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Cowon S9 now has gapless!!! - Page 3

post #31 of 71
6/28/09 at 7:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by nkk View Post
Supporting it with a non-common format on models only in Japan (at least for the X1000) is not a win, it is a fail. Cowon may be late, but they are supporting it for a major lossless format, and it happens to work on all their S9s, not just Japanese ones.

-Nkk
Thanks for explaining.
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post #32 of 71
6/28/09 at 11:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nkk View Post
Supporting it with a non-common format on models only in Japan (at least for the X1000) is not a win, it is a fail. Cowon may be late, but they are supporting it for a major lossless format, and it happens to work on all their S9s, not just Japanese ones. That being said, I do give credit to Sony for having supported it, even if it was in an obscure way.

-Nkk
So iPod does it with AAC (with a bit you set in iTunes for gapless), Zunes with WMA ... and neither the iPod or Zune do it natively with FLAC. To the major hardware vendors (Sony, Apple, Toshiba/MS), they don't consider FLAC worthy of supporting I guess. Most of the major brand players don't support "fringe" codecs like OGG and FLAC, especially gapless implementations. And with iPods, Zunes, and the all ATRAC-based ones, you don't need to be lossless to be gapless.

So in that sense, Sony is no different. And because people bitched, they dumbed the walkmans outside of Japan down. Ironically, the X1060 even has drag and drop ATRAC.

Now, for other purposes I do rip in FLAC so I'm not anti-FLAC, and I'm definitely not anti-gapless as I bought a X1060 from Japan for ATRAC and gapless, but I realize I'm not the average consumer, either. For 9.9/10 people, what is released normally and outside of Japan is fine.

Cowon makes fine players, but I was underwhelmed by the SQ when I owned one, and the fact is, even back in the day, people wanted Cowon to add gapless. Why did it even take them this long? Glad they did it, but it's not like it's something their previous customers haven't asked for.
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post #33 of 71
6/29/09 at 12:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by FenderP View Post
So iPod does it with AAC (with a bit you set in iTunes for gapless), Zunes with WMA ... and neither the iPod or Zune do it natively with FLAC. To the major hardware vendors (Sony, Apple, Toshiba/MS), they don't consider FLAC worthy of supporting I guess. Most of the major brand players don't support "fringe" codecs like OGG and FLAC, especially gapless implementations. And with iPods, Zunes, and the all ATRAC-based ones, you don't need to be lossless to be gapless.

So in that sense, Sony is no different. And because people bitched, they dumbed the walkmans outside of Japan down. Ironically, the X1060 even has drag and drop ATRAC.

Now, for other purposes I do rip in FLAC so I'm not anti-FLAC, and I'm definitely not anti-gapless as I bought a X1060 from Japan for ATRAC and gapless, but I realize I'm not the average consumer, either. For 9.9/10 people, what is released normally and outside of Japan is fine.

Cowon makes fine players, but I was underwhelmed by the SQ when I owned one, and the fact is, even back in the day, people wanted Cowon to add gapless. Why did it even take them this long? Glad they did it, but it's not like it's something their previous customers haven't asked for.

+1
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post #34 of 71
6/29/09 at 1:10am
yeah, it is a loooooooong time coming. even ipod has been gapless on every model (except shuffle) since 2005 with all codecs supported. i think cowon have been pretty lazy since their excellent x5.
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post #35 of 71
6/29/09 at 1:16am
Still there are only a handful that support it even now. It's a basic feature that has been on every portable cd player, car stereo, for the last 20 years. It's so sad that it was overlooked this long (this goes for all manufacturers).

I'm just thankful that it's getting some attention as a necessary feature.
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post #36 of 71
6/29/09 at 1:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by FenderP View Post
So iPod does it with AAC (with a bit you set in iTunes for gapless), Zunes with WMA ... and neither the iPod or Zune do it natively with FLAC. To the major hardware vendors (Sony, Apple, Toshiba/MS), they don't consider FLAC worthy of supporting I guess. Most of the major brand players don't support "fringe" codecs like OGG and FLAC, especially gapless implementations. And with iPods, Zunes, and the all ATRAC-based ones, you don't need to be lossless to be gapless.

So in that sense, Sony is no different. And because people bitched, they dumbed the walkmans outside of Japan down. Ironically, the X1060 even has drag and drop ATRAC.

Now, for other purposes I do rip in FLAC so I'm not anti-FLAC, and I'm definitely not anti-gapless as I bought a X1060 from Japan for ATRAC and gapless, but I realize I'm not the average consumer, either. For 9.9/10 people, what is released normally and outside of Japan is fine.

