What's with the iPod audio chip?

I hear a lot of people complaining about iPods sounding bad...
Could this be 'cause they are using the crappy head phones that come with iPod?

I'm using a pair of BOSE headphones and I can't tell the difference between my turtlebeach sound card, my Intel HighDefinition Audio chip, or my iPod...

Do I just have bad hearing, or do people like to complain?

 

They like to complain. I had my Ipod hooked up to my Skullcandy headphones for the longest time and it sounded perfect.

I used cheap Sony "behind-the-head-phones" that I picked up for 15 bucks and it still sounded just as great.

 

My sister has an iPod mini and it sounded great on my Sony portable monitor headphones. People do like to complain.

 

Compare any MP3 to the audio of a CD, or even a record, and the MP3 will be blown away.

 

Yeah for real. Of coarse it can depend on the rate of compression, but 99.99% of mp3's are of lesser quality than CD's.

I believe Apple and Mac prefer ".aac" file compression, or codec. This ".aac" codec is actually better than mp3. Read more here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding