Voyager/Ipod 3.5mm i-lead (at last!)
Printed From: Graham Slee Hifi System Components
Category: Headphone Audio
Forum Name: Portable Headphone User
Forum Description: Technical Q&A, hints and tips
URL: https://www.hifisystemcomponents.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=322
Printed Date: 20 Apr 2024 at 5:38am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Voyager/Ipod 3.5mm i-lead (at last!)
Posted By: Darren/Audio Elevati
Subject: Voyager/Ipod 3.5mm i-lead (at last!)
Date Posted: 13 Dec 2008 at 3:13pm
Thanks to Graham for allowing this blatant plug!
Audio Elevation's bespoke 3.5mm - 3.5mm i-leadAt last, we have a fantastic solution to offer all customers who have been asking about an upgrade to the 3.5mm lead supplied with the Graham Slee Voyager as standard. Thank you for waiting. As those of you who have been following us on this quest, there have been many failures, mainly concerned with producing a lead which would go directly from the ipod dock connector to 3.5mm jack input on the Voyager that didn't fail. If you have seen the inside of the ipod dock connector, you'll appreciate how flimsy they really are. We couldn't get a solution that proved reliable so there was no point in pursuing that option any further. Instead, we concentrated on producing the best 3.5mm - 3.5mm jack lead of short length that we could. That meant the best wire, best connectors and top quality assembly here in England. That's the story, now here's the technical blurb for anyone who's interested. Audio Elevation's bespoke 3.5mm - 3.5mm "i-lead" utilises current military aerospace materials to ensure exact signal reproduction. On the outside are 2 Gold plated stereo jack plugs, between the 2 connectors is a jacketed cable, the jacket of the cable is made from DR25, an extremely flexable elastomer, offering excellent cable strength and flexibility. Within the jacket lie 3 Silver plated multistranded copper conductors to optimise frequency transfer. Each conductor is soldered to the connectors with Silver loaded solder. The length between backshells of the Neutrik connectors is 100mm (tolerance +/-5mm). The cable construction means flexibility is not a problem in using this cable in restricted space environments. That's the best 3.5mm lead sorted, then. The best option to bypass the volume limitations of the ipod's 3.5mm output seems to be to use the Sendstation connector that a customer mentioned on the Graham Slee forum recently. The difference is marked but the cost is high. We're working on getting to supply them in future and will keep you posted In the meantime, we have one on dem and one boxed available to the first order at £29,99 (that's what they cost retail so we're not making anything ourselves). Here are a couple of pictures...   Pics show my very own Voyager/Ipod - my lead is slightly longer than the production model.
------------- http://www.audioelevation.co.uk - Audio Elevation - taking your hi-fi to another level. |
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Replies:
Posted By: mrarroyo
Date Posted: 13 Dec 2008 at 3:48pm
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Good luck! PM sent. ------------- Miguel |
Posted By: Darren/Audio Elevati
Date Posted: 14 Dec 2008 at 1:13pm
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Sold 4 already!!! What a great result. Thanks for support folks. ------------- http://www.audioelevation.co.uk - Audio Elevation - taking your hi-fi to another level. |
Posted By: stephenlines
Date Posted: 31 Dec 2008 at 2:00am
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Graham,
Whilst I agree that the iPod dock connector plugs are flimsy, easily damaged (e.g if you fall asleep and end up lying on it during a Rioja-fuelled listening session), and with such tiny, closely-spaced terminals must be a total nightmare to solder reliably, the bottom line is that the iPod feeds the 3.5mm headphone socket pure CRUD (because of it's low quality amplification).
Therefore, no matter how good a cable you plug between it and the headphone amp you'll still get CRUD. Slightly better CRUD than normal maybe, but still CRUD. By CRUD I mean no width, depth, height, dynamics, musicality, or emotional involvement. Short term you can overcome this with pure volume, which the Voyager can provide, but all volume controls have an end-stop and all ears are damaged by dangerously high volume levels (even extreme volume levels will probably still leave you feeling underwhelmed by the music).
The difference between the sockets is easy to measure objectively - via the iPod's 3.5mm socket every glass of wine requires an increase in volume to maintain emotional involvement. Via a decent iPod dock/3.5 cable and an excellent Headphone amp like the Voyager, you can keep the volume at the same level, enjoying the music more and more until you finally fall asleep and break the i-plug.
All you do then is order a replacement from those nice folk at Graham Slee, or at least you could if they did one...
There must be a way of making a good iPod dock to 3.5mm cable that lasts - the cheap sync cable (iPod dock to USB) that comes with all iPods is immensly reliable, even though it has no i-diophile pretensions whatsoever, and is CHEAP. Shame they don't include one with a 3.5mm plug at the other end as standard. The fact that they don't is GOOD NEWS - it opens up an entire global market for whoever cracks this one AND makes it as easy to find on the net as the horrible "telescopic" items that Google usually points you to.
Two main problems with the iPod plug in my experience:
1) Poor cable retention - one good tug and all your careful soldering is undone. One cable I used tried to solve this with a generous blob of clear mastic inside (it eventually failed the "sleep test" after about 4 months). So, resin injection?
2) Terminal damage - absolutely NOTHING you or anyone else can do about this unless you manufacture the plugs yourself, as this occurs when the plug is pulled sideways and bends the little spring terminals to the point that they no longer make contact reliably. You are totally reliant on the quality of the plug that you buy, and I guess there are not too many of them.
GOOD NEWS - Rioja quaffing i-diophiles will become regular repeat customers if they like the way your cable sounded before they (embarassingly) fell asleep on it and broke it. DEEP JOY.
PLEASE think again - the gains from using a moderately decent cable connecting the iPod dock to a Voyager are light years ahead of the "diminishing returns" of uber-fi cables that, at best can only propogate unsullied CRUD. (GIGO).
C'Mon Graham, you're SO CLOSE to cracking this, don't fall at the last hurdle, please... ------------- kintrainer |
Posted By: tg [RIP]
Date Posted: 31 Dec 2008 at 3:43am
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http://www.russandrews.com/product.asp?lookup=0®ion=UK¤cy=GBP&pf_id=2204&customer_id=PAA3128122208517GCLYDCZYEBVKDNTX - Link removed now that provenance has been established. Guess this is the Kimber that you found ? http://www.sendstation.com/us/products/pocketdock/lineout-usb.html - http://www.sendstation.com/us/products/pocketdock/lineout-usb.html These look handy. Prolly not nap-proof though |
Posted By: stephenlines
Date Posted: 31 Dec 2008 at 9:58am
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tg,
yes, that was the cable I was talking about - didn't post a link as that would be advertising the competition!
The mini iPod dock gadget looks good, but agree it's probably not as nap-proof as a well made cable would be. Also another connection in the signal path (but we're talking iPod as the source, so although very good I doubt if I'd be able to hear the extra connection) ------------- kintrainer |
Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 31 Dec 2008 at 12:24pm
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The insurmountable problem in making an ipod dock to 3.5 jack cable is not being unable to source the connectors, nor being able to solder the tiny little contacts, or even being able to source quality cable of suitable performance... No, it's worse than that! It is Apple! Any commercial opperation wishing to make anything at all for the ipod must obtain an Apple licence to do it! And Apple licences are not cheap. And Apple have people zealously checking up to see if any commercial opperation is selling anything ipod related that doesn't have a license. So, very sorry to all, we just don't have enough money to give our profits to Apple! ------------- That none should be able to buy or sell without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |
Posted By: mrarroyo
Date Posted: 31 Dec 2008 at 2:34pm
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Plus w/ all due respect there are plenty of options out there to choose from. So I would think that Graham and his staff should concentrate on their core products. ------------- Miguel |
Posted By: jamescodway
Date Posted: 31 Dec 2008 at 8:31pm
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Stephen (I presume?), I was going to agree wholeheartedly with you last night (this morning?) on line vs. phone out but it was just too late to type coherently.
