Top 5 MP3 Players of 2009( Anythingbutipod.com Review) - Page 4

The function of gapless has nothing to do with the sound quality. has gapless or not don't effect one decent dap is hi fi grade or not.

ROCOO is a up coming low price hifi DAP. I was told that ROCOO means ROCK+ COOL=ROCOO. A very interesting name. Maybe this DAP will be more friendly to ROCK or electronic genres.

I just contacted with Hisoudaudio , and got the limited informations. The exactly retail price and specification and pictures are still not available.

Of course gapless playback (true gapless, seamless playback) doesn't affect the sound quality, but it certainly can affect whether or not it's a high-grade DAP for some of us. Some of us like to listen to live albums and stuff that runs together (like Dark Side of the Moon), and hearing any sort of gap or pause in between the tracks gets really irritating and ruins the music experience. If a DAP sounds great but is marketed as a hi-fi or high-grade DAP and it can't do gapless right, I'd rather stick with an old Discman or my Rockboxed iPod. Again, this is not an issue for everyone, but others (like me) find it essential. One reason why I love Rockbox so much is because it actually has true gapless, seamless playback. It's something the Zune team never got right, and Sandisk isn't much better so far.

It only explain that Gapless function is personal hobby. if some low fi DAP has gapless feature, is it a high -grade one? I don't think so.

I can understand that with some tracks, it is better to be continually played. such as the living singing concert. But, half second pause between the tracks is bearable.

on the contrary, if it is a seamless playing, to some body, it is also not accustomed, for most of us have been used to the normal MP3 player paused between tracks listening habit.

Also, CD player has pause between tracks.

Anyway, if gapless is must necessary, I suppose every MP3 player will apply this function, for it will not increase the manufacturing cost.

It only prove that gapless playing feature is only some personal hobby, please don't tag it to "high grade" player. for the Hi grade CD player priced with USD 30000 also is not gapless, can you say it is a low end CD player?

I've had a few CD players over the years and none of them has ever inserted a gap into a live album. I've also heard lots of other CD players and none of those has inserted a gap into a live album either.

You might think a short gap is bearable, but to others, myself included - a gap is just a jarring reminder that the album doesn't flow how it was supposed to. And if you've always heard the album play gaplessly (as it should) - then hearing a gap every few minutes is a big no no.

There's also the fact that some CDs are cut in strange places, ELO's El Dorado and Spirit's Animal Zoo come to mind. If they play with gaps, you get weird track endings that make the gaps even more jarring. There's no flow, and that's the whole point of live albums and almost anything by PF, Mike Oldfield and Alan Parsons

It shouldn't be considered an unrealistic expectation to want an mp3 player to play the albums how they were supposed to be heard - with no gaps. Of course it doesn't bother some people, but if low-cost daps can do it, then why is it so difficult for higher-end daps to implement it? That's the bit I don't understand.

I didn't say gapless automatically made a DAP high-grade or high-fi. Reread my post. If someone comes up with the most hi-fi, high-grade, classiest DAP of all time, but it still doesn't have gapless playback that works perfectly 100% of the time, I wouldn't spend much money on it. There's a difference between hi-fi and high-grade. Hi-fi means it sounds really, really, really good. High-grade (within the context of the last few posts; I'm not talking about USDA steaks here...) can vary from person to person. If a DAP is really hi-fi, but it can't do gapless, I don't consider it to fit my definition/perspective of high-grade. My idea of grading DAPs doesn't automatically mean my standards apply to all DAPs. It's just how I percieve the quality, value, and the enjoyment I'll get out of it. Do you understand what I'm saying? Also, there's a middle ground. Not hi-grade doesn't automatically mean low-grade in all cases.

To you maybe, but not to everyone. If you're happy without gapless, that's fine. I'm not, so I have to do more research before I go out and buy a new (or used) DAP.

That's fine for some people, but not for everybody. Think about how many people would actually care about gapless if Apple had it working for iPods since the 3rd gen.

