Why do other portable players sound better than the other?

Quote:

Originally Posted by bisayaboi 

I ask this because I'm ill-knowledgeable in this area of audio gear. Can someone explain this to me?

I use a Nexus One for my music how would that compare to other music players for example?

is your nexus one rooted? if not, there are some pretty major audio upgrades you can perform if you root it.

i have a rooted htc incredible and installing dsp manager and applying some hacks really made a huge difference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bisayaboi 

... and what are they?

 

For example I hear a Sansa Clip+ sounds nice than some other players... do they have pre-installed DAC's in them or even amps?
 

All audio players (AFAIK) have a "pre-installed" DAC and amp. If they didn't you wouldn't be hearing the music. The quality of those components, the implementation of those components, and the software determine how good the device sounds.

Another thing you can do is get a rockbox app for your nexus. I am not sure if it is finalized, but there is a rockbox app for android.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bisayaboi 

Yup I got cyanogen 6.0. The DSP manager could really use updates though.


 

Sweet I'll check it out.

 

*Edit: Got the RockBox app. It's really bad right now; I'll just wait for the final release.
 

whats wrong with DSP Manager? i have the latest version and it's been great.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bisayaboi 

The equalizer needs some work. You're restricted to raising around 5 lines on the parametic EQ which is like 5 bars on a graphic EQ, the screen to EQ is also really small for some reason on my N1, and I don't know if it's the N1's headphone output or the EQ but it's really easy to distort the sound using the EQ.

 

Not a bad EQ but needs some work.
 

gotcha, obviously its a different phone, but on my HTC Incredible i get zero distortion at any volume level, even with a louder volume hack applied (i took some drivers from the Desire HD to increase volume output). i have no complaints with my Incredible as a music player other than the slight hiss in between songs when using low impedance/high sensitivity IEM's.