With significant due respect to Miguel, there are certainly options for a portable LOD but "many"? Well, certainly on this side of the pond, the 2 options I found are a) Maplins (actually not that bad, in fact pretty decent sounding and reasonably robust for not many ££) and b) Qables in Holland (pretty decent but now v.expensive in ££). Of course there are de facto a large number of private individuals in cyberspace purporting to offer such products and cottage industries in the US doing the same. I can't believe they're all licensed... but I can believe Apple will go after them. I think the flaw in the business case (like the flaw in many UK headphone related business cases) is the lack of demand for quality product in the UK (the ignorant fools!!). There may be latent demand but it is not yet manifest to my observation. Regards James |
Posted By: Daveevo
Date Posted: 06 Feb 2009 at 1:55pm
| I've used SendStation's pocket docks for years and find them to be satisfactory. Anything to be able to bypass the lousy headphone socket audio from the iPod. |
Posted By: mrarroyo
Date Posted: 07 Feb 2009 at 12:54am
Daveevo, glad you mentioned the Sendstation pocket dock. I too used one for over a year and it is a very good product, with the added advantage that it allows you to charge the iPod while still being able to feed a signal via the Sendstation dock to the amp. Enclosed is an old picture from 2005 showing it in use w/ a Grado SR125, Cardas Mini to Mini, and a Pocket Amp by Gary.
 Note: Graham, the picture above has an small amp made in Canada and which I owned back in 2005. It is an inexpensive unit from a guy w/ great customer service. Its sound is not on even close to your Voyager. If you find the picture is of questionable use please remove. Thanks. ------------- Miguel |
Posted By: Daveevo
Date Posted: 10 Feb 2009 at 2:28pm
Pic of my pocket dock in action too! iPhone, Voyager, Nordost cable/Paalics plugs, Shure SE530s.
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Posted By: magical_mouse
Date Posted: 13 Feb 2009 at 2:13pm
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You can obtain an ipod dock connector from
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/AW-Audio-accessory - http://stores.ebay.co.uk/AW-Audio-accessory
 i purchased one before xmas and it works fine & is cheaper than the sendstation one aound £10 with postage, beware though he seems to list the same one at different prices on his site. ------------- magical_mouse |
Posted By: mrarroyo
Date Posted: 14 Feb 2009 at 3:52pm
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magical_mouse the dock you have has a locking feature, is smaller and cheaper. However it does not allow the user to listen to the iPod using the line out while charging it. If that is not an issue then go for it. ------------- Miguel |
Posted By: Jitter
Date Posted: 19 Mar 2009 at 6:37pm
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Just ordered one of these http://whathifi.com/Review/Russ-Andrews-GQ-24/ - http://whathifi.com/Review/Russ-Andrews-GQ-24/
Much cheaper now
Will let you know how I get on (long delvery - out of stock) ------------- ...... and that's my opinion, take or leave it |
Posted By: Quabbage
Date Posted: 24 May 2009 at 11:18am
| Hi - first post. I've bought one of the Russ Andrews cables to go with my brand new Voyager (I didn't fancy using the iPod headphone out) and I am hearing random popping / cracking noises on play back from my 4G Nano to HD650s. Anyone else had a similar experience? Is it a static issue? Thanks. |
Posted By: Darren/Audio Elevati
Date Posted: 27 May 2009 at 6:34pm
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Hi Quabbage,
Welcome to the community.
Sounds to me like the dock connector is breaking up already to me. Try squeezing the dock connector and waggling the wire about - can you make it happen by doing that? As I've said elsewhere, making one that will last and stand up to the rigours of being in/out of your coat pocket etc etc is hard. I wonder how long Russ spent testing it on the train/walking/running etc. Would be difficult from the comfort of his yacht eh?..
Back to us mortals who call a spade a spade and are hear for the long run, not the fast buck. The best we've come up with is the SendStation pocketdock products with a separate 3.5mm jack lead (you can get them to RCA phonos if you know the right retailer
:-) ). There are pictures of their products on this thread and elsewhere - you owe it to yourself to check them out.
