Good point. No idea. My guesses are:
- Zune has not incorporated that restriction yet.
- I got my Zune from UK. Will such EU restriction apply there? Different countries may implement some EU regulations at different times, or not implement them at all.

The Zune I got, interestingly enough, seems to have a firmware that can be used in every country: you can chose the Radio FM frequency range amont US, EU, Japanese. Not that this means necessarily that there are no country-specific restrictions, but it supports this theory.

Its Europe wide and the Zune will have it.

If it's an EU initiative, edict, directive or regulation, you can be sure that we adopt it slavishly - that's our weakness.

Didn't someone somewhere earlier in this thread say that it was a french demand only, but Apple didn't differentiate inside Europe so all European iPods have it?

StigOE, yes, I did. But, I was reporting from some other forum. I do not know how accurate that can be.

That certainly used to be the case, yes. Only French Trekstor Vibezes have the cap.

Peter

Mmm.. Claudio, do you you have access to somebody there with an Oscilloscope, who could measure the milliVolt output of that iPod from the earbud jack? Say, while playing one of the empeg auto-eq tones at max volume?

Then I could measure the same here, with a "Canadian" iPod, and we could see just how much they differ by.

Ditto for the Zune, I suppose.

Anyone else want to partake?

Cheers

I'd happily do it with my UK iPhone as another data point, but I don't have access to an oscilloscope. I guess it isn't possible to do it with a multimeter, right ?

Is something like this actually likely to work well enough for this task:

http://zeitnitz.de/Christian/Scope/Scope_en.html

Though I guess I'd then have the problem of calibrating the scope and I don't have a signal generator to give me a known AC voltage level.

Mark, I do not have immediate access to an Oscilloscope, but I can look for one anyway. I should be able to, eventually. Or, I'll be happy to use the sw you andy are recommending.

Also, more info:
I compared audio output between my iPod and my gf Shuffle from a coumple of years ago. Impressive difference in volume, and, less ackground noise. The Shuffle sounds really great. And, my gf agrees with my findings. I did not tell her which player she was listening to, and actually all she knes is that one sounded louder. She added that the louder one also sounded "deeper".

Ok, so I have now installed Soundcard Oscilloscope. What should I do now if I wanted to grab some info from the iPod? Would the Mic input socket work well enough for our purposes?

The soundcard oscilloscope isn't really useful here -- we don't have a good way to calibrate it so that the measurements mean anything from one machine to another.

But you could use it yourself in isolation, to compare max volumes between the various players you may have in your possession.

Just play a standard tone (the various empeg auto-eq tracks are perfect for this) at max volume, and measure the level reported by the scope software.

I don't use Windows, nor that scope software, so I cannot be of much additional help here.

Oh, and YES, use the LINE-IN input if your soundcard has one. Otherwise the MIC input perhaps (assuming max volume doesn't fry it..).

Cheers

Would a headphone amplifier solve the issue? Something else to lug around though.

Would a test tone played on an empeg be consitent enough to do the calibration or is there likely to be too much variations between units to make that useful ?

Mmm.. good idea, that one. I suppose it's as good a calibration signal as we're likely to have available to most people on this BBS.

It will have to be identical models (say, all Mk2a).

Probably you've BTDT, but just maybe... stumbling around in iTunes (and with help from a link shown to me by Drakino) I found this. Maybe it could help? (The screenshot is from iTunes v8.)

You get there by highlighting the file(s) you want to adjust, then going File-->Get Info-->Options. Maybe cranking that slider bar over will help.

tanstaafl.

Doing that will likely lead to clipping, which will make everything worse.

tanstaafl,

I tried to use the "volume adjuzt" slider. That will actually not adjust the max volume of MP3s. It will simply change how the volume increases. If you move the slider all the way to the right, what will happen while listening to the iPod is that you will reach the max volume at 50% of the volume bar on the iPod itself. If on your iPod you keep "increasing" the volume beyond 50% on the volume bar, you will get no result, as you are already at max. I do not understand what the purpose of such feature would be, but that's exactly how it works.

Back to our test. I will use the empeg as a benchmark, as rightfully suggested. Unfortunately, I do not have a line input handy, as I am on a laptop and I am reluctant to fry the mic socket . However, if I don't find an alternative, I'll try that.

