A friend of mine who owns a movie thatre (www.spectrum8.com) opened a coffee house next door and asked me to put in a sound system for her. I bought a new 2 channel stereo amp, some used epicure and platinum audio speakers and hooked her up. At first she used a used Yammie CD player for sound BUT found out that the kids in the place were playing too much "wild assed chit" for customers soooo out went the CD player and in came the Ipod.

Yesterday she calls me down and says that the system all of sudden sounds like ass and asks me to check it out. After a few minutes of checking things out I determine that the system does indeed sound like ass but I can't figure out why. After systematically checking everything I decided to run the CD Player, voila it sounded like heaven. So we narrowed it down the Ipod.

I checked the connections and they were good. But I noticed that when I turned the volume on the ipod DOWN below halfway the sound improved mightily and sound remained good when the volume was turned up on the receiver. I don't own an Ipod so I'm asking some basic questions.

1. The reciever we're using does NOT have an Ipod input, they've been running the device for almost a year, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week through the "Phono" input. Would a dedicated Ipod input make a difference?

2. We're just using an un-amped output direct to the receiver. Should we look into a pre-amp?

3. Do they make Ipod pre-amps?

4. Do Ipods just crap out after so much use?

Any help would be appreciated.

Da Worfster