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General discussion

which line out is best for sound quality?

Dec 31, 2008 5:38PM PST

1.ipod video 30gb.
2.creative zen vision m 30gb.

I have a vincent headphone amp. and sen.hd-580.

CHEERS.

Discussion is locked

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Creative Zen Vision M
Jan 3, 2009 12:03AM PST

I have the Zen Vision:M and have to say the line out is very good. Nothing bad to say about it. I haven't tried the Ipod though. A negative with the Zen's line out is that you need that separate dongle piece plugged into the player.

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Cowon!
Jan 5, 2009 3:26AM PST

In my experience with MP3 players, you can almost rest assured that an iPod of ANY type isn't going to sound as good as other MP3 players. Sure they're handy and iTunes is a great tool for keeping track of music and syncing up your favorite tunes (I use it for my iPhone), but sound quality isn't the iPod's strong suit.

Currently, I own a Cowon iAudio X5L, which I've had for a couple of years now. When I was researching players, Cowon's were the ones who always received the rave reviews for sound quality, and I have to say, I completely agree.

The beauty about the Cowon products is the amount of "tweakability" you get on the player to make it sound exactly the way you like music to sound. There are user-controlled equalizers as well as BBE bass boost, which is awesome and I don't think comes on many, if any, other players.

The brand new Cowon S9 looks incredible and I'm trying to decide for myself currently if I want to make the switch to that one. It's actually got an updated BBE+ and has a OLED screen. Look it up on here, it's just recently been reviewed. It looks a lot like an iPhone and has a touch screen as well. The OLED screen should give an amazing small video picture. I'm doing all I can to get myself to hold off on buying one until they have a 30-32 GB version (currently it's either 8 or 16 GB, whereas my X5L is 30 GB).

Anyway, that's just my two cents on your question. If you bought the new S9, I think you'd probably be pretty thrilled with the sound quality you get from it. Good luck in your search! Happy

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Not really true
Jan 14, 2009 4:27AM PST

Don't paint over ipods with too broad a brush. iPods generation 4, 5, and 5.5 all contain the Wolfson DAC chip, which is often found in rather hi fidelity D/A converters, and the internal wiring is alright. Granted, it's nowhere near audiophile quality un-hacked or un-wadia'd, but it still manages to walk over many other portable music players. In fact, if you want faithful reproduction of music from a portable, you can't get much better than the iPod classic, which delivers a very flat response across the hearable spectrum, in stark contrast to Cowons which generally cheat by boosting certain frequencies.

That all said, the Creative Zen is one of the only mp3 players that actually surpasses the iPod classic in low SNR and distortion. It's also ridiculously cheap, and features a gorgeous screen. Unless you're already tied down by iTunes, go with the zen.

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Not really true
Jan 14, 2009 3:59PM PST

Thanks,

I"ll search for zvm.

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Hate to burst your bubble
Sep 21, 2009 4:27PM PDT

If you know what a DAC (digital to analog Converter) is then you will know that you can not get better sound out of it. Digital sound is "cleaned" sound, analog sound is "real/original" sound. when it comes to sound, analog is better because it is almost as if you are right there with them. When analog sound is converted to digital it is "cleaned". Meaning that any sounds not in our normal range of hearing is filtered out. So, that said, if you have a digital audio file, and convert it to analog, it is still the "cleaned" sound. Where as if you use a codec container known as either MKA or OGG which use static bit-rates, it simulates analog sound quality. The Ipod does not support OGG or MKA which the Cowon O2 does. The Cowon S9 supports OGG FLAC APE MP3 WMA WAV. When referring to mediocre sound quality, only audiophiles would be able to "show" you the difference, but I would have to say that after owning an Video Ipod 80 Classic and an Cowon D2, the D2 produced a far more accurate sound and was more enjoyable to listen to. Especially when listening to Ambient or Classical music.

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I guess...
Oct 11, 2009 2:46AM PDT

They should be the same. The resistance matching must have influenced but that's too little (negligible) to affect the sound output to your headphone or component. I tried ipod/itouch and they sound great.