[Guide] iPod and Bass Distortion

[cygnus]

iPod (and other MP3 players) Bass Distortion Issues, Possibly Solved?

-Originally posted on DAPReview

Well, I have always said this about my iPod Nano and last night I finally found a solution to it. First off, if you have noticed that when you enable the Rock or Bass Boost EQ setting you may have noticed that the bass distorts. Or possibly you noticed the bass response is just pathetic anyway.

First off, most music made now has been recorded improperly. The volume is set far too high, and as an iPod's limitation is roughly 100db - 105db, this type of music makes your listening experience poor. They do this because they honestly think that the loudert the music, the better it must be, but they don't realize that people don't leave an EQ on flat all the time, they prefer to boost the highs and especially the lows. The average song is usually mixed at 98db - 100db, so, when you add the EQ, it can boost the volume past the maximum and produces distortion or clipping.

The best way to fix this is to normalize the songs using an MP3 ripper, but since most people use iTunes, you can't do this as easily and not nearly as well. You could use the sound check, but this doesn't work quite as well. So, the best way to correct this is use a program called MP3Gain. It analyzes your songs and adjusts them accordingly. It will adjust them down to 89db to allow room for the EQ. This does work quite well, my iPod nano now sounds a lot better than it did before normalizing my songs.

To use MP3Gain, download and install it and then launch it. Add a music folder just to test to see how you like it and transfer it to your iPod/MP3 player. Then, if your satisfied, finish off the rest of your music collection (Be careful as this takes an incredibly long amount of time) and if your not satisfied, try a different db level. 89db seems to work very well. It can take about 1 hour per 1GB of music you have.

I hope that this helps out, it worked wonders for me. I use RockBox on my iPod now and I was just using the Preamp to fix the songs, but this worked a lot better so I don't have the turn the volume up as loud now.

Links:

Original Location: DAPReview

MP3Gain: Sourceforge

Edited June 17, 2007 by cygnus