The iPod does not have enough bass for me

I'm not really sure, I have my iPod but not yet my firewire adapter so I can't put songs on it...but:

Have you tried the EQ? A lot of people say it distorts the sound and all...but I can't say that for myself yet.

If that doesn't work...consider selling your iPod...find an mp3 player that suits your bass and financial needs, and buy it.

Yeah, if you can't solve it with different earphones, I'd suggest you find an audiologist. Just tryin' to help.

As usual, my 2 cents worth! ;-)

One of flawed design of iPod, weak bass. Anyone who defend it got good bass is a fanboy, Mac/iPod zealot or just mentally r3tarded.

bass on ipods are weak, both 2nd and 3rd gens.

Definitly upgrade to better phones, that's a huge improvement.

Skull Candy Skullcrushers - all the bass you can handle in a set of cans!!!

As this appears to veering towards a ear/headphone based thread I am moving it into that forum.

Marcos, WorldOfWarcraft, shipname are probably guys who want you to feel the bass rather than hear the music. The iPod sounds fine on my Sony MDR-V600 'phones. I think anyone else is basically going to say what's already been said: get better 'phones and mess with the EQ.

Originally posted by MadPict
Skull Candy Skullcrushers - all the bass you can handle in a set of cans!!!

As this appears to veering towards a ear/headphone based thread I am moving it into that forum.

Whoops, actually, i have the earphone part sorted, so its definitly an ipod discussion

Oh, sorry guys i forgot to mention i've tried Sony EX-70, ED-21lp and previously ED-228lp.

If those are all you've tried then your missing out on a whole world of great headphones, I don't think anybody would describe those as "great"

I have a set of EX71's, I liked them when I had the iHP but I cant listen to them with the iPod as they are far too muddy sounding and the highs are distorted and shrill, they also just sound like crap when using the EQ.

It's worth the effort to try out a few different brands. :D

PS Try out the Koss PortaPro's if you can, I've not heard them myself but I've been told that they have a great bass sound.

OK, I don't even know why you made the EX-71 comment. I'm into electronic music, and having powerful smooth bass doesn't make the music, as far as I'm concerned. I'm done trying to help you, because it's starting to seem like you don't want to be helped.

Originally posted by stark23x
What specific model of headphones are you using? What's your music encoded at? Have you explored whether or not it's actually the iPod by using test tones? I have, and I can play tones on my ipod that make me physically ill.

It's not the machine, dude, it's either your cans, your encode, or your expectations.

Where do i get test tones? I'll give them a try.

The music i have tried are the same files i send to my minidisc, so its not my files as my MD plays it fine.

Thanks for that incredibly mature reply. Before I was more than intrested in listening to your point of view and what you have to say. But after that 'STFU noob' line, my opinion of you went right in the crapper. The bass is fine for me and my personal musical tastes. Also, if you don't want to listen to iPod fanatics, you're definately in the wrong place. I'll leave you to your little flamewar about the iPod sound quality now.

stark23x,
The Skull Crushers were 'roadtested' on a gadget show on satellite TV recently againts the Bose Quiet Comforts and Sennheisers (can't remember model) and came out top if I recall - I did post something in this forum about them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Guys, cut out the "STFU noob" remarks - everyone has an opinion and sometimes it doesn't match your own - we all have different levels of hearing and one persons idea of sonic supremacy is anothers audio atrociousness - respect everyones views.

Originally posted by whit96
Why you try LISTENING to music some time, rather than trying to crack your eardrums with bass, if it's not too late already NOOB.

Actually, I hear only loudness and high pitch noises can do serious damage to your eardrums. Bass simply moves you.

Originally posted by stark23x
The reality is, with good encodes and the right phones, the iPod *can* put out lower bass than the human ear is capable of hearing. It's not overblown Sony "Superbass," but then it shouldn't be...that's not what music actually sounds like.

Im going to try ripping from a CD in the highest possible quality, and then try that out.

