[Achmedisdead]

V2 is good enough for me

 

[1audioz]

OGG anyone?

 

[Achmedisdead]

Ogg will not play on a Sony player.

 

[1audioz]

True true, I was using my D2+ at the time and the song happened to be in Ogg. My bad.

 

[Achmedisdead]

Quote:

True true, I was using my D2+ at the time and the song happened to be in Ogg. My bad.

That is a very effective codec to use though, if you have a player that supports it. I experimented a while back when I had a Sansa Fuze, and the Q5 setting sounded very good to me, and didn't take up very much space, either.

 

[DKaz]

I have a Sony A818.  I can hear a difference between Linear PCM and 192kb.  It is very small, but with my Triple.fi it seems to distort less during complex passages.

 

[h1a8]

Most people can hear a difference between high bitrate lame and lossless.
 
Even I notice a difference. But when I ABX the difference goes away. I wonder why?

 

[dura]

I prefer the Sony for sound quality finding the D2 too analytical sounding.
I agree FLAC support is a big plus, for the simple reason that if you listen at home to HD-based audio FLAC is the preferred way to go, and having a DAP that supports that means you don't have to have second library with lossy compression like MP3.

 

[Benchia001]

its noticable... the mp3s usually will produce a crackling sound if u listen clearly when the songs have very high tunes.... flacs and loseless formats wont have this problem.. i am experiencing this on my ipod touch...

 

[tds101]

For the masses, and to take my stand: FLAC for archiving & desktop listening, LAME for portable usage. At LEAST 95% of all listeners can't hear the difference, so why waste space?
 
As for m DAP of choice, I prefer Sony over Cowon,.....I even love the Samsung SQ more. The Cowon has more options to possibly make it sound better than both of the other brands - but I'm too lazy for all that much tweaking. So for me it's Sony>Samsung>Cowon

 

[Achmedisdead]

Quote:

I prefer the Sony for sound quality finding the D2 too analytical sounding.
I agree FLAC support is a big plus, for the simple reason that if you listen at home to HD-based audio FLAC is the preferred way to go, and having a DAP that supports that means you don't have to have second library with lossy compression like MP3.

Hard drive space is so cheap now, that for me, anyways,  it's no problem having a lossy library for my DAP's. Even though I have one DAP that does support FLAC, since I can't hear the difference between FLAC and well-encoded lossy formats with my portable headphones, I'd rather carry thousands of songs around , rather than hundreds.

 

[tds101]

Quote:

Hard drive space is so cheap now, that for me, anyways,  it's no problem having a lossy library for my DAP's. Even though I have one DAP that does support FLAC, since I can't hear the difference between FLAC and well-encoded lossy formats with my portable headphones, I'd rather carry thousands of songs around , rather than hundreds.

Yup, same w/me. I have over 4000 songs on my Sony and Samsung DAP's, and they all sound quite good.

 

[h1a8]

Quote:

its noticable... the mp3s usually will produce a crackling sound if u listen clearly when the songs have very high tunes.... flacs and loseless formats wont have this problem.. i am experiencing this on my ipod touch...

Well in that case then you should have no problem passing an ABX test. Again, they do sound different UNTIL you ABX them. The crackling sound you are referring to goes away (completely). I heard all the difference in the world until I ABXed them and got my balls handed to me.
Don't believe me? The try ABXing them (224kb lame or better vs. lossless).

 

[Whalesha]

Just wanted to follow-up with everyone and mention how much I'm enjoying the NWZS545 so far.  Overall the sound quality is superb, and it's now my go-to player!
 
Lovin':

1. The UI is pretty simple and clean, and I like having the extra Option button to quickly tweak the EQ and settings right away (the play mode should be switched with EQ in my opinion, but that's just me).  I also find navigating through song, album and artist lists is far easier because they're broken up by letter groupings.  My Fuze with 12GB of overall memory can get to be a bear to wheel through
2. Compatibility with Rhapsody To Go subscription tracks as well as Amazon Unbox videos.  I was also able to download a portable version of a TV episode I bought via Amazon Unbox (they include both the full episode download for PC viewing as well as an optional portable copy - nice).  The screen isn't the best for viewing video, but I felt that it was adequate for TV episodes.
3. EQ is just as everyone has mentioned - fun, generally useful and nicely tweakable.  Depending on the genre, the Heavy and Unique settings are the ones I default to.  I also made a custom EQ setting (you get two which is awesome) based on Unique, only with one less Clear Bass notch.  I like how tweaking the EQ doesn't seem to distort like my Sansas do (or is it just me).
4. Brought my Jlabs J3's into usefulness!  I have burned these in for roughly 80 hours, listening to them and occasionally running Jlabaudio.com's web-based audio sweep tool.  The sound was always so cold to me, even when using a custom setting on my Sansas, so I finally gave up on them.  I tried them again with the Unique setting and WOW, they sound awesome!  The sound filled out wonderfully, became warmer and brought out details I wasn't even aware of in some songs.  I think this was my first "are these the same IEM's/headphones I originally bought?!" moment

 
Not really lovin':

1. The form factor isn't as grippable as other players, at least to me.  Dropped and scratched the back a couple of times already.  Ironically this was just a day before I got my protective skin in the mail
2. The buttons are a little too recessed and hard to detect if it's in my pocket.  Better than my overly-sensitive Fuze wheel though
3. The fact that I didn't own one of these sooner

 
Again, thanks to the community here for all your help!

 

[Achmedisdead]

 
Quote:

Just wanted to follow-up with everyone and mention how much I'm enjoying the NWZS545 so far.  Overall the sound quality is superb, and it's now my go-to player!
 

Congrats! I've had mine since September, and I've gotten a lot of use out of it. In fact, I liked it so much that I bought the E345 too, a few months later....a little smaller and easier to use on the go, and the same great sound.
 
You're right, the EQ does work better on the Sony than the Sansa EQ, although in all fairness, the Clip+ EQ seems better than what I remember experiencing on my old Fuze and original Clips.