iTunes vs Amp : sound quality

**natedawgg** · 05-10-2007, 11:22 AM

ok so here is the deal, i have been using itunes for the past couple of months in my car, whereas i used to use amp. i had originally switched to itunes b/c it was more powermate friendly. after i switched i started to notice that my music sounded very aniemic. the sound of the instruments overwhelmed the vocals, and nothing sounded quite right. at first i thought it could be my audio system in my car. i drive a trans am with a monsoon sound system. i have my mini integrated to the cd-changer port on the back of the head unit. the head unit itself has an eq built in on the front. i tried just about every eq setting i could on the head unit in combination with eq settings in itunes. finally i just turned the itunes eq off in itunes and it seemed to sound better, but still not great. i also tried a griffin iMic to see if it was just the sound card, but it just seem to make the problem louder not clearer. i have been fighting this for a couple months now and finally i just went back to amp this morning on my way to work. the sound sounded 100 times better. the vocals were clear the instruments were clear, everything sounded much fuller and rich.

my question is this, what does amp do diffrent that makes it sound so much better and is there anything that can be done with itunes to duplicate this sound?

**iamgnat** · 05-10-2007, 12:02 PM

Last I looked, AMP is just using Quicktime to play the audio which is what I believe iTunes does as well actually (but could be wrong).

One thing iTunes offers that AMP doesn't is an EQ. It could be that you have either the global or local (per song) EQ turned on. If so, turn it off and see if that helps.

I personally have never noticed a difference between AMP and iTunes as far as SQ, but I run directly to my Amps rather to a head-unit so I wouldn't run into conflicting EQ setting issues.

-dave

**natedawgg** · 05-10-2007, 02:24 PM

as far as i know all the eq settings for itunes are off. i went to "show eq" in the "view" menu and unchecked the the "turn eq on" box. i don't know if there are any others that i don't know about. i have never set individual eqs for diffrent songs so i dont think that is the prob.

**iamgnat** · 05-10-2007, 02:43 PM

Sorry I just reread your original post and saw that you had turned the EQ off. Obviously iTunes is doing something else (do you have Sound Enhancer or Sound Check enabled in Playback prefs?) else with the audio stream that your HU doesn't like

Do you actually have an Amp in your car or is you HU running the speakers? If you have an Amp try running directly to it as a test and see if that makes any difference.

-dave

**natedawgg** · 05-10-2007, 07:29 PM

well technically speaking i do have an amp in my car, but it is a factory amp that is only accessable through the factory HU. i turned off the "sound enhancer" and it did make the sound better. amp still seems to sound better, but the differance is not great enough anymore. thanks for your help iamgnat, i really appreciate it