The iPod and the Audiophile

I agree with Mapleleafs3. I love my iPod and use it all the time, but it's not up to audiophile standards, and probably never will be. Apple doesn't really want you hooking the iPod up to your home stereo - that's why there's no digital output. They want you to buy an iMac as a "digital hub". Why sell a consumer only one device when you can sell them two?

I have IPOD.I do enjoy it, it sounds very good, I can
bring it anywhere I go.

The problem is that I think newer pop and rock recordings are being produced to sound better in an Ipod/MP3 environment, with a prominent upper-midrange and lower treble, along with too much stress on vocals. All this stuff makes modern rock sound like scraping paint off the wall on good, revealing systems. Maybe next they will engineer music to sound better on cellphones (ringtones?).

Using my iPod 5G with 256 AAC VBR (converted from lossless ripped via EAC), my Etymotic ER4Ps (with custom molded inserts) and my Headphile modified HF-1s sound amazing. It is not as good as through my more expensive headphone amp setup, but I would DEFINITELY call it audiophile quality.

I have also heard that a Red Wine modified iPod proves an excellent source for 2 channel systems.

I have an iRiver and have found that i cannot really stand to seriously listen to music and so it gets used mostly for podcasts. I do find it convenient to listen to newly acquired music passively during workouts for familiarity. I guess I've got to think about better headphones like Matt8268 suggests - I did buy some better Sennheiser PXC-150 headphones, but there is likely a lot better to get.