"Nokia N8" and "feeding a (portable) DAC with USB on-the-go"

[NZtechfreak]

Quote:

not at all, I don't even know how to hack
as before, used it for a year with no problems,
now have 50gb+ of FLAC, a great back up to my DAPs

 
Are you talking about Folders Play, available from the Nokia store, or FolderPlay, which is not available on the Nokia Store?
 
FolderPlay is the one I was referring to, and just checked - it definitely requires the phone be hacked.
 
Folders Play doesn't actually specify that it can playback FLAC files in the Nokia Store description, so if actually can that is a nice bonus. Looking at Folders Play features it is a LOOONG way behind Quasar MX though...

 

[KT66]

It was Folder Play not from the Ovi Store, but it was a simple download, then drag and drop.
I don't recall any shenanigans and phone has been fine since.

 

[Venasa]

Quote:

just to add some fuel to the fire, I find my newly purchased N8 MUCH better than the iPod line or most androids, sound-wise. also, the 1/8 inch socket is much tighter fitting and the built in digital cross-feed is a godsend for long headphone listening sessions. the fantastic camera, great voice quality, and much improved interface through the "Belle" update are just icing on the cake! (the radio is great too, as you can plug high gain and power antennas into the 3.5mm jack to improve the quality of broadcasts)

what is a digital cross-feed?

 

[Cristello]

removed

 

[Venasa]

it is a type of crossfeed implementation in which all the delayed channel-mixing is done in hardware DSP or software (not in an analog circuit).

I find this feature of the N8 effective, but ultimately a fixed on/off DSP might be too limited for some.

Thank you and sorry to pester more, just trying to learn some things so whats the benefit between what seems to be analog or digital? I also kinda figured something like the N8 wouldn't really have all that many channels to mix

 

[Cristello]

removed

 

[jgray91]

the analogue v. digital case had yet to reach a verdict, so I will refrain from exposing what limited experience I have.

as far as channels go... you are correct.
the N8 only handles stereo, or two channel music. Crossfeed, en generale, takes a portion of each stereo channel and mixes it into the opposite side. Sometimes a time or phase delay is used to emulate acoustics of a room or HTRF (the perceptual changes incurred by the specific size and shape of one's head) in order to provide a more natural sound-field.

The N8 is unique in that it is one of a select few devices that include a built-in X-feed option.
Note: Some optional applications allow iPhone and the like to gain this feature...

Wait what? I've never known this before. Where can it be found in the settings?

 

[zzffnn]

Guys, please kindly comment:
1) What is the output impedance of N8's headphone out? Does N8 (without external DAC/amp) hiss with 16ohm IEMs?
2) Does N8 accept 64GB microSDXC?
3) Can N8 directly play flac files from an external self-powered hard drive?
Thanks.

 

[NZtechfreak]

Quote:

Guys, please kindly comment:
1) What is the output impedance of N8's headphone out? Does N8 (without external DAC/amp) hiss with 16ohm IEMs?
2) Does N8 accept 64GB microSDXC?
3) Can N8 directly play flac files from an external self-powered hard drive?
Thanks.

 
The ones I can answer:
 
2) Yes, as long as the 64GB card is Fat32 formatted, the N8 works with it.
3) Providing the drive is Fat32 formatted it should be able to do that, you will need a third party player for FLAC decoding though. I recommend Quasar MX.

 

[zzffnn]

^ Thanks so much NZtechfreak. My research revealed the fat32 limitation as well. How fast can N8 read an 1TB drive, if you happen to know? I am guessing around 5 mins? I read somewhere that N8's processor is a <700MHz ARM11, which is not very fast (still workable).

Has any user tried IEMs with N8? Did you hear any hiss or frequency peaks/valleys? Thanks!

 

[NZtechfreak]

Quote:

^ Thanks so much NZtechfreak. My research revealed the fat32 limitation as well. How fast can N8 read an 1TB drive, if you happen to know? I am guessing around 5 mins? I read somewhere that N8's processor is a <700MHz ARM11, which is not very fast (still workable).

Has any user tried IEMs with N8? Did you hear any hiss or frequency peaks/valleys? Thanks!

 
I would imagine that indexing a 1TB drive would take several minutes as you speculate, shouldn't imagine it'd be longer than 5 minutes though.

 

[zzffnn]

^ Thanks again. I heard that WDTV Live Plus (with a ~700MHz ARM chip) needs several mins to index a 500GB HDD (longer for the first scan). So I guess several mins for N8 sounds about right.

 

[jgray91]

^ Thanks so much NZtechfreak. My research revealed the fat32 limitation as well. How fast can N8 read an 1TB drive, if you happen to know? I am guessing around 5 mins? I read somewhere that N8's processor is a <700MHz ARM11, which is not very fast (still workable).

Has any user tried IEMs with N8? Did you hear any hiss or frequency peaks/valleys? Thanks!

I haven't used it in a long time, since mine now has been superseded by its bigger brother, but it is IIRC kind of hissy on quiet parts of songs or in between song change. Other than that, I can't detect any when a song is playing (other than quiet parts that is, but I rarely have those kinds of songs when I am on the move, since noise from subway/cars/buses/etc. are enough to negate listening to those songs).

 

[live1]

n8 has no hissing my sgs3 hisses badly.the n8 is the best sounding portable device ive ever heard.ive hacked mine and use iextra7 volume boost mod amazing.im wondering if the 808 is as good.ps my voodo sgs1 dosent sound as good as my n8 srs. N91 and n8 sound the bes

 

[zzffnn]

^ Thank your guys!