Cowon makes fine players, but I was underwhelmed by the SQ when I owned one, and the fact is, even back in the day, people wanted Cowon to add gapless. Why did it even take them this long? Glad they did it, but it's not like it's something their previous customers haven't asked for.
I completely agree. I was just pointing out that the way Sony is signaling that it is going is that is is pulling back gapless. And who complained? I was unaware that people had a problem, do you have a source? I am not contesting this, but I am now curious. That seems an absurd thing to complain about.

And as for taking so long, I also agree. As I said, I Sony gets credit for having it. But yet again, why not on all versions? I would really like to see how people complained about gapless and ATRAC. Or am I misunderstaning?

-Nkk
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post #37 of 71
6/29/09 at 1:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gideonMorrison View Post
Thanks for explaining.
Is that sarcasm? If not than you are welcome, and if so, care to elaborate? Much of the visua and tonal cues of speech are lost in text.

-Nkk
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post #38 of 71
6/29/09 at 2:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by nkk View Post
And as for taking so long, I also agree. As I said, I Sony gets credit for having it. But yet again, why not on all versions? I would really like to see how people complained about gapless and ATRAC. Or am I misunderstaning?

-Nkk
Coz ppl bitched about SonicStage and thus, Sony "listened" (unlike Cowon): Boom! SonicStage's gone along with ATRAC and gapless. Happy?!
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post #39 of 71
6/29/09 at 2:54am
703 of course, right? Probably take the bumps off the head band this time and make it pink and gold.
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post #40 of 71
6/29/09 at 3:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by nkk View Post
I completely agree. I was just pointing out that the way Sony is signaling that it is going is that is is pulling back gapless. And who complained? I was unaware that people had a problem, do you have a source? I am not contesting this, but I am now curious. That seems an absurd thing to complain about.

And as for taking so long, I also agree. As I said, I Sony gets credit for having it. But yet again, why not on all versions? I would really like to see how people complained about gapless and ATRAC. Or am I misunderstaning?

-Nkk
You are misunderstanding.

As ilney said, people thought SonicStage sucked (past version 3, it was stable and fine; version 2.x and earlier were pretty bad and slow and what most tried and got burned on), and hated that ATRAC was proprietary (not that Apple's ALAC or MS' WMA isn't ...). So about 2 years ago Sony decided to kill both outside of Japan. With that process, Sony dropped gapless on all players outside of Japan. With that came drag and drop (which is what most clamored for), and support of most popular codecs that mainstream folks use (MP3, AAC, WMA - but even the last gen outside of Japan that had ATRAC support had most of these in some form). Not surprisingly, Sony has done better but still hasn't touched the iPod. Sony did listen, but in the process, removed a feature (outside of Japan) that few people truly care about. People here do, and some others, but if you were to take a poll, most people have no clue what gapless is to begin with.
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post #41 of 71
6/29/09 at 9:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by shigzeo View Post
yeah, it is a loooooooong time coming. even ipod has been gapless on every model (except shuffle) since 2005 with all codecs supported. i think cowon have been pretty lazy since their excellent x5.
I wouldn't call them lazy. Only iPods, Zunes (more or less), the ancient/dead Rio Karma, the new/dead Trekstor Vibez, and Rockbox support gapless.

Creative, iRiver, Samsung, and all the other big players - they do not support gapless. Sony doesn't really support it either, besides with ATRAC and that Japanese exclusive stuff.

Now Cowon stepped up their game (unlike the other manufacturers) and added a feature that is for me and many other people one of the most important there is - thus effectively leaving the competition behind.

It took a long time, but it's more than most other companies achieved.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Punnisher View Post
Still there are only a handful that support it even now. It's a basic feature that has been on every portable cd player, car stereo, for the last 20 years. It's so sad that it was overlooked this long (this goes for all manufacturers).

I'm just thankful that it's getting some attention as a necessary feature.
Well, every medium (vinyl, tape, Redbook CD, etc) and format (Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, etc) except MP3 is gapless by default. It's a shame though that so many DAP manufacturers are too lazy or not skilled enough to properly implement playback as it's meant to be. Or they simply don't care.

I too am thankful that Cowon is getting the gapless ball rolling for the "underdog" manufacturers - and I sure hope others will follow suit... Let's hope there will be a time when we don't have to think about such issues anymore, and everything will play the tunes the way they're supposed to be played.
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post #42 of 71
6/29/09 at 3:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dfkt View Post
I wouldn't call them lazy. Only iPods, Zunes (more or less), the ancient/dead Rio Karma, the new/dead Trekstor Vibez, and Rockbox support gapless.

