[Seidhepriest]

According to Jack Fu, the Rockchip firmware engineer programmed a different MP3 decoder at Hisound's request.

 

[Seidhepriest]

Also, about bass rolloff... How does it actually sound? Graphs are one thing, but as an example... I was very surprised at first looking at the graph of AKG K-271 Studio, noticing bass rolloff similar to (the horror) PX200, then listening to the headphones and discovering they actually sounded full and powerful with a slight low bass rolloff.

Frequencies below 50 Hz aren't even as much heard as felt. Everything below 40 Hz is infrasound - it's felt, not heard. Rumble, etc. Those frequencies matter for a subwoofer, but if Rocoo rolls off below 60 Hz, it's not even going to be very noticeable with headphones (unless you like ear massage).

 

[Seidhepriest]

The point is, choosing between low bass and battery life, battery life is preferrable. Another thing is that line-input sweep tests don't tell much; what matters is how the player drives headphones and how much bass and other frequency bands will sag under load.
Rocoo paints harmonics more accurately than other players. It just sounds like it. Everything's fuller and more natural. So it may trade off some very high frequency and very low frequency accuracy for battery life, but everything that matters plays real.

 

[Seidhepriest]

Quote:

Originally Posted by david1978jp /img/forum/go_quote.gif Seidhepriest, A bit confusion here. Does it play FLAC? Does it have EQ? It's different from their website, "Supported music file formats: MP3/WMA/WAV " "we do not need to provide the bass sound effects (EQ, BBE or so) to gain the artificial bass" And, its manual doesn't mention how to adjust EQ. Seidhepriest, can you please help fellow head-fiers, comparing Rocoo and Cowon D2+ ? A Cowon D2+ 8GB can be had for $15 more - very good sound, mature firmware, support most of audio formats, video playback, BBE (someones call "endless adjustments"), very powerful output (37mw + 37 mw - 16 ohm), long battery life (52 hours) and a big bright touch screen. I understand it's not exact apple-to-apple, can you please compare audio only? Thank you.

It plays FLAC. Almost all music on the Rocoo here is in FLAC format. There's a "pure bass" MS effect setting and "bass" preset. The EQ is adjusted straightforwardly - there're some presets (Rock, Jazz, Classical, etc.) and a user EQ. "Normal" (default) EQ setting is NOT flat. It's psychoacoustically loud (similar to Cowon's default settings). User EQ is initially flat and can be set to anything, it's five-band.

No idea about the D2, but the Cowon T2 doesn't compare to the Rocoo. At all. Way more compact soundstage, it's like a narrow cone compared to Rocoo's wide soundspace. There isn't anyone with a D2 around here, either. A recabled headphones customer has a D2, if she buys a Rocoo as well, she might tell something.

 

[Zida]

Thanks for all the info so far. Do we know why hisound requested a special mp3 decoder be written? what it is they wanted that it didn't already do? I think little facts like those might turn around hisound's latest PR dips.

 

[Seidhepriest]

The stock Rockchip decoder is less accurate, it produces artefacts. There's a cheap Rokchip-based player here; it has audible artifacts on many 192 kbps/160 kbps MP3 files. Rocoo plays the same files clean.

 

[jjmjj]

i've problem with my rocoo while playing lossles/flac file from the microsd card,
it's run so slow, it's look like that the playing speed is decreased to 0.5x than the normal.
is there anyone get the same problem with mine?

 

[Zida]

maybe they shoulda stuck with the stock decoder

 

[shigzeo]

Seid: thanks for the review, but try to keep perspective: there is a waveform and there is sound. The two have to match. Nothing magic exists in audio reproduction; HiSound have to use the same principles as anyone else to reproduce the same music.

If their player sounds 'better' with the same MP3's something is being altered, much like old ATRAC codecs which emphasised certain frequencies and de-emphasised others to make people think it sounded 'better'.

With headphones, I have no problems at all with the Rocoo - it is fine. But it isn't some sort of magical player. It sounds good with headphones, but it isn't 'better' in any but the most esoterically hobbyist of terms. HiSound have a thing for the midrange and they happen to add/take away from some other frequencies. Whether that is your thing or not is part of the issue.