About the 'overblown sony bass', I dont think there is a real sound when it comes to fully electronic music. Since its never been played live theres nothing really to compare it to. Its hard to explain, I dont want to just hear a load of bass and nothing else, but i do want the bass to be wholesome, especially with tech step. It's like a wall of bass hits you but its not loud, it just feels good. Thats all im trying to achieve and I know these earphones can achieve that from an even less powerful source.

Has anyone been able to modify the ipod's EQ? I hope its just the EQ and not the hardware.

someone in another forum suggested using the latin eq for bass intensive music.

you may want to try the shure e3, can be picked up for $139 on ebay . I have the Sony EX71 and feel the bottom end of the E3s' is comparable with a much better high end. One thing to bear in mind to keep size, power consumtion, price with reasonable limits some compremises have been made in the design of the IPOD's built in amp. I am using a Pimeta (portable) amp and it greatly improves every aspect of sound quality. You can read about headphone amps at http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/index.php? I have built the PPA and Pimeta from the DIY forum and these things rock. If you have no building exsperiance there are people listed there that can build for you.

The e5c's are supposed to be the bass kings !
Supposed to have two seperate drivers, one for the low freq and the other mids to high!

If you really want to hear proper bass, I suggest you spend some money on a good qualily hifi and attach a very large sub. Producing bass is cheap and easy, controlling bass is another matter!

Er I hate to go off the topic of headphones, but I think this has more to do with the sample rate and compression you use.

By reducing the bit rate to say 128kbps and a sample rate of 44.1 you are going to lose part of the signal. This is because it only samples part of the whole signal to generate a "representation" of the original bitstream.

The part that goes first is the bass, mainly because of complex DSP, but simply because if you have a bass 100Hz wavelength then sampling ever 1/44100 seconds is going to catch less of this wave form than sampling every 1/88200 of a second.

A high frequency wavelength can have many cycles in the same time period.

Therefore, increase the sample and bit rate for encoding and you need not buy more cans!

Originally posted by cressers
Er I hate to go off the topic of headphones, but I think this has more to do with the sample rate and compression you use.

By reducing the bit rate to say 128kbps and a sample rate of 44.1 you are going to lose part of the signal. This is because it only samples part of the whole signal to generate a "representation" of the original bitstream.

The part that goes first is the bass, mainly because of complex DSP, but simply because if you have a bass 100Hz wavelength then sampling ever 1/44100 seconds is going to catch less of this wave form than sampling every 1/88200 of a second.

A high frequency wavelength can have many cycles in the same time period.

Therefore, increase the sample and bit rate for encoding and you need not buy more cans!

This sounds promising, more along the lines of what i was thinking.

What do you think of this; I record MP3s from my PC to my minidisc player in real-time throught the analogue sound-out. Would this method actually improve the bass i hear on the MD player as its not processing the 128kbps digitally? Or something like that?

Better still, try some high-impedance, high-efficiency (optional) cans.

The 3G iPod headphone electronics (and very probably the Mini electronics after my brief unscientific test) has a bass falloff with low-impedance phones. Part of the problem for those who use low-cost phones (which usually tend to be low-impedance simply because of the target 'host' of such phones) is that in order to get past this bass falloff (which admittedly is fairly minor) you should have a low impedance phone that would be considered slightly bloated on any other source, or a high impedance phone (I'd suggest impedances of over 65 ohms).

It also goes a long way to explain things such as why the sometimes-derided, 24-ohm impedance Sony MDR-V700DJ bloat-phone sounds relatively controlled on the iPod.

The E5 are the canalphone bass kings, but don't expect head-shaking lows... that's not what the E5's are about. The Shures also work well on the iPod because they're high-impedance yet highly efficient.

The Line Out is not affected and is better than most other players... and will blow the likes if the iRiver iHP and Sony MD's out of the water with similar bitrate material.

(The EQ does suck, though... ;) )

Originally posted by thedodgyguy
Better still, try some high-impedance, high-efficiency (optional) cans.