It appears as if it was meant to increase the volume (gain?), but then on the iPod it hits the volume cap.

Bonzi, you're right! That would make perfectly sense.

As a side note, I should have an iPod Classic 120 US version in my hands in a week from now. Hopefully by then I can make a full comparison and post the results here. I will definitely check what the "volume adjust" slider does on the US iPod Classic.

Also, i did some research on the volume cap, and it really seems it is a French, not EU, regulation. So, I guess Apple did not bothered making more than one EU firmware...

Reminds me of a conference call I participated in with colleagues from France, Germany and the US. We were discussing domestic courier delivery when it became clear that a couple of the US folks were treating Europe as a single country. The E in EMEA I suppose.

Speaking from my perspective here in Italy, I'd be more than happy if we had one single EU post system, as any other I've seen so far is faster/less expensive than ours (speaking of the old state-run post system, of course).

I suspect it's intended to let you normalize the general playback volume of specific tracks that might not have been ripped consistently.

Ok, I have the US iPod Classic 120 in my hands.

The difference in sound volume is impressive. I took the Empeg Sirrus test Tone, In Phase, and uploaded on both the EU and the US iPod.

I then connected the earplug output to the mic input of my laptop. I started the Soundcard Oszilloscope mentioned above in this thread. I set it up as follows:
Oscilloscope Tab
Aplitude 0.3
Synch Ch 1&2
Time(Sec) 10m
Channel mode Single

Results:

EU Max V Eff: 337m both left and right channels
US Max V Eff: 463m both left and right channels

I repeated the above test for 8 times.
The difference is remarkable.

By just listening at the two iPods, the difference is just as big. I cannot bear the volume of the US iPod at full throttle, while as yuo know the EU iPod is just high.

Also, I hear more low frequencies and have a better stereo perception.

So, now I am off to upload US firmware on EU iPod. Let's what happens.

Ok,

US iPod has 2.0.0 formware loaded. iTunes detects there's a newer version and ask what to do. I tell iTune to download but not install the newer version, and 2.0.1 is downloaded.

File name is iPod_33.2.0.1.ipsw , and it looks identical to the one I already have. So, it seems I am downloading a EU firmware even though the iPod plugged to iTune is a US one. This seems to be supported by the fact that older versions of US firmware were named iPod_24.x.y.z.ipsw . I am just guessing that the "33" means EU, while "24" means US?

As a matter of fact, I reset my EU iPod and used the newly downloaded firmware on it, and my EU iPod sounds just like before.

So, I think there are two possible explanations:

1. iTunes download EU firmware no matter what iPod is connected to it, possibly based on IP addrress. So, I can't update my US firmware or I'' turn it into a EU, volume-capped iPod.

2. the "33" and "24" are not related to regions. Simply, EU iPods are hardware volume-capped, and US iPods are not. So, I can update my US iPod and still it will sound better.

Now, I don't want to test 2 just to be stuck to a poor-sounding iPod again.

If 1 is true, I guess a need a way to fool iTunes and make it believe I am in the US.

This is so frustrating. Why, Apple, oh why?

Mmm.. if you had the firmware file in hand, could it be installed on the iPod without the computer connected to the internet?

If so, then perhaps somebody over this way might be able to acquire the file and send it your way.

Just an idea .. not me though, iTunes doesn't run (well) on Linux.

Cheers

Mark,

Yes, I could. Even with the computer connected to the internet, you can tell iTunes to install "current firmware version", meaning that it will use the firmware file saved in a dir locally.

Yes, if anybody over there could send me the firmware file, it would be great. It needs to be for iPod Classic 120, which is a different firmware than iPod Classic 80. Also, I'd be curious to find out if it is named "24"...

If you get a chance could you also do the same with your empeg, with the volume set to 0dB.

Edit: and obviously make sure that Hijack volume adjust is off.

Interesting, my EU Classic 160 is still on 1.1.2, and iTunes says it is the most recent version. So, the new Classic 120 seems to be a slightly different beast than "old" 80/160 ones. Did you notice any other differences in functionality (apart from the topic of your quest)?

BTW, iTunes uses IP to determine which local version of the shop it will let you in, so I suppose that the situation with the firmware is similar. I wonder are there some kind of public proxies that could be a way around this kind of problems.

Yes, you can use TOR + Privoxy to appear to come from a US IP address.