OT: Buying an iPod in Toronto: recommendations please

[JoeHill]

James Knott wrote: 

> Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 20, 2007 at 04:14:34PM -0500, James Knott wrote:
> >     
> >> If listening to a portable player, is there really any point in such a 
> >> setup?  The MP3 will put a limit on sound quality, that you can't get 
> >> around, no matter how good the headphones.
> >>       
> >
> > A 128kbit MP3 is still far better than the cheap crap they include with
> > all MP3 players.  So yes you will get vastly better audio by getting a
> > set of $50 or $100 headphones even with MP3s.  As I said, mp3s have no
> > problem producing nice clear bass, they tend to loose a bit in the very
> > high frequencies, while cheap head phones tend to loose all the bass and
> > some of the highs.
> >
> >     
> 
> Again, forget about ear buds. I'm not talking about them. Audio
> compression, be it MP3 or VoIP or cell phone etc., impairs audio quality
> at all frequencies and levels. The impairments do vary with frequency
> and signal levels. At the very least, any digital system will have
> quantitize noise, where there are a fixed number of encoding steps. More
> steps mean lower distorion, but also more bandwidth required. Any lossy
> system such as MP3, also discards some detail, in order to reduce
> bandwidth. The MP3 distortions exceed that of good quality HEADPHONES.

Surely you are correct :)

However, the headphones I had before this, which would be in the 29.99 range
you see in various stores, produced nowhere near as nice deep bass and overall
quality as the AKG's I bought at Bay Bloor. Not even in the same timezone. If
this music (most of it 192kb mp3 or higher) sounds even better as CD audio,
well, wow.

-- 
JoeHill
++++++++++++++++++++
Bender: "Aw, I think I got whiplash." 
Leela: "You can't have whiplash, you don't have a neck." 
Bender: "I meant ass whiplash." 
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