simple firmware update.</STRONG>

Everyone hoped that Apple would be fixing it via firmware too, but the appearance of one update with no correction and this recent Tech Note casts some doubt on that:
http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n60967

"The source of the issue is believed to be the use of standard MP3 decoders in low-power consumer devices. Apple is investigating possible solutions."

I don't know about you, but I have never heard a 'whine' from any mp3 player other than the iPod, 'low-power' or not. Is anyone else familiar with an MP3 device that produces a 'whine' like this? Why would the relative 'power' have any thing to do with its production? Isn't decoding pretty much a precise process and the only 'lossy' part is during the compression process?

My obvious concern is that Apple with this tech note is trying to deflect responsibility for finding a solution for this and the other problems. Possibly Apple is using the resident chipset's hardware MP3 decoder which is inherently defective and correction isn't possible without a hardware replacement that they would very much like to avoid? As it is, Apple Support will not accept a 'whining' iPod for repair or replacement saying they have no solution for the condition.

(Oh and to respond to the previous note, this is not an 'interference' problem from the hard drive, display, or other electronics as it is ONLY present during MP3 playback; Play the AIFF file no whine, play an MP3 file created from the AIFF, the whine is there.)