klipschaholik Posted January 27, 2007 Share Posted January 27, 2007 What I was referring to was this statement you made, "it sounds great I can not tell the difference between it and a CD". I agree. I only use my ipod connected through the T amp and it's pleasuralble to me. Now understand, my hearing is probably worse than anyone else's on this forum so I make that statement to qualify my opinion for those of you who choose to read this not to criticize another persons auditory capacity. I have not listened to the ipod through any other means of amplification. By the way I turn the Ipod volume up to just shy of full volume, then adjust the T amp volume from there. [D] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russ69 Posted January 27, 2007 Share Posted January 27, 2007 Jay, I didn't mean to bust your chops, sorry if I was too harsh. I have a solution. Just send me your ipod and cd's and I'll test them. I'm sure I could get them back to you by the end of the year! Happy listening. Thanx, Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcmusic Posted January 27, 2007 Author Share Posted January 27, 2007 kaiser, Thanks for the kind words, it's nice to know that I am not hearing things. klipschaholic, I did not mean anything towards you, I just wanted to know if you were addressing me or russ. russ, It's not the fact that you said some things that in my opinion, you don't have any knowledge of. Meaning what my system sounds like good or bad, that's part of the reason I normally do not say how I think my system sounds. Someone always has something negative to say about someone else's equipment. For a guy that is kinda new to this forum, and has not bothered to list his system; I find that a little pushy. Anyway I think kaiser said it well. Russ, please see my signature as I consider my rig fairly resolving Jay, I'm am also sure yours sounds good also Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russ69 Posted January 27, 2007 Share Posted January 27, 2007 Jay, My apoligies.... being blunt is my strong suit but it did start an interesting conversation at any rate. You got me thinking, I'd like to try a "pod" but don't really need one. It would be fun to play with. My main system is: Triangle Celius 202, Quicksilver mini-monos amps (Tesla EL-34), Cary SLP-98 pre, Cambridge 640 CDP, Velodyne HGS 12 with SMS1, Velodyne SPL800R, Kimber and Cardis interconnects, Audioquest Type 4 cables. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WMcD Posted January 27, 2007 Share Posted January 27, 2007 I don't have the opportunity to do actual measurements tonight. However, a lot of things make sense. More knowledgable people here on the forum may want to comment and check my math. From practical experience: 1) I have used the headphone output of Walkman type units and laptops to drive the Aux input to stereo systems. This works well. I put the headphone volume (i.e. output level) at 1/3rd. Then the volume control on the stereo governs an output fairly comparable to what it does when hooked up to a CD player or the like. My conclusion here is that the headphone output at 1/3rd is good starting point. I'm not overdriving the input to the amp. 2) I believe that the normal output of CD player (i.e. what is driving the amp) is roughly 1.0 volt RMS average for program. We'd have to put in a CD playing the max test tone on the CD with and check the output. But this is a good ballpark. 3) Some years ago I measured the impedance of a Walkman type earphone, set. This was using an LMS system, meant for typical 8 ohm speakers. I had to put the two earpieces in parallel to get in the range of the system. The parallel was just under 100 ohms. So I concluded each earpiece is about 200 ohms. This just gives us one example (my headphones), but is a bit of a starting point. By way of example and in contrast, the classic Koss Pro 4 A "ear muff" headphone just has 8 ohm "Japanese Transistor Radio" (my term) speakers in the plastic shells. Walkman type earphone is much higher impedance. 4) I bring up 3) supra because the 3 milliwatt spec you mention. It does not tell us the max voltage output of the unit and whether it is close to 2) supra. But, some math helps. Let's assume that is 1.5 milliwatts per ear piece with the volume control all the way up. Doing some math based on P=V*V/R . . . 