iPod or not iPod.....that is the question!
Jul 30, 2005 at 7:00 PM Post #31 of 97
I've been looking at the various portable amps that are available, and I think I might be able to stretch my budget to accomodate both the iPod 20gb and a Super Mini Moy.

Is the SMM going to give the iPod the extra oomph it needs?

If it is, then I may well have made up my mind.
 
Jul 30, 2005 at 7:16 PM Post #32 of 97
I have a Super Mini Moy and it works great. Small, great sounding, built well, and power to spare. I bought it off Drew's website using PayPal, and he had it to me in three weeks.

The iPod is worth the extra money. I paid nearly $500 for my 30 gig 3G. The new models are a bargain.

See ya
Steve
 
Jul 30, 2005 at 8:40 PM Post #33 of 97
Yes - I had a Super Mini Moy ordered, but it didn't work out...
frown.gif

Edit: Hier, I didn't read your post with full attention: buy a SMM from Drew on an eBay auction.
 
Jul 30, 2005 at 8:44 PM Post #34 of 97
hmm you could get a iAudio X5 which can play FLAC which is a TON better than mp3. Its the only mini player that will let you play FLAC atm. If you get the XL version it has 35 hours of battery life as well. It has the best audio out of any other player, but the line out is questionable.
 
Jul 30, 2005 at 9:04 PM Post #35 of 97
The iPod has Apple Lossless, which is the same as FLAC. It also has AAC, which is comparable to OGG and it supports MP3, WAV and AIFF as well. Unless you plan to get your files from someone else in a particular format, the flavor of file format really doesn't matter. There are always comparable alternatives.

See ya
Steve
 
Jul 30, 2005 at 10:04 PM Post #36 of 97
The more I think about it, the more I realise that I'm likely to want to take advantage of the iPod's supposedly superior line-out.

I guess that after weighing up all the possibilities its easy to see why, when talking about DAPs, the name 'iPod' has become the generic term for MP3 players: much the same way as the personal cassette player came to be referred to as a Walkman [regardless of the manufacturer].

The only problem now is tracking down a 4th gen 20gb iPod. I've just been reading that the new 5th gen, with colour screen, has slightly inferior sound quality. I suppose something had to give when adding the new features.
 
Jul 30, 2005 at 10:21 PM Post #37 of 97
Quote:

Originally Posted by Hier
As your based in the UK, it would be helpful if you could point me in the direction of some headphone amp stockists. I've been looking around for online retailers and I can't find anything. Searches for the SuperMacro V1 and Headroom's AirHead both draw a blank.


Check the sponsors linked at the top of the page. http://headphone.com makes the airhead, http://headamp.com is coming out with an amp with a built in lithium-ion battery, Ray http://www.raysamuelsaudio.com/ makes a highly regarded portable amplifier and is just about to release another one, and xin http://www.fixup.net/ makes the supermacro. there are a few others but these are the big guys.

jesse

edit: one thing to be wary of about the 4g ipod is the battery life is very poor. apparently the newer ones have much better battery life--but you would be VERY lucky to get even 8 hours with lossless on a 4th gen. I get much less than that with 256kbps AAC, and this is the only reason I am regrettably looking for a new player.
 
Jul 30, 2005 at 10:54 PM Post #38 of 97
Every time there's a new generation of iPods, there're always reports of inferior sound quality. If you chase these down, you either find out that the person reporting it doesn't even own the models they are talking about, or that the degree of difference is so small, it can easily be explained away by the vagueries of individual perception. The truth is that Apple has been steadily upgrading the quality of its DACs. They're still 24 bit Wolfson chips, but each one is a slightly improved version.

In the real world, you won't be able to tell the difference in sound between the current models and the previous ones. The degree of compression makes a much bigger impact on the sound quality than the hardware does. Get whatever model has the best gig to dollar ratio and ignore the reports of angels dancing on the heads of pins.

See ya
Steve
 
Jul 30, 2005 at 11:40 PM Post #39 of 97
Quote:

Originally Posted by Hier
The only problem now is tracking down a 4th gen 20gb iPod. I've just been reading that the new 5th gen, with colour screen, has slightly inferior sound quality. I suppose something had to give when adding the new features.


I have a 4g Ipod for sale, for cheap. Pm me.
 
Jul 31, 2005 at 12:15 AM Post #40 of 97
Quote:

Check the sponsors linked at the top of the page. www.headphone.com makes the airhead, www.headamp.com is coming out with an amp with a built in lithium-ion battery, Ray www.raysamuelsaudio.com makes a highly regarded portable amplifier and is just about to release another one, and www.fixup.net makes the supermacro. there are a few others but these are the big guys.


Thanks for the sources. There are some great sounding amps listed and the Lithium battery amp sounds like a good idea. Most are out of my budget though?!!!*****.

Quote:

one thing to be wary of about the 4g ipod is the battery life is very poor. apparently the newer ones have much better battery life--but you would be VERY lucky to get even 8 hours with lossless on a 4th gen. I get much less than that with 256kbps AAC, and this is the only reason I am regrettably looking for a new player.


