Latest Scoop= Marantz 64GB flash Ipod beater - Page 2

The fact is most people i know sound quality isn't overly important to them, the irony of them saying they are "music lovers" always leaves me kind of baffled. There will always be a reasonable demand for high end audio but the majority are either not bothered or to ignorant to care.
Take a look at the ipod, do you believe it sold that many units because of it's sound quality or the fashionable apple image that has developed? Although those may not be the only factors for potential buyers.
Also portable audio to a lot of people is just a convenience , they don't prioritise it as something they will go out and drop big sums of cash on.

I still do not understand why a company will produce an expensive player with reasonable sound quality and then proceed to ship it with the worst earbuds known to man.

I'm afraid since Apple cornered the market and showed how it is possible to sell mp3 players on mass every company will follow that lead. Unfortunately for us the selling point isn't top class sound reproduction.

Hi, Uncle Eric:

Your sum up is correct for the current DAPs market.

We know the mainstream DAP makers have a very good marketing team, they are marketing oriented style company. So the audio tech is not their priority. they know well of the general customers buying habbits.

To the general customers, it is hard to distinguish the hifi,low fi, but it is easy to distinguish the functions, such as memory size, touch screen, cammeras, and other social functions.

You see, compared to the sound quality, the social functions are easier to do. And as for the sound quality, the more hi end, the sound signatuer will be more unique, then the more narrower consumer group, it is called niche products.

The same to the home audio market, the top brands usually developed by the related small audio companies. only the small audiophile's copmany can insist in their audio philosophy. Say, Bose is a famous audio company, they also make many audio products with different price range. but my humble opinion is that Bose has no their sound temperament. Bose is really very famous in the consumer market. my friend recommend many of Bose products to me, unfortunately, after testing, i was disappointed. Sorry to the Bose fanboy. I just hope the main steam audio Makers can develope more audiophile products.

As to the Marantz, Onkyo MP3 Player, I think it is almost impossible. for it seems the MP3 player is the synonym of low fi. the hi end audio company don't want to be related them to the low fi brand image.

As Shigzeo mentioned, there are some new traditional hi end home audio brands attempting to develope hifi mp3 players. Hisoundaudio is one of them. but regretely their first player of AMP3 has software problem. But I think it is not the critical issue, I am confident on their following products, Let's see how will be their new models.

Any way, hifi DAP will be a new trend. for the conventional MP3 player has come to the dead end. After decade years fuctionalized, DAPs will return to the audio value.

UE just described the perfect DAP

Although knowing Apple, they wont have line out and the headphone jack will be worse than before. But dont worry, the interface will be implanted into your neurological system and the iPod will be controlled by hand gestures!

Portable audio hasn't ever been about sound quality - not first and foremost - it has been about portability. Back in the day, PCDPs were pretty good, but when things started to get small (about 1998) SQ went down. It is the same with MD, Tape cassette and CD. MP3 players only followed the trend.

There is nothing wrong or different Apple did. Those who did differently were Cowon who marketed their players as Audiophile when they had nothing different than the rest of the market. In the end, audiophiles will also listen to marketing more than anything else. If Apple had marketed 'Audiophile', this topic would be very different.

The fact that Audiophile means very different things to different people is another thing. Some think it means neutrality; some think it means 'good sound' (but they can never agree what good sound is - and it makes sense as that is about as descriptive as ****); some think it means effects; some think EQ; some even think audiophile means the ability to play a certain codec. The point is that audiophile is a silly market which cannot be agreed upon by manufacturers certainly and users are in a limbo.

We just wait for something different here at Headfi and take at point blank marketing range anything which comes out from the non-biggies and listen to marketing terms such as ____DAC, ____chipset, ______Class, _____output power, and take it to heart without really hearing anything but the marketing. That is the truth.

If a truly high end player came out and wasn't aggressively marketed toward the audiophile market, no one would ever find it. If they did, they probably wouldn't be able to tell that it really was that different, or might notice nothing at all. They might think it is worse.

Audiophile marketing is tiring.

That wasn't my point at all - it was simply that we each have priorities. If I go shopping for a set of kitchen knives this weekend, I wont pay the hundreds of dollars that a professional chef or enthusiastic amateur cook might pay - choices based on priorities. That said, I *will* try to find something in the middle ground - even as an culinary ignoramus I realise that crap tools give you crap results. The earbud camp don't seem to realise that : surely a set of KSC75 or PL50 would be within the majority of budgets ?

As for your opinion of the Zeppelin, thats your opinion and I respect your right to express it. I dont own one, and wouldn't spend that much on anything which uses the iPod DAC, but it sounded better to me than the Bose SoundDock sitting next to it. I know comparisons with Bose dont elicit a lot of kudos here, but thats the only comparison I can make.

I was quite disappointed as well I thought Marantz was releasing an MP3 Player.

That said I think the audiophile companies should release portable amps designed to work with iPods or whatever mp3 player is lying around instead. While the iPod Nano I am using has been around for like 3 years, I rather be able to replace the player later on when I feel it's not up to spiff, and still keep the amp.

The reason Apple I-Pods sell and dominate the market is the coke-cola factor. The thing represents a lifestyle and is most of all COOL. Why this has not been stated here I do not know? Marantz has the nich they have. The marketing people know that to even dent the Apple market the device would have to... one, out cool it and two.... be a revolution in offerings which is pretty hard to do. End of story.

That point, and references to Apple's ability to market DAPs and computers alike, is made repeatedly on Head-Fi. It may not have been made explicitly here, but I think most of us get it. How many movies/TV shows have we seen where the Macbook / iMac seems to be the computer of choice and the iPod the music machine of choice ? Apple pay for that placement, and it has rewarded them handsomely.

I *think* the OPs point is 'why doesnt someone move beyond the iPod market and give audiophiles what they want ?' : several posters have pointed out that it would be an expensive product with a small niche market - from a business POV, that makes no sense.

i know many of you dont have to deal with this, but since i work in a SCIF i cant bring any player with wifi or voice recording built in into the building, so the iPod is one of the the only players that fits this, since for some reason the other manufacturers deem it necessary to put in voice recording to "standout" from apple. That and it has the storage space i wanted to fit my lossless library.

but i would be in favor of a high capacity "audiophile" player. Like a Sflo2 except with apple quality software and at least 100 gigs of storage.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't all portable amps work with any DAP?