[gerG]

well there's a surprise. I am going to have to get a PJB to tide me over, I guess.

Wilbur, I did buy an Archos jukebox a few months ago. It seemed like a technical marvel, but has been a huge disappointment. The audio out of the built in amp sounds abysmal. I did the firmware upgrade, with no improvement. Line out is an extremely low level, but not too bad with the airhead. The biggest problem is that it keeps pausing or shutting off every time I bump or touch it in the right spot. Cleaning battery contacts helped for about 2 weeks. After ruining 3 workouts and 1 flight it now resides on a shelf. When I get over the urge to run over it with my truck I will send it to Archos for diagnosis.

Has anybody else run across this problem with the Archos?

 

[gorgon_123]

HeadRoom Portable CD Player??? I know this was discussed, and either Tyll or Todd had asked us a few questions about it, but are they actually working on this?

In anycase I voted for it!!

 

[massappeal85]

1. I heard about the Headroom PCDP when I was looking for a portable CDP awhile back. I couldn't find ANY information on it whatsoever on the headwize/head-fi forums or otherwize, and I'd like to know what everyones taking reference from that it actually is being made.

2. Way back a little before I discoverd head-wize/fi I was frantic about the Treo. This was when it was supposed to come out in ****ing january. I realise MP3 is better suited for others needs, but when it came to August and I actually sat back and thought about it, I really had no need for an jukebox, so I just got myself a panasonic 860 and I think I am far far better off with it. Just from the specs, hearsay, and pictures, its still the only MP3 player of ANY kind I'd actually spend money on (unless you've got enough for the PJB), unless somebody comes out with an MP3/CD player that can play red books just as good as my panasonic (one can only hope).

(Oh, and I voted for the porta corda)

 

[Onix]

Quote:

Originally posted by Xander And sound like burnt cake (whatever that sounds like). Ok, I'll stop now.

It sounds like this: Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!! But smells nice

 

[eric343]

Massappeal: http://headwize.powerpill.org/ubb/sh...fnum=6&tid=897

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

FWIW, at the moment the CDP is not happening. But the barometric preasure might change all that any second. Certainly all the interest on this thread might. However, I will reming you that there is NO WAY that player will retail for less than $800! This is primarily due to the fact that we cannot buy a standard portable CDP transport as they won't sell them to you in less than 10,000/month quantities. Also, the one we envisioned would not even have a headphone jack as it would be intended to be used with a Supreme or Cosmic. This may sound crazy....well, that's why we think we can't build one at the moment. There is a lot more to this story than I can here.

But the interest in MP3 players in this thread are of interest to me, if for no other reason than to ask why all the interest in the Trio? I have a PJB100 and LOVE it.

 

[gorgon_123]

reasons for interest in Treo: SMALLER and CHEAPER than PJB. Well, that was before it turned into vaporware....................

 

[MacDEF]

Tyll, you guys sell the PBJ and a couple CD players -- but no MiniDisc equipment. You should try to carry a couple of those, too! Great sound, extremely portable, good value. If Sony has that whole "you must carry our whole line or none at all" policy, Sharp, Aiwa, etc. all make very good MD portables.

 

[eric343]

TYLL! So you thought you could sell a PCDP that's basically a transport and decoder? For $800?! Come on! I *know* that the transport dosen't cost THAT much!

I see why you said it's never gonna happen. Oh well. Get the price into the $200 range and include a good headphone jack, and I'll beat a path to your door with my dad's MasterCard.

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

>>> So you thought you could sell a PCDP that's basically a transport and decoder? For $800?!

No. That's the problem. Manufacturers typically sell products for 2X cost. Because we sell direct we have to burden cost with marketing and order entry etc., but we don't want that number to be nearly as high as the dealer margin, so we shoot for about 2.5X over cost.

transport $110 (this is a high-end Philips transport)
enclosure $20 (aluminum extruded like Cosmic)
dc-dc converter $35
pot $15
connectors $10
lid machining $50 (aluminum lid, closure magnets, hinges, cd clamp)
board $10 (four layer)
chip set $35 (drive controller, DSP, a-d, analog op-amps 2XBB627)
other componants $25
assembly labor $20

Total $340 X 2.5 = $850

Sad, isn't it. Remember this is would be a high-end product; we could make it sound as good as a home system in the $1000 range. But battery consumption issues would prohibit us putting a headphone amp in the same box. (The Cosmic goes through 4 D-cells in 20 hours, and this product would do likewize---remember this is not a portable player transport and BB627s and high quality +/-15 DACs eat a lot of electrons.)

Now it's not that a $800 PCDP won't sell, but that the expectation will be higher than the described box. It would need to have HDCD, which costs. It should have skip protection which requires overspeed spin that isn't native to a high-end drive, digital tone controls and/or Dolby headphone (the DSP is in there), maybe MP3 cd compatability. Not only that but the good drives arn't very small so we have a very hard time fitting all the connectors in a Cosmic size enclosure, so we have severely limited connections and display space. If we solve all those problems, we will have burned 2 years of engineering time. That has to pay itself back quickly to be worth doing. And currently we have too many other things that in total are more benefitial to consumers in total and far more profitable as well.

You can't always get what you want. (I think I've heard that somewhere before.)

 

[Dusty Chalk]

...about those digital jukeboxes -- when they play a track, do they load it in memory? Or are they playing direct-from-disk? Just curious, I would think it would be easier to keep jitter down from memory than from disk...

 

[Tim D]

I agree, portable market is way to volatile. You'll end up with something like a Denon-DCP 150...a rarity to find and no longer produced.

DustyChalk: I think they would play from memory just like it would be on a computer...but even than the jitter would be higher than average just from memory. What is the response time of memory anyhow? Well awhile ago it was in the nanosecond range...but I doubt its close to picoseconds. Meridian took a lot of effort to get jitter down from memory buffers.

Course that said...I think the point of the PJB is to just enjoy the damn thing.

 

[eric343]

Hmm... Now that I've actually *seen* a Cosmic, I'd be inclined to say that the PCDP wouldn't have to be that small. However, the other issues far out weigh the case, so I officially give up

But when Danny's done designing the tube amp and the source switcher box and the DoubleBlockHead and you're done talking Sennheiser into giving you an Orpheus...

 

[Zombie]

Tyll, not that i can afford it but why not throw in SACD playback to.

 

[gpalmer]

Stax Omega 3