Jeez, 650s on your Voyager, now that's class on the train eh!? Good on you. ------------- http://www.audioelevation.co.uk - Audio Elevation - taking your hi-fi to another level. |
Posted By: Quabbage
Date Posted: 28 May 2009 at 10:04am
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Thanks for your reply Darren. I don't think it's the dock connector - I have tried what you suggested and couldn't cause crackles to happen. It does seem to be a random crackle that I am experiencing (almost like a vinyl pop - not very frequent and not in the same positions in songs) and not linked to movement or the position of the cable. I'll continue to try to figure it out and if I do I'll let people know here. Your cable looks great but as I can't demo it I'd need to hear other people's views of it (particularly with the SendStation) before biting. Can you or anyone else post some reviews? Oh and the 650s are for home use ;o) I just like to, ahem, voyage around my house... and the combo of Voyager and 650s sounds good enough to me... for now anyway... |
Posted By: Darren/Audio Elevati
Date Posted: 28 May 2009 at 1:22pm
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Are you local? Can you pop round to hear mine?
Re the cracking, I did have some problems with my ipod similar but it was from when I imported the cd originally into itunes. I think what happened was that, if I opened another application whilst waiting for the cd to burn, it made the cd "skip" then when the ipod tried to play it, it was jumping around trying to find it and that sounded like a static crackle in the earphones. Does that help?! ------------- http://www.audioelevation.co.uk - Audio Elevation - taking your hi-fi to another level. |
Posted By: tg [RIP]
Date Posted: 29 May 2009 at 12:32am
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Interesting that Darren, I am no great mobile headfi user, so no extensive experience there. I do recall fooling around with itunes at one time though, trying to get it to do something or other for Miguel IIRC. The problem of introduced noise when using itunes for ripping though does ring a bell, never particularly tried to track down the problem, insufficient need. Think I still have a track or two I ripped with itunes that had "blips" in them, you may well be onto something there, IIRC I used an old Mac 9600 with a G3 card in it to do the ripping and just put the poor results down to elderly hardware and old software. Not sure about the randomness on replay though, the whole exercise was some time ago now and memory somewhat hazy. Might well repay some investigation. |
Posted By: Darren/Audio Elevati
Date Posted: 29 May 2009 at 8:08am
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Yes, I never took a scientific approach to whether or not it happened at a particular point in a particular track etc every time. Problem of course is you're sitting on a train or similar when it happens and all you want is for more music to come in. On some tracks I get the skipping but on others I will be half way through a track and it will just skip and cut off then starts again at the next track. That is down to the error correction software I think trying to find the next bit of material it recognises and can play - it seems to try a couple of times then give up and head for the next track.
Let us know if you find anything out from your investigations. ------------- http://www.audioelevation.co.uk - Audio Elevation - taking your hi-fi to another level. |
Posted By: tg [RIP]
Date Posted: 29 May 2009 at 9:32am
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Since Quabbage raised the issue, perhaps he can provide some more info and we can investigate it some more. Perhaps it is a "file"/"ripping"/"conversion" issue, perhaps it is an ipod hardware issue. Quabbage, if you are interested in pursuing this further please post again and I will ask some questions and get you to try a few things to see in which direction we should look for a solution. |
Posted By: Quabbage
Date Posted: 29 May 2009 at 11:03am
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Thanks for your interest in this guys. Yeah I'm happy to do some further investigation - ask away! I have a variety of files and hardware to test with (although not another cable - I may get something cheap from Tesco today to solve that). Unfortunately I am not local so I doubt I'll be popping round but thanks for the offer. |
Posted By: tg [RIP]
Date Posted: 29 May 2009 at 11:17am
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OK, first question, this may require relistening to some of the tracks in question, do these "glitches" occur at exactly the same place in the same track every time ? |
Posted By: Darren/Audio Elevati
Date Posted: 29 May 2009 at 11:39am
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I think mine occurred when opening Explorer whilst importing cd to itunes. Try that maybe to see if you can duplicate the symptom? ------------- http://www.audioelevation.co.uk - Audio Elevation - taking your hi-fi to another level. |