The other part is whether people even know what their music sounds like. I'd imagine that their music reproduced properly would be quite a surprise.

 

[blippster]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seidhepriest /img/forum/go_quote.gif Second isn't much of a problem, but it can be an annoyance for some. The Rokchip firmware has no file sorting. It just sorts files in the order they were copied. This means that adding track 01 after having copied track 10 first will play track 01 after track 10. On the other hand, this means that file manager's sorting will be preserved on copy - so, say, sorting by extension is preserved.

Would anyone happen to have a way to get around this with the Rocoo? Out of the box I seem to recall that the shuffle worked fine, albeit that it had to be switched to shuffle every time the player was turned back on.

After the upgrading the firmware (dated 6 March), it seems like it can't shuffle properly any more. Now even switching the play mode with the A-B button on top doesn't last past a song before it switches back to the (non functional) shuffle. Right now it just plays the first copied file, then the second and so on..

 

[RASeymour]

I haven't been having any problems with the shuffle, just the opposite. I couldn't seem to get the shuffle to turn off. But, I seemed to have found a work around.

The player appears to act differently if you shut it down with the on/off button as opposed to holding down the >= button. When shut off using the switch, and I had turned off the shuffle, upon restart the player would revert to shuffle. But, if I shut down using the >=, it resumed just as I had left off, playing in order.

Resume is back to the internal hard drive either way. A bugaboo from the Amp3. Why can't it resume back to whatever song you were playing, no matter the location, internal or external card?

Don't get me wrong, I'm really warming up to this player over the last week. The sound is awesome, especially considering the size. It has been playing great through my Yuin PK2's.

The interface is difficult to read, especially in the sun, where it is impossible. Dark rooms work just fine.

I like the volume control, very finely graded.

HiSound has solved the FLAC problem that plagued the Amp3. Flac playback is flawless.

I use it for cycling, so I just put it on and go. I don't need to read the songs or fiddle with it too much, so the interface isn't a big issue. Sound is important to me and this player has it in spades.

 

[blippster]

Yup, shuffle doesn't turn off. My grouse is that even though it's in shuffle, it'll play some random song and then go to song #1-#2-#3. I have tried using the other power-off method, but then it tends to get bumped on in my bag and then run down the battery.

I'm only using the internal memory, so the resetting the location is not an issue for me (right now), although both the card and memory integrated would be a nice touch.

Agree with you on the sound - it's one of the best that I've heard with the ER4s, and in a nice small form factor. That redeeming factor is the only thing stopping me from giving it the boot completely. Volume control isn't an issue, can't pick up much/any hiss too. I just want to be able to listen to all the music on shuffle playback without going through the same list of songs that I need to fast-forward through each time I turn it on.

 

[Seidhepriest]

Never tried the player on shuffle. Anyway, with firmware debugged it should be quite good. If they don't spoil it with some nonsense like locking EQ out (which happened in one firmware update). Frankly, to me all the pretty interfaces never meant anything, video playback either, and that leaves sound quality only. I've been considering getting a 96/24 professional recording deck just for the sake of 96-KHz wave playback (wave, not even FLAC - these things, like Olympus LS-11, Edirol R-09HR, have no FLAC support). The price is the only downer, but it's a big upgrade from slow, harsh and hollow CDA-quality 44/16. A friend already has an Edirol R-09HR (he also uses it to bootleg gigs - it's got a pretty nice stereo microphone built-in, so you can just turn it on in the shirt pocket) and, he says that even MP3 playback is stunning, far beyond anything a consumer player like an IPod can muster. 96/24 vinyl copies, when done right (through silver cables, etc.) are wonderful. Plus my own music is all done in 96 KHz, so...
 
But Alex the R-09HR owner also says the thing has a LED interface designed in the 90s.

Oh well. It's either music quality or pretty nice full-colour interfaces it seems.
 
About Rocoo having some midrange EQ... Doesn't sound like it. Not on flat EQ anyway

It's just clean output.
 
Also, here (Mexico City) the retail price is quite good. But then there's not much competition from Cowon and the like.

 

[Arthass]

Rocoo-A maybe sounds pretty good but navigation is pain in the *ss