Good for the gym?

<lurker uncloaks>...

hi ellis I've had a 30gb ipod for about 2 weeks now, and was very concerned about the volume from it... I also use it in the car and at the gym with a wide variety of music from jazz to grunge.

I've got an archos jukebox and minidisc player to compare with, the volume from these were significantly louder through headphones, car via cassette adaptor and through a pair of Sony portable speakers.

upto about last thursday or so I was seriously considering returning my pod due to this, even after playing around with mp3gain and similar tools.

the volume was just not loud enough to drive the small speakers properly or hear some tracks recorded at a low volume (or with a wide dynamic range).

I've also got some Panasonic noise cancelling headphones which seemed to be even harder to drive... ("No-one knows" by QotSA at 100% vol with these didn't even start to get acceptably loud to be enjoyable).

the solution (already posted elsewhere) - XPlay.:)

it has a volume setting for each track, and is setting something in the ipod's internal db and nothing to do with mp3gain et al. other programs may follow suit on this feature I'd assume (MC?).

having had the vol at 80-100% before, now with the tracks set to 140-150% vol in Xplay, I can run the ipod at about 40-50% vol and still have lots to spare (handy for the portable speakers - waaay too loud for headphones though).

using it at the gym is fine on steppers and treadmill for me, though it might be worth buying a cheap pair of those wraparound over the ear phones to be absolutely sure.

I'll post a general review and a comparison with the archos when I get a chance.