I have never had a CD player do that. Not a hi-fi/component (which I haven't had many of), not a portable, not a car CD player, not a boombox, not a shelf system. I've had a few CDs with gaps due to how they were engineered, but never a CD player. Would you mind naming some CD players that insert gaps by default? I've never heard of such a thing before, and I'm curious.

Again, I never said gapless automatically made a player hi-fi or the lack of it automatically made it low-fi or low-grade. If I'm going to pay $3000 for any kind of digital audio player or CD player, it dang well better have gapless. Just because you don't need it doesn't make it a niche market item or feature. Just becaue it doesn't fit my needs for a high-grade piece of equipment doesn't mean it's garbage. Bose fits some people's idea of high-grade, but not everyone's... (not trying to start a Bose flame war, just an example that might make what I'm saying easier to understand).

I am far form a hi-fier myself, but what is the problem that you have with the zune's gapless playback. In all but lossless music i hear no gap.

Its funny because i used to be in the gaps dont matter camp, but in an album where songs flow together, it really does make a difference well at least to me

It doesn't work half the time. When I had a bunch of 192 WMA stuff on it, it worked better, but it hardly worked at all with WMA lossless. That, and the Zune team actually made it worse with the 3.x firmware updates. Do you have Dark Side of the Moon or The Wall on your Zune? I never could get those to play perfectly gapless, regardless of the firmare version. Sometimes they would play gapless, but they'd overlap, like a really short, poorly executed, unwanted crossfade. BTW, I've had a 120GB and a 30GB.

Another issue I had with my Zune was it adding diginoise to some of my songs. I'd rerip them, and it would do the same thing in a different spot. Deep Purple's song "You Keep On Moving" always had a really annoying pop at the very beginning when I played it on my Zune. The same file never had it when played on my laptop through the Zune software or Windows Media Player. Some people can live with that, but I can't.

Unfortunately i dont have those albums on my zune. But i know for a fact that when i used WMA lossless there was a noticeable pause. I think i know what you mean with the diginoise i have had some instances where during music i ripped there would be a weird little noise at a certain part of a song. I dont think i have this problem with the zunehd. But to be honest i am far more casual about my portable audio than i was in the past.

Did you rip the music using the zune software?? I have had some very bad experiences trying to rip wma lossless with the zune software....I almost always use cds now so this might not be a fix. But if i remember correctly, ripping a cd into wma lossless using foobar, the converting it into a lame mp3 file, fixed the diginoise problem for me.

+100 for gapless! Love my Cowon DAP for this!

Zune software for ripping? Heck no. Two years ago I did, but I haven't ripped anything with it in a long time. I use dBpoweramp (in secure mode) for ripping. Out of the hundreds of rips I've done so far, it's only ended up skipping on one song without telling me there was an error. That's 1 song out of ~10,000 or more. As for converting it to MP3 and synching, I never tried that. That was during my "only use lossless" phase (I'm in my "OGG VBR q-8" phase now), so I didn't even consider it.

The Zune 120 did have several good points about it though. Good SQ when amped, large storage space, good battery life, big artwork, great UI and controls, the Zune pad, and the software was pretty easy to use. There were just lots of little things that they could have easily fixed with a firmware update, but they didn't, so I use Rockbox now. A Zune 120 Rockbox port would be so awesome, but I doubt it will happen any time soon, if ever.

A CD player will not insert a gap that is not already on the disc itself. If one hears a gap on a CD, it is because the tracks either: a) do not lead into each other or b) there is recorded silence between the tracks on the CD at the end or beginning of a song.

The current iPods also play gaplessly... One of the big things I missed when I moved from my Rockboxed iRiver H320 to a Sony A818... Now I have a 7G Classic I have gapless back AND I can carry everything. It's brilliant.

and chained to itunes again,

Love my rockboxed 5G for gapless. DSOTM plays perfectly. No iTunes nonsense either. WEWP!