The 3G iPod headphone electronics (and very probably the Mini electronics after my brief unscientific test) has a bass falloff with low-impedance phones. Part of the problem for those who use low-cost phones (which usually tend to be low-impedance simply because of the target 'host' of such phones) is that in order to get past this bass falloff (which admittedly is fairly minor) you should have a low impedance phone that would be considered slightly bloated on any other source, or a high impedance phone (I'd suggest impedances of over 65 ohms).

It also goes a long way to explain things such as why the sometimes-derided, 24-ohm impedance Sony MDR-V700DJ bloat-phone sounds relatively controlled on the iPod.

The E5 are the canalphone bass kings, but don't expect head-shaking lows... that's not what the E5's are about. The Shures also work well on the iPod because they're high-impedance yet highly efficient.

The Line Out is not affected and is better than most other players... and will blow the likes if the iRiver iHP and Sony MD's out of the water with similar bitrate material.

(The EQ does suck, though... ;) )

So it is the ipod's incompetent amp :(, and i have to spend more money on headphones to make the most of it :rolleyes:

Thanks for clearing that up anyway.

Originally posted by cressers
when recording to MD, youare still converting the sound from analogue to digital, so the same applies, the lower the compression, the better it will sound, and again, it will be the bass that goes.

I beleive that the Sony has a bass boost function so that can improve things.

The thing you have to remember with mp3 format is that you cannot boost what is not there. If there is little low frequency content due to the low sample rate, if you boost the amplitude, then you are going to make the filter unstable as there are not enough bits in there, this causes the distortion.

How does the minidisc player manage to boost the same low frequencies much better than the ipod does?

Thanks for the info, that cleared it up

ipods arent known for bass.

rio and creative and iriver are though.

yes, this is old post but just wanna share some info.

Originally posted by Marcos
Do any of you have any ideas on how to get more bass out of it?

only way is better phones or the EQ. unless the audio prossesor is very poor, the actual mp3 player will not affect the sound.

what will affect audio play back are:

mp3 quality
128bit is NOT cd quality. 128 in all honesty is not that good. try burning a song at 128bit and the same song at 320bit and play on decent stereo. you most likely will hear a difference. it might be big difference, it might not be, it all depends on the listener. myself, i can hear a difference and unforantly have only 320bit mp3s which average 8-10 megs each. 128bit is great for sharing over the net. the general consensive i've found is quailty improves at 192bit and what many people use. best suggestion? try it yourself and see what you thing. i notice quality differenc, you might not.

driver
lets face it, when it comes to bass, its all about moving air. your not gonna get deep base with headphones. unlike what women tell us size does matter... with speakers. a good home stereo will play down to 20hz or lower (20hz is general the lowest humans can hear). bass is between 20hz and 80hz-ish. you can not get those freqs with headphones. it can be reproduced with sounds to make it sound like bass (kinda confusing and prolly not explaining it very well, but would be a rumble at a higher freq, making it sound like bass). bass that is on the skullcrushers is not real bass. its the vibration with the sound that makes it feel like more bass. its not real bass (no knock on them or anything like them at all).

power
the amount of power from the source will also dictact the amount of bass. your not gonna get much bass from a portable mp3 player. also why some phones have external amps. never used one myself.

bass boost
very poor substatute for bass. boosts only increase the output of one freq. by doing that, they can raise the curve up and basicly distorting it. you get a peak in your freq curve. i've never been fan of boosts of any sort.

the ipod doesn't lack bass, its just there is no way to reproduce bass effectively with portable audio. prolly never happen.

Originally posted by viewsonic
Ya I plugged my ipod into my stereo system and was amazed at the amount of bass.

yep. better speakers and more power deliever better sound.

Originally posted by WorldOfWarcraft
One of flawed design of iPod, weak bass. Anyone who defend it got good bass is a fanboy, Mac/iPod zealot or just mentally r3tarded.

guess i'm a fanboi. again, unless the audio processor of the unit is horrible, the medium will not adversely effect the sound. doesn't matter if its ipod or a zen.

