I am going to regret getting the european finish if i see photo's of Fender P's Japenese model!
Plus i am wondering if it is worth it just for the atrac side of it, only say this as i am still trying to come to a conclusion with which format to use for the music!
Thanks to soozieq for some advice a few pages back, was gonna quote it, but could not find post for it and have been busy with work recently preventing me from sitting down with my new toy and studying the sound differences in the codecs.
I have now concluded so far from a lot of listening i prefer WMA VBR to mp3 @320 for some reason i cannot quite describe at the moment, but i feel WMA sounds closest to WAV to me out of the two? I still think there is a noticable difference, albiet not a huge one there is a audible difference between WAV and the compressed formats.
I have noticed something strrange that hopefully someone might be able to explain to me i found using mp3 @ 320 it sounded okay to a degree with my cds as source converted to mp3 on my Shure E500's direct from player, but i down loaded a few tunes from HMV which are at mp3 @320 and they sound worse than my files from cd source, is there a reason for this?
I have been using DB power amp to convert my cd's.
Not that i am technically advanced with the ins & outs of how mp3 settings work yet but have noticed you can have various settings to play with within db power amp, not sure what they all do yet, would that make it sound different if the settings are different on the tracks HMV supplied to my converted cd's maybe?
And then begs the question what are the best settings to have mp3 at if so?!
I only noticed a more noticable change with mp3 overall when i listened to the "X" through the line out on the BCU5 dock with my Naim Headline2 amp and power supply which seemed to show shortcomings with the sound, but strangely WMA VBR sounded okay and handled going through a £600 headphone amp okay with my AKG 702 with modded Double Helix cable.
So i am getting itchy feet now and want to transfer my music collection over, but before i do, i want to have the full facts, just in case i am missing something with what i might not be doing or should be doing with mp3 settings as i know people on here seem to not notice a difference between compressed formats at say 320kps to WAV but it seems i do.
Don't get me wrong, i wish i was'nt as i relish fitting on 3 x more tunes than if stored in wav so want pointing in the right direction to anything i should try or take into consideration before deciding, as so far i would say if i had to choose at the moment on what i have heard it would be wma vbr over mp3 @320 or if it did not take up so much bloody space, wav.
Did try aac but the bit rate turned out low (between 96kbs & 250 max) and could not get it to match anywhere near 320kbs that mp3 goes to, again, what have i not done there i wonder? (can only imagine that is a Doh! moment)
Is it still worth pursuing AAC in comparison to WMA vbr or mp3@320 before deciding?
One last wierd thing, i used the video on YouTube last night and the sound on a streamed video of The Veronicas - Untouched song sounded better than the mp3 @320 version for some reason...
Have to say, even though the web browsing and keyboard input is so embarrisng (you tube app aside) that Apple must have peed them selves laughing and Sony should not of bothered at all really that the video quality is bloody marvellous, and just like a few have commented on here i cannot wait for cinema size preportioned screens to become available (at a sensible price of course!) Maybe my Poineer Kuro needs a 50" bin to go in!
Whilst on the video of the "X", it really could of done with one those Xellorator thingy's that orientate's the screen automatically - that is really bugging me! got to be on the next version without fail.
I hope some of you gurus who know the codec side better than a hapeless techno idiot like me can then get some tunes on there.
Apologize for a long boring post there.
I love my "X" - it's not perfect, but is not far from it!
