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Line out vs headphone out
Authored by: tifighter on Jul 06, '07 11:03:19AM

Signal quality should be as follows:

1: Optical out of newer macs. The conversion takes place in whatever device you send the optical signal to that then converts the digital to analog.

2: Line output of iPod. The iPod handles the conversion but bypasses the iPod headphone amplifier.

3: headphone out of either the mac or iPod. Conversion and amplifier used internally.

With that being said there are still the variables of the decoder, converter and amplifier of both the iPod and mac. The audio quality is only as good as the weakest link in the signal chain. Personally, I use the line output of my iPod when tuning PA's at venues and find it much better than the signal that goes thru the headphone jack. I can definitely hear that headphone amp muddying things up. As for the macs headphone/stereo output, it sounds comparable to the iPods headphone output when all things are equal (no eq, sound enhancer, volume compensation).



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