no more market for flagship audio-only players?
Apr 14, 2009 at 4:40 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 33
aragornmustdie

aragornmustdie

100+ Head-Fier
Joined
May 1, 2008
Posts
364
Likes
13
nowadays we are seeing more and more companies trying to integrate audio and video into one, and focusing their resources developing those.
i mean even though i dont dig PMP, but i respect those who do, and i understand a lot of people find bringing their video/ movie collection a need.

but the thing is, these dont coexist with improvements for high quality and high capacity audio-only players. who's left now? ipod classic. other than that everything's old stuff- iriver H140, cowon X5, sony NW-HD5.

this is sad considering that with the advancing technology we could afford better audio players with more capacity. i would definitely be delighted if sony announced NW-HD6 coming up (!!!)

are audio only players dead? or are we going to see a revival somewhere in the future, in terms of the market behaviour and people's attitude towards personal audio?
 
Apr 14, 2009 at 5:15 AM Post #2 of 33
Take a look at how well the iPod touch is doing. Every company wants a piece of it. The trend is definitely towards integration of video and music because it's what the common consumer wants.

Audiophile technology is a niche market. No manufacturer interested in profit will target a niche market. This is not to say that future products won't have high audio quality. Is an audio-only player that important?
 
Apr 14, 2009 at 5:20 AM Post #3 of 33
Quote:

Originally Posted by aragornmustdie /img/forum/go_quote.gif
are audio only players dead? or are we going to see a revival somewhere in the future, in terms of the market behaviour and people's attitude towards personal audio?


Sigh. Audio-only players are about to become a higher-end specialty market. There will be a limited, expensive coterie for this until Wire or the NYT's tech column tells all the other withered technophiles that audio-only media players with enhancements (and also those currently undervalued classic players that were going for bupkiss on Ebay last week) are the hot-new-thing. Then Creative will release a new audio-only player.

Then Apple will re-release an Audio-only Player as an upgrade to their current 1.123 Gig Video iPod. The new iMusic Player will be enhanced--unlike the Nano. It will have cutting-edge "iNon-DRM": you'll only ever have to worry about iTunes restrictions on the second-alternate-day-before you planned to make a cd-copy the-next-day. Besides, the device will be crafted from a single block of corporate-grade aluminum--with neon ground effects--guaranteed to make all the metrosexuals in Advertising and Human Resources feel out-maneuvered until they've tweeted all of their pals to find a boutique store wherein a technician wearing a teeshirt declaiming his safety-glass'ed-self to be a "GENIUS" will dispense the sacred host to all who have adequate credit on their plastic. For ever and ever. Amen.
 
Apr 14, 2009 at 6:43 AM Post #4 of 33
Audio only MP3 player will pretty much only be a low end market filled with cheapo flash players. Actually, IMO even that market is "dying" as more and more people simply use their cellphone as a basic MP3 player. People don't want to bring multiple devices in their pocket. We saw the PDA come and gone, with phones having PDA's functionalities. DAPs are the next logical class of devices to merge with phones.
Now I do agree that some DAPs that do videos half-heartedly should just be audio only in the first place.
 
Apr 14, 2009 at 7:38 PM Post #6 of 33
I think the Clip could be considered "little brother flagship".
 
Apr 15, 2009 at 7:49 PM Post #9 of 33
Sadly I think this is probably true. I mean there isn't really a good option now to replace my X5 when it dies eventually. And my friend had a Rio Karma but hasn't bought a new player since it died about a year ago, simply because there is no comparable product. However I do hope that as the cost of flash memory goes down we will see more high-capacity devices. Cowon seems to still be committed to audio-only, or at least audio-focused devices.
 
Apr 15, 2009 at 8:35 PM Post #10 of 33
Eh, you'll be able to get a cellphone or netbook with gargantuan storage soon enough. That's probably where portable players will head.

One item of interest is that Apple will probably jump into the netbook fray. If their unit follows their laptops (which is likely because Apple overlaps parts in their product lines) there's more than a fair chance their netbook will have optical out.

That should make audio geeks happy. At least the ones who don't hate Apple.
 
Apr 15, 2009 at 9:02 PM Post #11 of 33
you're not really being forced to watch videos on these things. i don't do videos on my ipod touch (unless i can get some DTS master audio out of it...), it's just video and internet/pointless random applications.
 
Apr 16, 2009 at 2:40 AM Post #12 of 33
true that we can just grab the audio out of those audio-video players, but say given a certain price, I will definitely prefer to sacrifice video playback for something like gapless, optical out, capacity, tactile response, etc.
tactile response for me is quite important because video playback means as good and as big screen as possible, and of course touch interface will become a solid option. yet some of us still prefer the old style. i mean it is just sad that slowly companies are leaving the original intention: to bring your whole audio library and being able to listen to anything, anywhere, anytime. and along with that, providing us good SQ. we dont have this problem with the predecessors (maybe one: PCDP SQ going down to be traded with portability and shock resistance)
 
Apr 17, 2009 at 4:27 PM Post #13 of 33
My biggest beef is that the large capacity DAP is going the way of the dodo unless you pay for a whole slew of functions i just don't care for. I mean honestly, right now, if i wanted a 60GB player with good SQ, what is there? Ipod with bad components, Zune without an EQ... aaaand large capacity video players with large touch screens. I hit up iRiver's website the other day to check out what theyre making, and they dont even have a player anymore that goes above 16GB.

The problem isn't with the corporate heads, they'll make what we'll buy. The problem is in the market. Look at who buys these portable media players these days versus who used to buy DAPs. back in the day the only people that really had DAPs were people who were serious about their audio. They wanted to carry as much of it as possible, and they didnt want it to sound bad. Now the market has expanded. With the mass marketing and success of the IPod everyone and their mother owns some sort of DAP. Either they own an IPod, or a small flash player, or if they're a tech-head they get something cool and next-gen like a Cowon Q5 or an Archos 5 (i consider WiFi to be the next gen of bloated PMPs)

These days, what does someone with a dying Creative Zen Vision: M even buy?
 
Apr 18, 2009 at 4:58 AM Post #14 of 33
[hugs 32gb compact-flash-modded iHP120]

sigh...

...seems sad but true. Outside of we true music nuts, is there anyone who really cares enough? I guess most people are just fine with whatever they can fit on the 2-8gb microSD card in their phone, or the like. When all you listen to are downloaded digital singles, how much space could you possibly need?
 
Apr 19, 2009 at 3:44 PM Post #15 of 33
Of all the companies, only Apple could realistically launch one of these and it wouldn't be that niche, imo. If they can sell the Shuffle and the concept of randomness, then I'm sure with their marketing power they can sell an audio-only player that majors on its fidelity.

200GB, 24bit playback for things like Linn Studio Masters and the Line Out on the player and comes with their new twin-driver IEMs. With better internals too, they'd make plenty on them, especially as the top iPod used to be £399 at one point and wasn't a limited 32gb Touch.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top