Apple's iPod Touch (2010) Review, Not a Poor Man's iPhone 4

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• Brazos - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link

  My wife only has hearing in one ear so the mono software switch may be enough to get a new nano to replace her 3rd gen nano. I'm sure they could do that with a software upgrade but it will never happen. I'm tired of have to make mono mixes for her :)

• synaesthetic - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link

  I am very thankful to you for your RMAA of the iPods vs. the Zune HD, and your comment that digital music players are basically equal at this point.
  
  People still seem to believe that there's a difference in sound quality between well-designed DAPs. This is no longer true. The only SQ difference these days is when there is a demonstrable *problem* with the player--such as a gross bass rolloff caused by substandard filtering capacitors on the output stage, for instance.
  
  Now if only smartphones could stop hissing horribly when used as an MP3 player...

• chemist1 - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link

  I'm glad you've taken a stab at approaching sound quality (SQ) testing of the Apple ipods in a sophisticated manner. However, I'm afraid that the tests you've done simply aren't sufficient for this purpose. General tests for THD, IMD, noise, and frequency response will catch gross errors. But a device can be fine in these areas, and yet have flawed reproduction for other reasons. More broadly, running a device through the RMAA's battery of tests is only the first step. Then you need to listen, carefully, and identify the flaws in the sound. Then you have to figure out what the source of the flaw might be, and then determine if there is some measurement you can do that could identify and quantify the audible error. This is where years of experience as, say, an audio engineer designing electronics would come in. I.e., what you did ----running it through your RMAA, finding no significant flaws, and then making the pronouncement that "I believe we've hit a ceiling for PMP audio playback quality"----is just as over-simplified as, say, concluding an SSD is fine based on its passing a a single battery of memory benchmarks. It takes years of training, experience, and sophistication to evaluate computer components. Evaluating audio is no different.
  
  Turning to the ipods themselves: The SQ of the ipods has gone downhill since the gen 5.5 ipod classic, which used a Wolfson DAC chip comparable to those in audiophile-grade CD players (http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/aud... Their switch to Cirrus Logic was not a good one, and seems to have been accompanied by the introduction of an error into their DAC algorithm. Objective testing (and, I think, much more sophisticated testing than that presented in this article---as I mentioned, SQ is about more than just noise, IMD and THD) reveals this flaw:
  
  http://homepage.mac.com/marc.heijligers/audio/ipod...
  
  Redwine audio, which does audiophile upgrades to ipods (they upgrade the entire signal path following the output of the DAC, including the coupling capacitors and op amp), will not work on anything later than the 5.5, because they've tried the later models and find the output from the DACs is simply not good enough to enable them to achieve acceptable SQ (http://www.aloaudio.com/imod-faq/):
  
  "Q: Will you ever modify the 6th generation iPods (”iPod Classic”)
  
  A: No – these use what we have found to be an inferior sounding dac and the sound cannot be improved upon. The sound quality of the 4G, 5G, and 5.5G iMods are far superior. If the newest iPods could be improved and were worth the effort to mod, we would have enjoyed offering an iMod for them and the business this would have created for us." [N.B.: This also applies to the other iPods, including the Touch, which likewise do not use the Wolfson DAC.]

• chemist1 - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link

  What I should have said was:
  
  As you know, it takes years of training, experience, and sophistication to evaluate computer components. Evaluating audio is no different. I.e., if you want to get serious about evaluating SQ, you need to find someone who has as much sophistication, training and experience with audio as you do with computers. And that's not going to be easy.
  
  At the very least, his or her ear must be good enough to be able to distinguish between different CD players in blind testing. I can do this, so I know it can be done.

• dlinderholm - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link

  The lack of GPS is the one thing that I really think they missed out on. For me that would be a far better feature than Face Time, but I know I'm probably in the minority there. Ah well. If I could have used it instead of a dedicated GPS I would have picked one up today, issues with display quality notwithstanding (though the incredibly low-resolution primary camera would be a tough pill to swallow). Fortunately for my pocketbook the lack of GPS pretty much kills any interest I had in the device.

• truk007 - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link

  I'm with you on that one. A GPS receiver would have been the selling point for me.

• OrionAntares - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link

  I'd disagree on the GPS because there are after-market options for adding GPS to the Touch as well as giving it some extra battery power since GPS is a real battery drainer. I don't know how well those options fit the new version with the slimmer design and what adjustments might need to be made for it. The garbage camera they put into the back because of their need to cut off an extra 1/20th of an inch from the depth and keep the edges of the case rounded is what I'm upset with.

• SadTouchLover - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link

  Hahaha the aftermarket options? You mean like strapping a huge, expensive cradle to it? Yeah that's a great idea. Super functional.
  
  Also, I agree with you BIG time on the camera. BIG time.

• OrionAntares - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link

  I'm extremely disappointed with Apple in this release. I'm not disappointed in the cost cutting measures I was expecting from them such as the RAM, IPS, and GPS but in their "form over function" garbage and how it gimped the rare camera. The rare camera was the one feature I was actually looking forward to for this revision and the blew it. They didn't have to give it the 5MP camera of the iPhone (or 8MP of the Driod X :-O ). But a 3MP camera or even a 2MP camera would have been good as long as it was auto-focus and had a flash.

• Watwatwat - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link

  whats an iphone cost unsubsidized? atleast twice as much in many places.
  Sure the screens not as good, but its still got contrast and black levels better than the 3Gs, which was hardly considered horrific. Setting it up against smart phones is setting it up to fail. Its casting it in a poor light on purpose, against its actual competition like the zune and such it does far better.
  
  Whats the cost of a year of iphone contract?;)