Creative, iRiver, Samsung, and all the other big players - they do not support gapless. Sony doesn't really support it either, besides with ATRAC and that Japanese exclusive stuff.

Now Cowon stepped up their game (unlike the other manufacturers) and added a feature that is for me and many other people one of the most important there is - thus effectively leaving the competition behind.

It took a long time, but it's more than most other companies achieved.



Well, every medium (vinyl, tape, Redbook CD, etc) and format (Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, etc) except MP3 is gapless by default. It's a shame though that so many DAP manufacturers are too lazy or not skilled enough to properly implement playback as it's meant to be. Or they simply don't care.

I too am thankful that Cowon is getting the gapless ball rolling for the "underdog" manufacturers - and I sure hope others will follow suit... Let's hope there will be a time when we don't have to think about such issues anymore, and everything will play the tunes the way they're supposed to be played.
i think it speaks loads that headfi is willing to get on with a basic audio function gone from many players on the market. i was a huge hit when i went from md to mp3 players and found that my music was broken up all over the place.

i should not have said lazy about cowon - that was bad - but i do think they need to step to the goal as they are the only company around the world that have a respectful enough market size and following to challenge apple in any way.

if they can implement non-lossless gapless playback, even if only in open source codecs, that will be huge. but their focus away from aac is imbecilic - no one uses ogg or flac here in korea and that is the biggest part of their market. even people away from korea hardly use the open source codecs. it is fine that they support them - though it is free and trouble-free - but tiring.

of course rockbox is the real killer for any portable, but i am not a programmer and cannot help the focus on the fine firmware as much as i wish i could. i would be very happy with a gapless, aac, proper eq'd cowon player. stock, i have not enjoyed them much.
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post #43 of 71
6/29/09 at 5:06pm
i don't see where i can benefit from gapless, but this is good news!
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post #44 of 71
6/30/09 at 1:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilney View Post
Coz ppl bitched about SonicStage and thus, Sony "listened" (unlike Cowon): Boom! SonicStage's gone along with ATRAC and gapless. Happy?!
Quote:
Originally Posted by FenderP View Post
You are misunderstanding.

As ilney said, people thought SonicStage sucked (past version 3, it was stable and fine; version 2.x and earlier were pretty bad and slow and what most tried and got burned on), and hated that ATRAC was proprietary (not that Apple's ALAC or MS' WMA isn't ...). So about 2 years ago Sony decided to kill both outside of Japan. With that process, Sony dropped gapless on all players outside of Japan. With that came drag and drop (which is what most clamored for), and support of most popular codecs that mainstream folks use (MP3, AAC, WMA - but even the last gen outside of Japan that had ATRAC support had most of these in some form). Not surprisingly, Sony has done better but still hasn't touched the iPod. Sony did listen, but in the process, removed a feature (outside of Japan) that few people truly care about. People here do, and some others, but if you were to take a poll, most people have no clue what gapless is to begin with.
Thank you. I was confused about the proprietary thing, just because of the ALAC and WMA. But thanks for elaborating.

-Nkk
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post #45 of 71
6/30/09 at 2:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by FenderP View Post
So iPod does it with AAC (with a bit you set in iTunes for gapless), Zunes with WMA ... and neither the iPod or Zune do it natively with FLAC. To the major hardware vendors (Sony, Apple, Toshiba/MS), they don't consider FLAC worthy of supporting I guess. Most of the major brand players don't support "fringe" codecs like OGG and FLAC, especially gapless implementations. And with iPods, Zunes, and the all ATRAC-based ones, you don't need to be lossless to be gapless.

So in that sense, Sony is no different. And because people bitched, they dumbed the walkmans outside of Japan down. Ironically, the X1060 even has drag and drop ATRAC.

Now, for other purposes I do rip in FLAC so I'm not anti-FLAC, and I'm definitely not anti-gapless as I bought a X1060 from Japan for ATRAC and gapless, but I realize I'm not the average consumer, either. For 9.9/10 people, what is released normally and outside of Japan is fine.

Cowon makes fine players, but I was underwhelmed by the SQ when I owned one, and the fact is, even back in the day, people wanted Cowon to add gapless. Why did it even take them this long? Glad they did it, but it's not like it's something their previous customers haven't asked for.
the ipod does gapless with every format it can support. of course, hardware older than 2005 will not support gapless nor will any shuffle, but overall, this is a big reason i stick to ipod. when other companies can bring this out, i will start shopping.
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