Posted By: Quabbage
Date Posted: 29 May 2009 at 11:47am
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No. If I rewind back to listen to the glitches, they don't reoccur in the same place. If I play the song again from the beginning the glitches might not even happen again for that track. I am beginning to suspect that this is an iPod issue. See the following thread on Headfi where someone mentions (in response to a similar problem) "All iPods will pause or skip if the buffer overflows. You're probably trying to play tracks that are larger than the built in RAM. Use AAC instead of lossless and that problem with go away." http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f15/ipod-classic-static-crackling-certain-tones-305787/ - http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f15/ipod-classic-static-crackling-certain-tones-305787/ Now I don't often use lossless on my iPod but I do tend to use use v0 variable bit rate MP3. I think I'll do some testing with AAC. |
Posted By: Darren/Audio Elevati
Date Posted: 29 May 2009 at 12:27pm
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Mine are all in lossless. ------------- http://www.audioelevation.co.uk - Audio Elevation - taking your hi-fi to another level. |
Posted By: tg [RIP]
Date Posted: 29 May 2009 at 1:43pm
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Sounds to me like Quabbage has the direction, if it is not repeatable then the problem is not in the file but the replay of the file. Have to think from a digital processing POV that random glitches sound like dodgy RAM to me. Cannot quite see why a buffer overflow would not occur at the same time/place every time when processing a VBR file. Unless of course, the playback RAM/buffer share memory with the OS which might or might not be using the same amount of memory at any given time. That is a bit too deep in the software for me. I would give the AAC a try first to see if that overcomes the problem. I'm out of time for fooling around ATM but will see if I still have the files with problems and if they are repeatable. Darren, thinking a little more about it, as far as I am aware, Miguel uses Apple lossless and I have never heard him mention the problem, so I am rather dubious as to the explanation given earlier re buffer overflows, there may of course be more than one explanation for similar sounding symptoms. Have you tried playing the same files back direct from your computer rather than the ipod ? and are your symptoms those of a repeatable error ? Still, trying AAC seems like a good first step. |
Posted By: Quabbage
Date Posted: 29 May 2009 at 10:49pm
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Well I mucked around with AAC, lossless and different decoders for a while and then did the obvious and tried out a different iPod. And it turns out that the Russ Andrews cable works without any issues with an older iPod video I have.
So either my iPod nano is duff or there is an issue between the iPod nano and the Russ Andrews cable. I have read elsewhere that Apple changed how the dock line out works for the 4th generation iPod nano and newer versions of the iPhone and iPod Touch so I am betting that the cable I have isn't 100% compatible with these newer models (perhaps it is an old cable that has been sent to me). I have emailed Russ Andrews - well maybe not the Russ Andrews, unless he has a blackberry on his yacht - ;o) so we'll see what happens. I appreciate that I have hijacked this thread a little from the discussion about the Audio Elevation cable, but hopefully someone else who hears popping or clicking noises from a line out dock in the future may fall upon this thread and come to a conclusion quicker than I managed. I for one am definitely interested in hearing people's views on how the Audio Elevation cable performs. Also, I know it is accepted wisdom that line out docks are better than using the headphone out but I wonder how much difference (if any) it really makes on the modern iPods? TG/Darren many thanks for your input on this - much appreciated. |
Posted By: tg [RIP]
Date Posted: 30 May 2009 at 2:50am
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Quabbage, you are welcome. Glad that you seem to have found a direction in which to proceed. The "accepted wisdom" is concerned with whether you wish to use, as input to a quality amplifier, the signal before or after it is processed by a lesser quality amplifier. The line out is the signal before it passes through the onboard amplifier, the headphone out is the signal after passing through that amplifier, the difference will be according to how much the signal is degraded or not, by that amplifier. In general audio terms, the fewer the active stages in the signal path the better the sound quality, or the less the signal degradation. |