Secondhand Stereo Beats iPod Dock in Sound Smackdown

9:22 am, November 12th, 2009, Nicole Martinelli

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?

Via BBC

Posted by Nicole Martinelli in News, iPod, iPod Accessories | Comment on this article

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About the author

Nicole Martinelli was born in San Francisco and has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. Cultish tendencies and love for DIY increased while living on the Old Continent, where tech came late and cost more in Big Mac index terms. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. Since 1999, she's been tapping away at zoomata. You can also find her on Facebook, Linked in and Twitter.

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9 comments

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.

Romain, on November 12th, 2009 at 9:27 am

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

Tom, on November 12th, 2009 at 9:50 am

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

nabil2199, on November 12th, 2009 at 9:51 am

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.

nick, on November 12th, 2009 at 10:02 am

ipod dock and Squeezebox

txpunk, on November 12th, 2009 at 11:48 am

and the point is?

delusion, on November 12th, 2009 at 3:15 pm

@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, on November 12th, 2009 at 7:54 pm

@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.

Encoding Snob, on November 12th, 2009 at 7:56 pm

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.

SixFifty, on November 13th, 2009 at 3:28 am