1.5 milliwatts into 200 ohms give us a voltage of square root of 3 output from the unit per channel or 1.7 volts. That agrees pretty well with 2) supra. - - - The bottom line for me is that if you have some I-Pod, Walkman, portable CD, the headphone out (at 1/3rd volume) is just about equivalent to the output of a CD player. Just hook it up to an Aux input. Gil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Mandaville Posted January 28, 2007 Share Posted January 28, 2007 A complete iPod newbie, I had no idea it was possible to take a line level signal off the iPod drive. Thanks very much for posting the link for the required cable -- we'll order one today! I have set up our second system to use a nano as a primary source for my wife, and this will make it much better. Very good! That headphone amp looks incredible, complete with an external DC supply. It is NOT cheap, but is obviously built to last! I'd yank out those Hovlands, though, and put is some nice mylar or ceramic capacitors. Really, thank you for posting this iPod information! Erik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcmusic Posted January 28, 2007 Author Share Posted January 28, 2007 Erik, I had posted some ipod info in another thread for you, don't know if you got it. Anyway get the dock instead of just the wire, you can charge the ipod as you play it with the dock. Also as noted you can bypass the headphones output, and come directly off the hard drive. No need to bother with the volume control on the ipod that way. Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted January 28, 2007 Share Posted January 28, 2007 Jay, What the complete system your connecting the Ipod too? You should simply make the level of the Ipod end up about the same as your other sources with the Ipods level control and you should have zero issues. Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcmusic Posted January 28, 2007 Author Share Posted January 28, 2007 Hey Craig, Thanks for the advice my friend, your opinion I always welcome. The thing is once you connect through the dock the volume control is taken out and or bypassed. Coming out of the dock I noticed that the volume level is less than the other sources, so I figured it be ok. Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audio Flynn Posted January 28, 2007 Share Posted January 28, 2007 Jay, If you ipod sounds like your CD player, I would guess your system has some serious weaknesses. I'm not saying the ipod isn't half decent but I would question your scource and CD player. Are you saying "red book" CD's sound the same as music downloaded on your pod or compressed CD's sound the same as your pod????????/ Thanx, Russ I was thinking the same thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Mandaville Posted January 28, 2007 Share Posted January 28, 2007 Jay: Indeed I did get that information. Thank you for that. "The thing is once you connect through the dock the volume control is taken out and or bypassed. " Absolutely. If possible, I would rather do it that way. Erik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcmusic Posted January 28, 2007 Author Share Posted January 28, 2007 Flynn my response to you would be the same one I gave russ, read it carefully. Well Russ like you say you can not hear it, so it would be really hard for you to be able to make that kinda statement; with any accuracy. I listen to my system everyday that I am home, I have a pretty good feel for how it sounds from the sources I use. I admit I do no have the best CDP in the world, but it sounds far from bad or terrible. The ipod is playing music taken from the same CD's I use in the player. Now if there is some loss in the transfering of the music, well I can't hear it. Maybe I am all together wrong, but I don't think so. I know what the music sounded like on the same system with the same ipod, using a different format. Going from 320kbps to 1411 kbps is a huge leap in sound quality, I don't see why you can't understand that. When I played the ipod at 320kbps I could hear the compression instantly, just as playing it at 1411kbps the difference is eye popping. I am not saying that this is the end all of ways to listen to music, just that uncompressed or CD quality music played through a quality system results in a very nice sounding sound. As far as I can tell or hear, it also sounds pretty accurate. Futher listening may yield more information, and a different opinion that remains to be determined. I will follow up as I am curious to know for sure myself. I don't know a whole lot about the ipod, other than how to load it and play it. As for spec's and what not I have a limited knowledge, but if it sounds right chances are it is; at least to me. Maybe you should get an ipod and try it for yourself, before you decide that it can't sound that good. Or maybe it is your system, that just will not sound right. Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaiser SET say Posted January 29, 2007 Share Posted January 29, 2007 Gil, I understand your breakdown completely and the leveling of the volume across the devices however I was told by the guru's at Headroom when you feed a amped headphone jack into another amp your just presenting more garbage into the path as your amping the headphone amps signal as opposed to coming right off the drive via the docking connection. I may be as full of stuffing as a Christmas Turkey but it does make sense to me in regards to amping an already amped signal! You can see my digital rig in my sig and I can't really tell much difference if any in my mini pod coming off my portable dock with the AQ ic and my CDT/DAC except for increase in the volume as the pod does have a lower output but once raised to the equivelent volume level they sound very close (now this could be sad news since I have a 4 grand digital setup vs. a mini pod!) Like the many naysayers of vinyl I say digital is digital[^o)] I guess the only time I might want my pod in my home mix is for parties where I could just hit shuffle on the pod and let it go on it's 1000 song way and since 99.9% of the population can't tell good sound from mediocre who's to really know the difference[] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WMcD Posted January 29, 2007 Share Posted January 29, 2007 Kaiser, You might well be correct. I certainly can't vouch for the quality of the amp which drives the headphone in a given unit. OTHO, garbage might an overstatement by the Headroom people. If the program sounds good on headphones the amp can't be too bad and what comes out shouldn't sound like garbage when feeding an aux input. The main point was to address a concern that the input to the stereo system might be overdriven. It seems to me the answer is no, for the reasons stated. Further, in some situations a person has a source with only a headphone out and may not realize how it can be used to drive an aux input on a stereo amp. E.g.: the old college dorm room stereo system can be put to good use. It is interesting to look at the alternate Klipsch mini-box which uses speaker level signals, and, granted, PWK knocks down the level with a potentiometer. In that application, a speaker level amplifed output is attenuated and used to drive a low level aux input. No one is walking around saying that is garbage (at least not here). Smile Best, Gil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaiser SET say Posted January 29, 2007 Share Posted January 29, 2007 Point well taken Gil and I never should have said garbage as I'm sure it's just a selling point word! I do hear a difference when listening via the mini jack out on my pod dock into my amp as opposed to the direct headphone jack on the pod with any of my 6 pairs of phones from my Grado SR's, Sony's or Shures. To be totally honest I think full wave file recordings sound just fine coming through the pod headphones jack for it's intended purpose which is portable listening in less than optimal conditions but that let's just see what I can get out of this type of setup bug gets me everytime and here I got again[] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcmusic Posted January 29, 2007 Author Share Posted January 29, 2007 BTW kaiser, my ipod sounds just as good in my vintage system as well. Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaiser SET say Posted January 29, 2007 Share Posted January 29, 2007 I bet it does, I can't wait to here mine once I get my full tube setup going on the LaScalla's! I bet 99.9% of people who come to my house could not tell what front end I was running especially if I hid the docked pod from view[] I think most would agree (speaking if they tried it) that a pod sitting on a dock with some nice Cardas or AQ mini to RCA cable running full wave could stand the output 4 sure[:|] That darn Seti went and sold off his Fisher 16 amp (I understand financing MC-30's) before I could get my grubby paws on it so I guess I'm going to plan be on my tube power amp[] I fell in love with the look of the Cayin KT-88 amp the first time I saw one in print and then that was even heightened when Mark played it for us in Hope last year so I'm pretty sure I'm going to pick one up off A-goN before too long unless a pair of MC-30's at an incredible price come about[] Coytee and Seti have really spoiled me on those babies[:'(] (Those dirty rotten scoundrels[]) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcmusic Posted January 29, 2007 Author Share Posted January 29, 2007 kaiser I think you are right on all accounts, yea if I happen to stumble on to a pair of MC30's there could be troube. Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaiser SET say Posted January 29, 2007 Share Posted January 29, 2007 Jay, you ever get up this way from Nawlins you give me a buzz as I would love to have you over[] Matter fact I must get you to bring me a couple big bags of Bignets mix and some Chickoree (Whole) bean expresso[] Then when we really get that sugar/caffiene buzz on we'll raid Seti's place[] LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcmusic Posted January 29, 2007 Author Share Posted January 29, 2007 Yea kaiser that sounds good to me, let me get married first. Then check the work thing to see if I can make it to gathering this year. Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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