Originally posted by Marcos
Oh, i'd like to make it clear again that I dont like volume, i just like powerful smooth bass, wether it is realistic is another matter, i usually like it enhanced considering most of my music is electronic not live or anything like that.

never get powerful bass with portable audio (and greatly depends on your deffinition of powerful bass).

Originally posted by Marcos
EDIT: Another thing i find odd is that the ipod amp struggles even though it has a higher power rating than most minidisc players. There must be some other factor, as the MD portables i've had sound amazing.

again, it would depend greatly on the encoding of the song. you could be comparing a wav file on the MD player to a 64bit mp3 on the ipod.

Originally posted by WorldOfWarcraft
STFU noob, you dont know what you talking about, iPod EQ is junk, that leads you the only have one type of sound on iPod because EQ on iPod are useless. If you havent heard the distortion when using EQ on iPod then you either need better ear/headphone or you need ear check up.

wow, somebody got told. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Marcos
Actually, I hear only loudness and high pitch noises can do serious damage to your eardrums. Bass simply moves you.

incorrect. bass can do more harm then high pitched will do. problem with bass is it doesn't hurt, so you don't realize its doing damage and can get long term damage. granted, a second of very high freq can instantly pop your eardrum. very low, very powerful bass can do more damage. some of the sponsored car audio cars, you honestly can not sit in the vechile while its at full tilt. the bass waves will mess with your lungs, heart, hearing and mostly stomache. supposedly can do serious long term damage to lungs and or heart, if that holds water or not, i won't know, but actualy eardrum damage is very real and very nasty. try talking to a kid who has insane bass in his car in 5-10 years from now. :D

Originally posted by cressers
Er I hate to go off the topic of headphones, but I think this has more to do with the sample rate and compression you use.

By reducing the bit rate to say 128kbps and a sample rate of 44.1 you are going to lose part of the signal. This is because it only samples part of the whole signal to generate a "representation" of the original bitstream.

The part that goes first is the bass, mainly because of complex DSP, but simply because if you have a bass 100Hz wavelength then sampling ever 1/44100 seconds is going to catch less of this wave form than sampling every 1/88200 of a second.

A high frequency wavelength can have many cycles in the same time period.

Therefore, increase the sample and bit rate for encoding and you need not buy more cans!

well said and very informative. better then i could ever do. :D

Originally posted by Marcos
What do you think of this; I record MP3s from my PC to my minidisc player in real-time throught the analogue sound-out. Would this method actually improve the bass i hear on the MD player as its not processing the 128kbps digitally? Or something like that?

no. you still have the problem of the poor quality from the source, that being the mp3. once you encode, you can not bring it back to full quality. when you encode, you compress. you remove data from the orignal file to make it a smaller file, which you can never get back. from how you say this, it makes me think you want to play the music on the PC then use a mic to record it to the MD? if so, that will produce worse sound. analog sucks for music compared to digital. keep it digital. your best bet will be re-encoding from the sourse. take the cd, put it in your computer and encode at a higher bit rate to improve the sound. its the only way you can do this. if you download an mp3 thats at 128bit, it will never get a higher bit rate, you can only lower the bit rate. a compressed file will never sound as good as a wav file (technicly true, if you can actually hear the difference between a 320bit mp3 or a wav file is different. but it is certian that you'd be able to hear the difference between 128bit and wav file).

Originally posted by cressers
when recording to MD, youare still converting the sound from analogue to digital, so the same applies, the lower the compression, the better it will sound, and again, it will be the bass that goes.

just to point out, lower compression is not the same as lower bit rate. lower compression is 320bit and where high compression is 64bit rate. :) the smaller the file gets, the more data/sound quality is lost.

Originally posted by cressers
The thing you have to remember with mp3 format is that you cannot boost what is not there. If there is little low frequency content due to the low sample rate, if you boost the amplitude, then you are going to make the filter unstable as there are not enough bits in there, this causes the distortion.

