Rear speakers going "on and off" when playing through iPod & HK AVR 235

[evan18]

Hi,
The speakers aren't actually going on and off but they will flucuate between totally on and that rear speaker distant sound. Sometimes I'll turn on the ipod and it'll seem fine and then the back speakers will just kick in and you hear what you've been missing. I will then go back on the ipod to before the moment it did kick in and it'll will have the full sound at a point when it didn't so I doubt it was ripped badly. I never have problems with my TV or DVD/CD signals. I usually play with logic 7 on a Harman Kardon AVR 235 and have never had a single problem with it. I connect the iPod to the HK via the Monster Cable iTV plug which should be a pure connection. It also happened with just a regular Monster RCA from the line out. Anyone have any idea what's going on?!

Thanks!
Evan

[markw]

Isn't the media on your Ipod recorded in a compressed format? If so, this can play havoc with phasing.

My guess is that the highly compressed music, when converted back to analog via your Ipod, is causing your DPL processor to do weird things. As an extreme analogy, assume you're feeding a telephone output to your DPL.

DPL, when played with two channel sources, does not "put pack what is missing" but rather "guesses" at what it thinks should be in those other, never before existing. channels. Remember, when used with a stereo source, there are only two channels to begin with. It uses phasing, level, and a buncha other things that it reads from the original analog source to try to fake those other channels.

While this may work to some degree on some sources which preserve as much of the original sound as possible. Other formats, which strip out as much ot the original sounds as they can get away with, may not fare so well. Odds are the highly compressed format your Ipod recorded your music in either totally does away with, or totally screws up, a lot of these things.

Stick to two channel playback from your Ipod and you should be fine. What you're doing is kinda like trying to run a gas powered car on diesel fuel. It may work a little but it ain't gonna run right.