[FenderP]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Girdag Or if you want the best equaliser on any DAP, along with one of the best UIs, an insanely low price, a free docking station or don't like SonicStage.

SS is certainly a sore point with some. 3.1 really is pretty fast and easy to use. Rio's SW it came with was no picnic.

Having owned a Karma - and I really did like it - it certainly had its pluses. Mine, as with many others, died the hard drive death and I was not going to repeat the experience. I actually find the UI on my Vaio Pocket better than that on the Karma. I can't speak to the other Sony players as I don't own them.

Most DAPs I know of come with some sort of free docking - mine did.

The biggest knocks I have on the Karma as a former owner are:
a) reliability issues (I'm glad I bought an extended warranty)
b) HD size
c) unit size - it is small in overall dimensions, but very thick; compared to modern DAPs, it is pretty clunky
d) battery life

It was a great player when it was working. Unless you've actually own or use a Sony, I don't think you can comment on something you haven't owned or used.

The Karma to me now is a bit outdated and even if mine was still working, I most likely would have switched to something else as the HD was very limiting.

Ultimately, go buy what you want and like. If you hate Sony, so be it. I'm not an iPod fan, but hey, millions can't be wrong, right?

 

[pata2001]

[SARCASM]Gapless? We don't need gapless. We prefer our DAPs to play low-res videos on its tiny LCD screen than to have proper playback of music![/SARCASM]
Yeah, it's sad. The only DAP that can play MP3 and OGG gaplessly is the one that's old and discontinued (Rio Karma). So, options for gapless playback:

1. Rio Karma (EOL status)
2. Sony MD/HiMD/PCDP/Network Walkmans (Gapless for Atrac only).

Another reason why I still use MD.

smiryan: If you want to listen to club mixes at a party or something, another option is to just get a cheap laptop for your "DAP." Tons of software player can play MP3 gaplessly. Example is foobar. Even WMP can play WMA gaplessly, although none of WMA supporting DAPs can.

 

[apnk]

[SARCASM]Gapless? We don't need gapless. We prefer our DAPs to play low-res videos on its tiny LCD screen than to have proper playback of music![/SARCASM]

Well said LOL.

 

[Oga]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FenderP SS is certainly a sore point with some. 3.1 really is pretty fast and easy to use. Rio's SW it came with was no picnic.

Well to mind, hardware companies and PC Software don't mix. Their only incentive to to find some way to lock you in and make you buy music. I'd rather just have a universal storage device that doesnt leave me at their mercy. So the very existence of Sonic Stage at all is a negative in my book. I have an IAudio DAP and I can use any jukebox I want.


Quote:

Originally Posted by FenderP You have options, you just don't like them. Unless you need FLAC or some certain codec only supported by the Karma, the Sony is the way to go. The new HD5 looks nice.

Call me crazy, but I don't think its too much trouble to ask for FLAC and Ogg Vorbis support on very expensive digital walkman, one which is sold in the year 2005! They're not exctly exotic or anything.

 

[FenderP]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oga Well to mind, hardware companies and PC Software don't mix. Their only incentive to to find some way to lock you in and make you buy music. I'd rather just have a universal storage device that doesnt leave me at their mercy. So the very existence of Sonic Stage at all is a negative in my book. I have an IAudio DAP and I can use any jukebox I want.

Cowon ships SW with the iAudio - you don't have to use it. I had (well still own - don't use it and am going to sell it) a M3, which all you had to do was open explorer and drop your files in. The flip side of that is you have no id3 db for browsing, etc. It's file structure. That's one of the biggest criticisms of the X5 and M3 series from most. It's not codec or sound.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oga Call me crazy, but I don't think its too much trouble to ask for FLAC and Ogg Vorbis support on very expensive digital walkman, one which is sold in the year 2005! They're not exctly exotic or anything.

Apparently it is ... look how many people do it - or don't as the case may be.

 

[Beethovenian]

Sony should kind of open Atrac, liberate it from DRM (for CD copies; if Apple can do it, Sony should do it as well) and offer the encoder to third party software, be it Windows Media Player, RealPlayer or Musicmatch. It's too late now, but they should have tried to make Atrac one more standard format. Even MD makers like Kenwood are going without Atrac in their HD players. Without Atrac, the gapless prospects look extremely dark. I don't think it will become mainstream. Apple is more interested in adding Tetris than gapless, and Apple is the standard-setter.