A better approach is to attenuate the upper frequencies and leave the lower frequencies un-boosted. You may see better results with this, but the same applies, do not add to much gain/attenuation with low sample/bit rates as the filter and the data do not allow for it!!

well said. :)

Originally posted by Marcos
So it is the ipod's incompetent amp :(, and i have to spend more money on headphones to make the most of it :rolleyes:

Thanks for clearing that up anyway.

you arrogant ###. the ipod amplification is not incompetent. you just desire more then it provides. your looking for unrealistic bass and fail to grasp some simple concepts about audio properties. a 15mm driver will NOT provide super deep bass. never will. bass is all about moving air. to get the bass i believe your looking for, you need 10 inch drivers or more. do not expect home audio or car audio or even computer speakers results from headphones.

Originally posted by Marcos
to boost the same low frequencies much better than the ipod does?

because realisticly, bass boosting destorys the freq curve. you boost one freq and create a spike in the curve. for pure audio eunthusistes, you want as flat of curve as possble. the flater the curve, the better reproduction of the orginal sound/music. IMHO, bass boost is idiotic. i would say for majority of listeners, they do not need and/or want it. if you like it so much, stay with the MD player.

Originally posted by punk
ipods arent known for bass.

rio and creative and iriver are though.

again, the player will not affect the sound. if you have golden ear, you "might" be able to tell very sutle differences. home audio recievers are sometimes descriped as warm or not. it does not alter the sound, just sounds slightly differen then something else. 99% i would say can't tell the difference and let their eyes/brand name make the reciever sound different.

aite, thats it for me. got a little long winded, but just wanted to share some info and try to disspell some false ideas.

brandon

Ok, ok, 'unrealistic bass', i see now that you have never heard live music. How can you say that? Have you never heard an electric guitar through a proper amp, or a real drumkit? Bass moves you, you can feel it.

Ipod does none of that. I struggle to hear any notes or feel any bass with the ipod. And when it tries it fails, i can hear it bottom out and just produce some nasty sound.

I know what im saying, i've just hear better. And it looks like you havent. MD goes such a long way, even real musicians swear by it.

How can you say fake bass? Some of you have really never picked up an instrument, amazing. And you are trying to lecture me on realistic sound

I've already decided to definitly not get the ipod, and especially since my sister's ipod is expirencing the infamous battery fault.

I'll try the Rio Carbon next, i hear Rio can actually do things right in the audio department.

Im not arguing for the ipod anymore, but i'll defend what ive said so far if you try to tell me that MD players have 'fake bass' and ipod has 'true bass'

>Originally posted by Marcos
Ok, ok, 'unrealistic bass', i see now that you have never heard live music. How can you say that? Have you never heard an electric guitar through a proper amp, or a real drumkit? Bass moves you, you can feel it.

ok you halfwit. first off, when you hear a electric guitar thru a "proper" amp, that amp is feeding to a speaker MUCH larger then a 15mm driver. that guitar is being heard from between a 6 inch driver or up wards of a 15 inch driver. do you realize the size difference between the two? 15 inch vs 15mm? do you grasp that concept?

Originally posted by Marcos
Ipod does none of that. I struggle to hear any notes or feel any bass with the ipod. And when it tries it fails, i can hear it bottom out and just produce some nasty sound.

you will not feel bass from any headphones that do not have some type of vibration system. headphones can not produce that kind of bass. period. end of story. only larger speakers can do that, 10 plus inch speakers.

Originally posted by Marcos
I know what im saying, i've just hear better. And it looks like you havent. MD goes such a long way, even real musicians swear by it.

little boy, you obviously do not know what your saying. seriously, you wanted to record a mp3 song from the computer speakers to the mic of the MD. for every "real" musician you can find that swears by an MD, i can find one that swears by a 8 track. :D

if the musician wanted insane low bass in a song, they would have added it.

sad how false info can spread 10x faster then the truth.

brandon

Originally posted by Fabel
>

ok you halfwit. first off, when you hear a electric guitar thru a "proper" amp, that amp is feeding to a speaker MUCH larger then a 15mm driver. that guitar is being heard from between a 6 inch driver or up wards of a 15 inch driver. do you realize the size difference between the two? 15 inch vs 15mm? do you grasp that concept?

you will not feel bass from any headphones that do not have some type of vibration system. headphones can not produce that kind of bass. period. end of story. only larger speakers can do that, 10 plus inch speakers.

sad how false info can spread 10x faster then the truth.

brandon

I like how you just cant take it. I've heard digital audio players that simply blow the ipod out of the water but you really cant take it.

