[Bennyboy71]

 
Quote:

I thought you would be more the type to hook up your typewriter to your crystal ball.  

True enough.  Look out for a man with the head of a horse peddling strange omens on a bus. Make sure you buy exactly 12 of them, and then cast four in a N by NE direction when the crow sings under a red moon. This will guarantee the best decision when pondering whether to buy the SM3s or not.

 

[Danneq]

Well, perhaps best to not use analogies if they are misinterpreted...
I do not recognize much of what you claim I said. But I have also done the same thing before - projected assumptions and interpretations onto what another person says.
 
I compared EQing a DAP to changing the picture related settings on a TV. Of course headphones come into the picture with DAP:s and they color the sound in a way that is not comparable to televisions. However, the headphones provide the ears with audio just as the TV provides the eyes with images. So perhaps the DAP should be compared to DVD/blue ray players. However that is besides my point.
My main point being that there is a need for a custom EQ even if some people might not feel so. All people do not think and like the same things, so there is a need to be able to customize gear.
 
I do not own a blue ray nor do I feel the need for one, by the way. Besides being a music lover, I am a movie nut, and some movies I like are very obscure and have not been released on DVD or Blue ray - thus the need for a VCR. Just as some albums are not available on CD and therefore I own a record player.
DVD is just fine for me for the majority of my movies. For the hard to find ones, I use VCR. And in that case a CRT TV is much kinder to the sometimes very bad looking source. Plasma can be okay. LCD very seldom. It is not inferior in any sense of the word. Just not suited for SD material. Just as CRT is not suited for (exclusively) HD material.
 
A crappy movie on blue ray might look amazing, but it will still be crappy. I'd choose a good movie on VCR any day. The gear is just the medium and the content - the music and the movies - is what is important.

 

[melomaniac]

are burgers a no-no for foodies? no, they may be just right for july 4th, or some foodies may try and refine their burgers with various options.
 
are trains and buses a no-no for car enthusiasts? hardly, if public transportation is the convenient thing to do.
 
do wine buffs refuse to drink a can of beer? surely most don't if the occasion and the thirst are right.
 
I know a number of serious audiophiles. some had their iPod modded, some use plain vanilla iPods, some don't use them. it's about trade-offs: convenience, portability, sound.

 

[Bennyboy71]

I agree with you about the benefits of EQ.  It comes down to a rather snobbish argument at the end of the day - there are those who seem to pride themselves on distilling their listening to as purely 'flat' or 'neutral' representations as possible, and while I can see the point of that, its fundamentally an impossible dream.  Where do you draw the line? At the way the music's processed in the studio? At the way its mixed? You have no control over those, so you can only control the way its reproduced at home or on the move, and even then you can get into the quicksand of audiophilia to ridiculous degrees if you choose to.  Mains conditioners and hospital grade wiring, anyone?
 
All portable devices play music differently, and its only the degree to which you are happy to use their available options to tweak the sound that differentiates the flatliners from the equaliser brigade. Personally, I use a Cowon J3 and there's no way in the world I'll listen to the 'normal' setting - it's duller than dishwater and twice as palatable to my ears. No, I like to tweak the most-excellent BBE and MP settings until I'm happy. And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what we want from our music - happiness? If it floats your boat to know you're towing a purist line, so be it. But if you're not getting maximum pleasure from the music, whats the point in being so hardcore and puritanical? You're actually disempowering yourself if you insist on trying to hear the noises 'exactly as they were intended to be heard'.  How can you ever verify you're doing that anyway?  Its the route to madness.
 
As for VHS vs DVD vs Blu-ray, I'm the owner of all three formats and I pick and choose according the whims of taste.  Why not? All are fantastic in their own ways. Don't be so quick to rule out the Blu-ray option though - pretty much all players now have DVD upsampling built in, so will scale old DVDs to 1080p, and the picture improvement on an HD tv is quite considerable.  You don't have to fork out for Blu-ray disks specifically - you can breathe new life into your old collection or just buy (increasingly) cheaper DVDs and get improved picture and sound into the bargain.  A result in my book, leastways.
 
 
 

 
Quote:

Well, perhaps best to not use analogies if they are misinterpreted...
I do not recognize much of what you claim I said. But I have also done the same thing before - projected assumptions and interpretations onto what another person says.
 
I compared EQing a DAP to changing the picture related settings on a TV. Of course headphones come into the picture with DAP:s and they color the sound in a way that is not comparable to televisions. However, the headphones provide the ears with audio just as the TV provides the eyes with images. So perhaps the DAP should be compared to DVD/blue ray players. However that is besides my point.
My main point being that there is a need for a custom EQ even if some people might not feel so. All people do not think and like the same things, so there is a need to be able to customize gear.
 
I do not own a blue ray nor do I feel the need for one, by the way. Besides being a music lover, I am a movie nut, and some movies I like are very obscure and have not been released on DVD or Blue ray - thus the need for a VCR. Just as some albums are not available on CD and therefore I own a record player.
DVD is just fine for me for the majority of my movies. For the hard to find ones, I use VCR. And in that case a CRT TV is much kinder to the sometimes very bad looking source. Plasma can be okay. LCD very seldom. It is not inferior in any sense of the word. Just not suited for SD material. Just as CRT is not suited for (exclusively) HD material.
 
