With an IPOD connected to the Z's stereo system, what is the sound quality like? Trying to decide of I want a changer or an IPOD. Thanks.

 

A cd changer will ultimatly offer better sound quality, however, if you rip music to your computer in a higher quality then it helps A LOT. I use an I-POD and have all of my CD's on it, I definitly hear a difference between my cd music and songs I have downloaded. I prefer the I-pod adapter because it allows me to have my entire library of music available at the touch of the screen whereas a cd changer offers 6, 10, 12, etc... cd's.

 

There's a big difference between music and MP3 files.

With your home stereo system find a CD that you've ripped and cue it up. Play it back and go back and forth between the CD and the MP3 file. Big difference even using quality MP3 encoding. The process is lossy - bits that were in the music are taken out by an algorythm that calculates the sounds that it "thinks" you can't hear.

Now pull out a quality 12" record and listen to them against an MP3 ... even bigger difference. Music is analog - sound waves smoothly move back and forth. Given a bunch of bits we can capture that analog signal ... but at a certain point there's not enough bits to capture the signal - there's not enough yes/no bits to describe a complex analog signal.

That said inside a car with 300 ponys, four noisy tires, transmission gears grinding you'll not notice the difference as much as a nice quite home. When I demo my system I'm always using a CD vice an MP3 file.

 

One thing that will definately help is ripping the CD's to a larger, higher quality format. I believe a High-End Sound magazine recommended using the Apple Lossless Quality of importing. For an improvement beyond that they focused on an amplifier that I cannot quite remember.

 

i love my iPod setup. is it perfect? hell no. sounds great to me.

 

Agreed. All my stuff is ripped in 128kb AAC and even with my highend home setup, the difference is bearly perceptable. However, this is not the case with mp3 in 128kb bit rate. ACC is leaps and bounds bettter.

As far a use in a car, iPods are it better than FM radio but not as good as CD. I used a monster cable mini-stereo to dual RCA outout cable. The type of connection you have from the iPod to the car is also a huge variable.

Translation: don't get iTrip or anything else that broadcasts via FM signals. The quality sucks and FM signals are easily interrupted especially on long trip where you pick up local stations in the boonies.

 

1. A critical thing to getting high quality sound in an ipod is to set the kpbs rate. It is set to 128kpbs as a default. I increased the quality of my imported music by setting the kpbs to 192. At 192 kpbs, I got 406 CD’s loaded and I am using 25GB. You can changed your kpbs by:

A. Go to Edit pull down menu and select preferences
B. Select the advance tab
C. Select “importing” tab.
D. Select either AAC, MP3, or WAV as which encoder you want your CD’s loaded.
E. Settings, change 128kpbs to any higher rate to improve quality of sound. Obviously the higher the rate, the more memory used thus everything is a compromise.

2. A second important thing when using an ipod in a car is how you connect the ipod to the stereo. Using FM as a signal reduces the quality to exactly that, an FM signal.

I have an article on connecting ipods to stereos in the upcoming issue of Sport Z magazine. Maybe you will want to check that out for more specific information.

 

Which one do u think we should choose?

 

Great info everyone. Thanks

 

How many songs can they hold at different quality setings?

 

Apple claims AAC has superior sound. One weak link is if you transfer data to another media player from itunes it might not play AAC where as it would more likely play MP3 or WAV.

 

Not really an issue if your use iPods exclusively, as I do. Plus I think you can download 3rd party codecs to play AACs on other machines. AAC is essentially MP4 (vs MP3.)

 

Depends on the length of songs.

Typical 3 minute song:

(1) 128kb 3 megs
(2) 256kb 6 megs ...you get the idea.

I have a a 30gig with 9 days of songs (if played sequentially one after another) and I have less than 10 gigs. Buy a nano.

 

Nano is fine for most people but for me, I use my ipod for my car and when I travel overseas (I am gone months at a time) thus my 40GB ipod gives me access to my entire 400+ CD collection which i love.

 

How do you hook up a IPOD to the Z I have one and the FM X-mitter suck IMO...... does the Z radio have a Input

 

There a harness kit you can buy for the stock HU. Try doing a search.. I'm feeling lazy. (It's Friday.)