[rob1031]

i have haerd several ipods and their sound quality is pretty horrid to my ears. i dont really get how they got so popular but maybe its just their models. The ones that i tried had a lot of hiss (the average listener usually doesnt notice/just ignores it), the treble was so harsh it hurt my ears, bass was veryyy average (which may be the earphones) or didnt sound very good overall anyways.

are there really any differences to mp3s? Ipod, karma, iriver, and creative zen are the players that ive looked at and interested in. not the ipod anymore.. well would any of you say that any of these are much better than the ipod?

I am interested in the iriver and creative zens they look very cool and seen good reviews, and seen the rio karma... the stuff it has seems pretty darn good! 20 GB space , dont get the DJ mix thing, but love the 5 band EQ, USB,

how is the iriver?

just wondering..are there any SUPER mp3 players..like high end that are better than these?

edit: oh yes and if i get the rio karma could i just rip CD files onto it? (like the huge wav files or something on the CDs) as it has 20 GB storage.

 

[jpr703]

The differences are not so much in the players as they are in the music files on the players. I have an iPod and the sound is very good when using 320k AAC files. At that bit-rate I can still fit about 300 albums on a 40 gig unit. Apple lossless sounds even a little bit better, but the file sizes become much bigger than AAC.

Also, to get good sound out of any MP3 player, you will need to use a line-out and an external amp.

 

[Kirosia]

IRiver IHP is a colored person. It sounds fun and exciting, at the expense of fidelity. I think people prefer the ipod cause it sounds somewhat flat (which is good), and it's easily customizable with headphones/amps/cables. I don't know if there are any "super" mp3 players. Do you really need such high quality sound in a portable source?

 

[Charlie87]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirosia IRiver IHP is a colored person. It sounds fun and exciting, at the expense of fidelity. I think people prefer the ipod cause it sounds somewhat flat (which is good), and it's easily customizable with headphones/amps/cables. I don't know if there are any "super" mp3 players. Do you really need such high quality sound in a portable source?

Yeah, because all people are like you right? You say that flat is good, is it good for all people? Some people like colored music, and some people want a dap that can actually produce bass....well who woulda thought of that?

 

[Kirosia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlie87 Yeah, because all people are like you right? You say that flat is good, is it good for all people? Some people like colored music, and some people want a dap that can actually produce bass....well who woulda thought of that?

First off, this is my opinion. So back the hell off. Second, I have an IHP, and only an IHP. I despise fanboys, including those of ipod and iriver. BTW, did I say anywhere that the IHP sounded bad? I said it was colored, blah blah, which is quite true. So step back my friend.

 

[UserNotFound]

i find in a wide variety of genres, the Zen Touch has a much more pleasing sound than my girlfriend's iPod Mini. I loaded hers up with my mp3's and used my HD280's on both of them, as well as with the stock earbuds for each, and the iPod Mini seemed punchy and harsh, which was much harder to listen to than the Zen Touch.

You will notice a difference by the encoding method. The Zen Touch doesn't support lossless codecs that i can figure out, but will support up to 320kbps WMA and MP3s. If your music is encoded as low as 160 or 128 kbps MP3s, you will be able to hear the difference on a pair of headphones worth a can a beans, so if your music is at this level, you may want a player that makes the music sound more lively in conbination with headphones that suit the player and style of music well.

I prefer the Zen Touch hooked up to my HD280's because it has a nice, even, smooth feel, and plenty of presence when needed. My average bitrate of files on my player is 204 kbps for the whole 18 gigs i have on it, and it's pretty easy to be able to say "that's a low encoding rate" when a song comes on at 128 after hearing one at 256.

The general idea is that you're going to like whatever you're going to like. Listen to friends mp3 players, take your headphones, try new headphones, find something you like.

Dont's listen to me.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob1031 i have haerd several ipods and their sound quality is pretty horrid to my ears. i dont really get how they got so popular but maybe its just their models. The ones that i tried had a lot of hiss (the average listener usually doesnt notice/just ignores it), the treble was so harsh it hurt my ears, bass was veryyy average (which may be the earphones) or didnt sound very good overall anyways. are there really any differences to mp3s? Ipod, karma, iriver, and creative zen are the players that ive looked at and interested in. not the ipod anymore.. well would any of you say that any of these are much better than the ipod?

Ya know, i don't know why anyone hasn't brought this up yet but it may be that the music you heard on those ipod's was just poorly encoded? My sister owns a 4G ipod and it sounds pretty damn good. No hiss of any kind and i encode all the tunes for her with eac/lame.

As for differences in the various mp3 players, sure, they all have minor differences. Many would say the Rio Karma is the best of the bunch, sound and options. I personally own a Nomad Jukebox 3 and a Zen Micro, the njb3 sounds glorious while the Zen Micro sounds very good but sometimes the bass sounds a bit rolled off. If i were you, i would try an Ipod with properly encoded mp3's and a decent pair of cans before dismissing it.

 

[bigshot]

It's a lot easier to color music than it is to un-color it. Any serious listener is going to want to start from some flat reference point. From there, you can adjust and color to your heart's content. That's why God gave us tone controls. (Even if fundamentalists try to take them away from us!)

See ya
Steve

 

[G-FORCE]

Well when i first got my NETWORK minidisc, MZ-N1 - i conducted some experiments on it...

The first was to record a track through the optical cable

The second was to record the same track through stero cable (analogue)

The third was to record via NETWORK - using a usb cable

The results were interesting, through optical the sound quality was amazing as you would expect, The second - through cable was a very nice too, a slight fuzz but you would expect that, but it was a good sound and the bass response was excellent.

Thirdly, listening to the (USB) transfered version of the track was dissapointing - The top end was slightly out, and there was virtually no bass response - the sound was very clinical - the 2nd version (through cable) gave such a nicer and warmer sound than the USB transfered tracks ever could, so even though I had a NETMD walkman, most of my tracks i recorded manually so that I could at least hear some bass

 

[blessingx]

My old 1G iPod is a bit brighter than my current 4G. It's interesting that the iPod sometimes gets called 'boring', which to me is the opposite of 'bright as hell'. The iPod does have a well known bass roll off with low impedance phones, which could explain the more prominent highs in your listening. I think I'm pretty sensitive to 'brightness' though, and I don't hear it in the iPod.

As always though, the Karma has the best EQ, so it's probably where you should look to get the closest sound to what you desire.

 

[chumley]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlie87 Yeah, because all people are like you right? You say that flat is good, is it good for all people? Some people like colored music, and some people want a dap that can actually produce bass....well who woulda thought of that?

The 4G iPod's L/O, running Apple Lossless or AIFF, produces lots of accurate, extended, and detailed bass. Best of any portable DAP, Line Out or no, IMO. And I own an iRiver HP140, and have listened to lots of music through ALL the new HP 320's Outputs... the reason folks state, incorrectly, that the iPod lacks bass is that it:

a) doesn't have some phony compensatory 'bass boost' to gloss over 'bass-less' MP3 files in the lower kb bitrates,

b) reveals the lack of bass in the above files the way any good piece of audio equipment should... * accurately *...if the audio file HAS real bass, the 4G iPod's Line Out (via Sik Din, for example), the iPod will 'actually produce bass'... but if bass ain't in the audio file, it won't.

Try plugging in a set of, say, Grado PS-1s into the Headphone Out port of any 4G iPod. Play music that HAS REAL BASS, encoded with any higher-bitrate (320 AAC or better), or lossless format. Enjoy the (low) ride...