I know a small driver isnt going to shake the ground, but i've seen headphones that recreate (know not the crap vibrate/rumble things) the effect very well.

seriously, you wanted to record a mp3 song from the computer speakers to the mic of the MD. for every "real" musician you can find that swears by an MD, i can find one that swears by a 8 track. :D

if the musician wanted insane low bass in a song, they would have added it.

Yet no musicians swears by an ipod, but to you that means nothing, all you have to believe are those dancing posters and try to justify to yourself that the thing is perfect.

Note to self: Don't double-click on 'submit'.

I respect the way you put your point accross. I think i'll leave this by saying, we like different kinds of bass. My 'electronic' music allows me to choose how i want to hear it. And it still sounds good, because there is no 'real' version. Its all made up from the start. And i'll just find a player that can push it, again.

EDIT: This post refers to 'thedodgyguy'

Originally posted by Marcos
Ipod has to spin a hard disk, they had to make up for the power drain somewhere. Just like what they did to MD over the past 5 years. To achieve the incredible playback times they've been halving the mWs from 10 to as little as 1.2, in conjuntion with better disk read systems. And i've heard the difference, because i still have my original MD unit with a proper, powerful headphone amp.

ok, you realize when you are actually listening to the songs, the HDD isn't spinning? the songs are sent to RAM to be played with, not directly from the HDD. so a spinning HDD will not lower the overall power output while listening to a song.

Originally posted by Marcos
Its ok if you've missed out, you're only trying to justify it to me but i know what ive heard and MD has spoilt me. Maybe another HD mp3 player can do it, shame most are ugly.

Spoilt? what the hell is spoilt? what you sound like is more like a spoiled child. the bass you so revere from the MD with headphones... hate to tell ya, but thats not real bass. that is not 20hz to 100hz notes. what your bass is some is noise/rummbling at higher freq's to replicate the lower freq's. not real bass, fake bass. if thats what your into, enjoy it and stop tryin to hate on something you don't find pleasing to your obserbed expectations of real bass.

brandon

Wow everybody's getting really worked up. Its really funny.

Time for some neurobiology 101.
Did you guys know that you don't really hear with your ears ? No no no hear me out. You hear with your BRAIN ! From before you where born, your brains has been "asking" your ears to listen to sound. Ears don't process, they just register mechanical energy. Your entire perception of how the world sounds is based on what your brain has gotten used to, and what you expect. Trained ears hear DIFFERENTLY then ears owned by people that had diefferent exposure to sound.
Not necasarilly better or not as good,just in other ways. Thats why people have such different opinions about sound and music, and what is concidered for example "bloated""Flat" "schrill" etc.

I hope you found this interesting to read, sorry for the off-topic.
Brain scientists feel free to fill in my gaps :-)

Originally posted by iFool
Wow everybody's getting really worked up. Its really funny.

Time for some neurobiology 101.
Did you guys know that you don't really hear with your ears ? No no no hear me out. You hear with your BRAIN ! From before you where born, your brains has been "asking" your ears to listen to sound. Ears don't process, they just register mechanical energy. Your entire perception of how the world sounds is based on what your brain has gotten used to, and what you expect. Trained ears hear DIFFERENTLY then ears owned by people that had diefferent exposure to sound.
Not necasarilly better or not as good,just in other ways. Thats why people have such different opinions about sound and music, and what is concidered for example "bloated""Flat" "schrill" etc.

I hope you found this interesting to read, sorry for the off-topic.
Brain scientists feel free to fill in my gaps :-)

damn dutch tryin to educate us. :p

interesting idea/concept though. :)

brandon