Secondhand Stereo Beats iPod Dock in Sound Smackdown

Nicole Martinelli ()

Picture 3
BBC reporter Sharif Sakr took a top-of-the line Yamaha PDX50 dock (about $250 plus the iPod) and put it up against a secondhand stereo system (with CD player, amps and speakers) estimated cost, $80.

Then he wrangled about 10 passersby to get an earful of Pavarotti warbling. They told him which sounded better — though they couldn’t see which device was pumping out the opera.

Almost everyone — 8/10 — preferred the secondhand stereo, to the highly-rated Yamaha dock calling the sound warmer, fuller and more crisp.

Like a lot of people, I’ve got an iPod dock, but it’s not replacing my stereo. It lives in the kitchen, where sound (as in listening to the Car Talk podcast while flipping French toast) more than sound quality is important.

How many of you just use an iPod dock instead of a stereo system?

DON'T MISS
World’s Tallest iPod Dock is 11 Feet Tall, Costs $565k. Stereo System and Ladder Included.

Via BBC

9 comments »

About the author

nicole_martinelli

Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

If you're doing something new/cool that's Apple related, email her about it.

(sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)| Read more posts by .

Posted in iPhone & iPod Accessories, iPod, News |

  • http://www.allaboutstevejobs.com Romain

    I use an iPod dock, or I plug my iPod into my stereo, or I use my harman/kardon soundsticks with my Mac – all of this mainly because I don’t have any CDs anymore.

  • Tom

    I really wanted an iPod HiFi when they still existed, but couldn’t justify the cost. I now use my Apple TV through my home cinema as my music system

  • nabil2199

    @Romain: Untill the ipod does FLAC, there still a place for CDs

  • nick

    I know he said it wasn’t a scientific study, but the story seemed to lead to its answer from the setup. There’re some missing variables here. What bitrate/format files were played on the ipod? Were those files encoded from the same CD? A NAD amp, philips CD player, and larger speakers probably do sound better than the smaller speakers on the dock, but how What would the A/B of the ipod through the same setup sound like? I’ve got several second hand component systems in my house and I can tell you that some sound remarkably better/worse than others–regardless of source.

  • txpunk

    ipod dock and Squeezebox

  • delusion

    and the point is?

  • Encoding Snob

    @nabil2199 Apple Lossless is as close to FLAC as Apple’s probably going to let you get. You could always go with Staright AIFF which is what’s on the CD.

    It would be interesting to find out what format/bit rate the iPod’s music was encoded using. That would definitely color the test.

  • Encoding Snob

    @nabil2199 Apple Lossless is as close to FLAC as Apple’s probably going to let you get. You could always go with straight AIFF which is what’s on the CD.

    It would be interesting to find out what format/bit rate the iPod’s music was encoded using. That would definitely color the test.

  • http://www.sixfifty.co.uk SixFifty

    Bose SoundDock twinned with a SqueezeBox (lossless library) and iPeng on the iPhone, it’s perfect.

    I tried super expensive stereos and even second hand ones, but I went with the Bose for sheer simplicity. It sounds fantastic, I personally can’t tell the difference.