In any event, the Vaio Pocket is now $299. I think that's an extremely attractive price for such a nice, albeit big, player.

 

[FenderP]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beethovenian In any event, the Vaio Pocket is now $299. I think that's an extremely attractive price for such a nice, albeit big, player.

That's a freakin' steal. Not many (or any for that matter) 40GB players are that cheap. I paid $449 back in January. Oh well.

 

[pata2001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beethovenian Without Atrac, the gapless prospects look extremely dark.

The good news is, Atrac is not the only gapless codec. OGG and WMA are gapless too. The bad news is the only DAP that can play them gaplessly is the Rio Karma. All other OGG and WMA supporting DAPs cannot play them gaplessly.

For now and the future, we will have DAPs equipped with games, video playback, wi-fi and bluetooth, GPS/PDA/cellphone capabilities, video recording etc, but no gapless playback. Why? Because regular Joe is more impressed with a tiny LCD showing videos than gapless playback of music. Sad, really sad...

 

[Beethovenian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pata2001 The good news is, Atrac is not the only gapless codec. OGG and WMA are gapless too. The bad news is the only DAP that can play them gaplessly is the Rio Karma. All other OGG and WMA supporting DAPs cannot play them gaplessly. For now and the future, we will have DAPs equipped with games, video playback, wi-fi and bluetooth, GPS/PDA/cellphone capabilities, video recording etc, but no gapless playback. Why? Because regular Joe is more impressed with a tiny LCD showing videos than gapless playback of music. Sad, really sad...

I wonder why players that support Ogg and WMA, other than the Karma, are not gapless. Is it because they're not truly gapless formats as Atrac is, in the sense that they have fixed-sized frames and just compensate that with real track lenght information in their tags? Whatever the reason, it must be technically difficult to obtain gapless with those codecs, otherwise some iRiver or Cowon would have done it as well. That's why I think Atrac was the best hope of gapless becoming mainstream.

 

[Thisp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pata2001 [SARCASM]Gapless? We don't need gapless. We prefer our DAPs to play low-res videos on its tiny LCD screen than to have proper playback of music![/SARCASM] Well said LOL.

 

[smiryan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pata2001 smiryan: If you want to listen to club mixes at a party or something, another option is to just get a cheap laptop for your "DAP." Tons of software player can play MP3 gaplessly. Example is foobar. Even WMP can play WMA gaplessly, although none of WMA supporting DAPs can.

Interesting idea. I may look into this.

 

[eeerie1]

I'm really tempted to just buy a Sony player and encode everything in ATRAC. How does ATRAC sound, by the way?

 

[LFC_SL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eeerie1 I'm really tempted to just buy a Sony player and encode everything in ATRAC. How does ATRAC sound, by the way?

Thats subjective, but since Atrac is only playable on Sony players, I did a test on my HD3 between Atrac 256 kbps versus MP3 320 kbps (highest encoding quality available for Sony player supported formats)

I found the Atrac had greater quality + clarity. I paid attention to drum beats and cymbals and also vocals. I just felt there was more clarity with Atrac. Of course MP3 320 wasn't bad either! No surprise really that Atrac sounded better, since it is Sony's preferred format! Also of course, Atrac has gapless playback on Sony devices, not MP3.

But I doubt you would notice the subtle differences if you was out and about? So maybe stick with MP3 to ensure compatibility with other players + save PC HD space? Or if you have loads of PC HD space, have songs in both MP3 + Atrac for the best of both worlds!

 

[robman]

What are the limitations on ATRAC encoding? Can WAV files be converted into ATRAC? For example, if I had a live show in SHN or FLAC format, one that had never released on CD, could I convert those files into WAV and then into ATRAC? Or is conversion possible only from CD directly to ATRAC?

 

[eeerie1]

I just re-read this thread and realized that the Sonys are only gapless on ATRAC when ripped straight from the CD! So I would have to rip everything straight from CD again?!