Speed of Sound Improvements

I had a weird moment last night on the train home last night. The music coming out of my new iPod -- the replacement for the one that got stolen out of my car -- sounded fucking brilliant. Noticeably better than I'm used to hearing.

There are three suspects for this, maybe four. First, this latest generation of iPods may have improved their digital-to-analog conversion algorithms, not that the salesdude at the Apple store was any help whatsoever when I tried to figure out it that was the case. Second, it could be that most of the stuff on the old iPod was ripped to the MP3 format at 128 kbps, whereas I've been slowly changing over to 192 kbps. Third, there may be something about mounting headphones inside those around-the-back-of-your-head earmuffs that makes them sound vastly superior to other $20 headphones.

Finally, my ears may be so used to "CD quality streamed audio" that this just sounds like the proverbial breath of fresh air.