[Danneq]

Quote:

And, AFAIK, MP3 has serious design flaws which makes it sound bad on a high frequencies or something like that.

Which frequencies are these? MP3 encoding might shave off frequencies that are not directly audible, but that does not change the overall presentation much, at least not at higher bitrates. OGG and AAC are better at lower bitrates than MP3, but LAME encoded at VBR0 or CBR 320kbps, it is very difficult to hear any difference between MP3 tracks and lossless audio. At least on a portable music player. It might be different if you play a CD with MP3 songs on a home setup with good speakers, but on an MP3 player most of the difference people perceive comes from their belief in an audible difference...
 
 

 

[SoulSyde]

penartur,
 
Not to mention that at the inception of MP3 technology 320kbps encoding was unheard of.  A modern 320k LAME encoded MP3 is virtually identical to lossless in terms of sound quality.  I challenge you to find a difference between it and the other formats you mentioned.
 
God, how many times will this stupid argument rear its ugly head on this forum?

 

[tds101]

Quote:

penartur,
 
Not to mention that at the inception of MP3 technology 320kbps encoding was unheard of.  A modern 320k LAME encoded MP3 is virtually identical to lossless in terms of sound quality.  I challenge you to find a difference between it and the other formats you mentioned.
 
God, how many times will this stupid argument rear its ugly head on this forum?

I agree w/you AND Danneq - and concerning this debate,.........................it will go on till long after we've all moved on from this life.

 

[penartur]

Quote:

penartur,
 
Not to mention that at the inception of MP3 technology 320kbps encoding was unheard of.  A modern 320k LAME encoded MP3 is virtually identical to lossless in terms of sound quality.  I challenge you to find a difference between it and the other formats you mentioned.
 
God, how many times will this stupid argument rear its ugly head on this forum?

At the inception of MP3 technology 320kbps was chosen as the upper limit of MP3 bitrate.
I can find the difference between MP3 320kbps and lossless (or even AAC on lower bitrates). That's why i've moved from obtaining MP3 + uploading MP3 on my DAP to obtaining lossless + transcoding lossless to AAC + uploading AAC on my DAP.

 

[SoulSyde]

Quote:

At the inception of MP3 technology 320kbps was chosen as the upper limit of MP3 bitrate.
I can find the difference between MP3 320kbps and lossless (or even AAC on lower bitrates). That's why i've moved from obtaining MP3 + uploading MP3 on my DAP to obtaining lossless + transcoding lossless to AAC + uploading AAC on my DAP.

Placebo

 

[penartur]

 
Quote:

Placebo

Until i found that difference, i've also thought that mp3 is okay. I haven't thought "music sounds bad because mp3 is bad", i've thought "hmm, srange, why all the music sounds so bad?".
You can call everything a placebo in such a way.

 

[tk3]

The white A850 looks pretty cool, if that was available at the time I would've gotten that instead of the black.
I liked the limited edition purple version too, but it was quite a bit more expensive than the regular versions.
 
Spec wise they the newer one might have a bit higher supported resolutions for video and a bit better battery life?
With 12 buttons, the GUI also has more controls than the a840 series, which has 9 buttons.
The review mentioned a karaoke function, so that is probably one of those buttons.
 
All in all I'm glad I'm not "forced" to upgrade because Sony released a much better product so soon after I got the a847.

 

[Landis]

Quote:

At the inception of MP3 technology 320kbps was chosen as the upper limit of MP3 bitrate.
I can find the difference between MP3 320kbps and lossless (or even AAC on lower bitrates). That's why i've moved from obtaining MP3 + uploading MP3 on my DAP to obtaining lossless + transcoding lossless to AAC + uploading AAC on my DAP.

 
We had a great thread sometime ago measuring the frequencies put out from an encoded ripped file versus the untouched WAV... Shortly into that thread it was found that modern Windows Media Player, iTunes and other ripping software ripped a 99% match in 320kbps to the original WAV, while previous versions of their software were indeed lacking a bit. In case you're not using software that tracks the ripping process, most lossless files that aren't WAV, come out around 99% identical to their original WAV. 99% is 99%, it's not like one is better than the other.
 
Keep in mind that if you're downloading your music, especially illegally, you can encounter cases where you're not getting a quality rip-- lossless or not.

 

[SoulSyde]

 
Quote:

 
We had a great thread sometime ago measuring the frequencies put out from an encoded ripped file versus the untouched WAV... Shortly into that thread it was found that modern Windows Media Player, iTunes and other ripping software ripped a 99% match in 320kbps to the original WAV, while previous versions of their software were indeed lacking a bit. In case you're not using software that tracks the ripping process, most lossless files that aren't WAV, come out around 99% identical to their original WAV. 99% is 99%, it's not like one is better than the other.
 
Keep in mind that if you're downloading your music, especially illegally, you can encounter cases where you're not getting a quality rip-- lossless or not.

Factual, insightful and 100% correct.

 

[Woozle Wuzzle]

Can anyone tell me the difference with the new A850 with the old? Thanks

 

[SoulSyde]

Quote:

Can anyone tell me the difference with the new A850 with the old? Thanks

New colors.

 

[Woozle Wuzzle]

Damn...new colours? That totally got my attention.

 

[penartur]

Quote:

 
 most lossless files that aren't WAV, come out around 99% identical to their original WAV.

What-what-what?
Do you know what "lossless" means?

 

[penartur]

Quote:

Damn...new colours? That totally got my attention.

Someone here also said that they got 3 new items in the menu (in A840 there were 9 icons in 3*3 matrix, and in A850 there are 12 icons in 3*4 matrix).

 

[SoulSyde]

 
Quote:

What-what-what?
Do you know what "lossless" means?

Yes, apparently you do not.
 
Lossless means that the algorithm used to "compress" the file does not lose the original notes and sounds of the native file.  Lossless is a compromise where you are getting a slight decrease in overall file size without the degradation of sound that takes place with MP3 (which notably is minimal to the human ear at the highest bit rates.... done arguing with you about this point).  A WAV file will repeat the same O/I over and over again if necessary to complete a track where a FLAC (or similar file) will take note of repetitive O/Is and effectively reduce the file size.  MP3 takes it a step further by doing more interpolation.