A crappy movie on blue ray might look amazing, but it will still be crappy. I'd choose a good movie on VCR any day. The gear is just the medium and the content - the music and the movies - is what is important.

 

[Danneq]

I would like to change the title of this thread to "are mp3 players a no-go for audiophiles?". No need to separate iPod from other brands (except the lack of a custom EQ).
 
Other than that I think that your post was the best one, melomaniac. 

 

[Danneq]

@Bennyboy71:
 
Owning a S9 I fully agree with you about the normal setting on Cowon players. As involving as watching paint dry...
 
About Blue ray, I might be interested in it to replace my DVD player when it dies. But I'd want one with a big HDD and also I want to keep my old CRT. I need that old fatty for use with the VCR and also light pistol games on my Sega Dreamcast. Those old things only work on 50Hz CRT televisions.
I am considering getting a projector and that might benefit from as good a source as possible. So Blue ray is not out of the picture. Just not a priority...

 

[slaters70]

Another vote for EQ (own J3 as well) but I would love for Apple to get with it and add a custom setting in the next Touch, though it's probably wishful thinking. As for the video debate, I have a PS3, so do have blu-ray, but honestly, for most of the films I prefer (content over flash), the non-blue ray DVDs look fantastic, Of course, you have films like Up and Avatar (though not a fan of the latter) that really shine with the Blu-ray format, but otherwise, for a typical film, it's not really a factor to me.

 

[Bennyboy71]

I have Avatar on my J3 - looks and sounds amazing!  I like the basic good vs evil plot and the hippy message.  The effects are spectacular too.
 
Quote:

Another vote for EQ (own J3 as well) but I would love for Apple to get with it and add a custom setting in the next Touch, though it's probably wishful thinking. As for the video debate, I have a PS3, so do have blu-ray, but honestly, for most of the films I prefer (content over flash), the non-blue ray DVDs look fantastic, Of course, you have films like Up and Avatar (though not a fan of the latter) that really shine with the Blu-ray format, but otherwise, for a typical film, it's not really a factor to me.

 

[stevenswall]

I agree with the title of this thread in that "iPods are a no-go for audiophiles" After having done my own research through borrowing friends iPods, iPhones, and Nanos and comparing a 5.5g iPod to a Classic, I have come to the conclusion that whatever the amping device may be in the newer iPods, it doesn't do its job particularly well. It distorts at high volumes, it cannot support its own bass boost EQ, and overall, seems to make my music sound more electronic. I had a friend lucky enough to buy a Cowon S9 and let me try it with my then newly acquired dual speaker earphones. I was thoroughly impressed with the clarity of it, and what can be accomplished by great EQs that have a DAC strong enough to back it up. So far I have never heard a nicer portable source, and letting my friends compare my bass boosting EQs (X-bass, Mach3Bass, ect) to their iPods bass boost, they agree that the S9 has superior bass, power, and distorts less. Sure some have their LOD's, $300 cabling jobs, and other various tweaks to improve the iPods sound, but in the end, if you get a decent DAP, you won't have a need for such things. You will appreciate the sound of your player, instead of the 'sound' of your oxygen free long crystal copper wiring and your brick of a portable amplifier.

 

[slaters70]

Can't agree here.
 
I own both a Cowon J3 and an iPod Touch 3G (8GB) and I like the LOD/T3 combo so much with my Touch, I grabbed the 64GB model from Woot! today to use both (selling the 8GB model here and on ebay). I just can't agree that the Touch sounds any worse than the J3 when using EQ or not, when I have an LOD and the iBasso T3 hooked up to the line out on the Touch. I love them both, in fact, and they both sound excellent. HP out, yes, the J3 can do more things. But using line out, not true (no line out for the J3 sadly).
 
I get no distortion using the Touch bass boost with my IEMs, the DBA-02s (and don't with the Ety MC5s either). Weird. And I have two Touches here (pre-oOS4 and post), and listening to either (one is my wife's) and I hear no distortion with bass boost EQ. Having said that, I don't use it anyway, just use the gain on the T3 and that does it nicely if I need it.

 

[Cypress]

at the end of day,the perception of sound is at least 80% subjective to each one.there is no need to argue what's the best sound.just like what goes well with your ears.

 

[Bennyboy71]

Quote:

at the end of day,the perception of sound is at least 80% subjective to each one.there is no need to argue what's the best sound.just like what goes well with your ears.

Best close Head-fi down then.

 

[Max F]

We all know that headphones and IEMs make all the difference in the world - so better keep Head-fi open

 

[bananaman22]

Personally i like apple products. iPods are nice to use, hold a good number of songs and I've never had a problem with one, and besides its not apples fault people choose to go buy stuff based completely on tv commercials as apposed to doing their research.

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

Personally i like apple products. iPods are nice to use, hold a good number of songs and I've never had a problem with one, and besides its not apples fault people choose to go buy stuff based completely on tv commercials as apposed to doing their research.

No, you are right about marketing.  Doesn't jusify the other faults which are Apple's fault.  I do believe there is a target audience for Apple and they have products that serve fine for 'audiophiles'.  They simply don't meet my needs and personality.  Combined w/ their design philosophy, marketing mythology, business practices and overall attitude its simply a personal choice not to give Apple/Jobs one cent.  My iPod nano 2g is my last Apple product and have been considering Rockboxing it t actually find a use for it.