Considering the following quote [see below] the 4th gen battery issue certailnly seems to ba valid concern.

8hrs isn't a bad playback time though. I've mentioned earlier that I used to manage with less with portable cassette players.

Quote:

Every time there's a new generation of iPods, there're always reports of inferior sound quality. If you chase these down, you either find out that the person reporting it doesn't even own the models they are talking about, or that the degree of difference is so small, it can easily be explained away by the vagaries of individual perception. The truth is that Apple has been steadily upgrading the quality of its DACs. They're still 24 bit Wolfson chips, but each one is a slightly improved version.


I can definitely imagine that what your saying is true. Occasionally working in the 'meedja' I've seen how lazy journalists can be.

Quote:

In the real world, you won't be able to tell the difference in sound between the current models and the previous ones. The degree of compression makes a much bigger impact on the sound quality than the hardware does. Get whatever model has the best gig to dollar ratio and ignore the reports of angels dancing on the heads of pins.


Those pesky angels..............
 
Jul 31, 2005 at 2:59 AM Post #41 of 97
I have a dock at home and a dock at work, so the only time my iPod drains its battery is inbetween... That's rarely more than an hour or two. 8 hours is a long time. There are cheap AA battery packs that extend that by double If you really need it.

See ya
Steve
 
Jul 31, 2005 at 3:34 AM Post #42 of 97
Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot
The iPod has Apple Lossless, which is the same as FLAC. It also has AAC, which is comparable to OGG and it supports MP3, WAV and AIFF as well. Unless you plan to get your files from someone else in a particular format, the flavor of file format really doesn't matter. There are always comparable alternatives.

See ya
Steve


HA! AAC as good as Vorbis, in your dreams.
I did some tests and all I can say is that Vorbis sounds a hell of a lot better than AAC at low bitrates, and for high bitrates Vorbis can go to a lot higher bitrate than AAC (500 kbps vs 320kbps).
And for Apple Lossless vs FLAC, Apple Lossless is proprietary and as the name implies it is owned by Apple so I doubt that any other players will support Apple Lossless ever, bar the ipods (betamax anyone?), FLAC on the other hand is open source and can be used by anyone free of charge.
 
Jul 31, 2005 at 3:52 AM Post #43 of 97
Compare the quality of AAC and OGG at 256 to a WAV rip. Hmm... They all sound pretty much the same, don't they? Now check the filesizes. Let me know what you find out.

There's nothing wrong with Apple Lossless if you have an iPod. Of course there's no reason to use it if you don't have one. People have been calling Apple "Betamax" since day one... It's still here and going strong. Apple owns the DAP market. I wouldn't advise holding your breath until the iPod disappears.

With a lossless file, you can always transcode to AIFF or WAV and be right back where you started. So it doesn't matter at all what format you encode in.

See ya
Steve
 
Jul 31, 2005 at 4:58 AM Post #44 of 97
Quote:

Originally Posted by The D
HA! AAC as good as Vorbis, in your dreams.
I did some tests and all I can say is that Vorbis sounds a hell of a lot better than AAC at low bitrates, and for high bitrates Vorbis can go to a lot higher bitrate than AAC (500 kbps vs 320kbps).


Vorbis can hold quality lower than AAC (not counting HE-AAC), but how many people are using sub-128 kbps files on this board? As for higher could anyone explain to me why you would ever use a 500 kbps lossy when not much more gives you lossless? At least for me that's a useless setting (aside from the psychological "I picked the highest bitrate"). For the range most here would use (and for the DAPs discussed in this thread - no mention of a 256 MB player for instance) 160 - 320 kbps AAC and Vorbis perform very similar (with LAME MP3 not far behind). I've got nothing against Vorbis, just surprised there's so many that think it's superior to AAC. And when it comes to Classical (some discussion on problems) or with battery drain AAC edges there. Or maybe we have difference dreams.
 
Jul 31, 2005 at 5:03 AM Post #45 of 97
Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot
Compare the quality of AAC and OGG at 256 to a WAV rip. Hmm... They all sound pretty much the same, don't they? Now check the filesizes. Let me know what you find out.

There's nothing wrong with Apple Lossless if you have an iPod. Of course there's no reason to use it if you don't have one. People have been calling Apple "Betamax" since day one... It's still here and going strong. Apple owns the DAP market. I wouldn't advise holding your breath until the iPod disappears.

With a lossless file, you can always transcode to AIFF or WAV and be right back where you started. So it doesn't matter at all what format you encode in.

See ya
Steve


It does not matter if AAC and Vorbis sound the same at 256 kbps (BTW with better headphones you should hear the dif between 256kbps and WAV), Vorbis is better because it sounds a lot better at low bitrates vs AAC and it can have a lot higher max bitrate vs AAC and what does AAC have? DRM which only one online store supports?

FLAC is also better because you would have to transcode all your Apple Lossless files if you got a non apple DAP, since FLAC is the only other lossless format supported on DAPs. Here is a wiki on HA about lossless formats.

P.S: Don't be so sure that the ipod will be around forever, especially with how far the ipod is falling behind most other DAPs (e.g the iAudio X5).
 
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