It is my understanding that the Cowon and Creative (and others) have a great deal of equalizer support. I could be wrong, but I don't think the Zune has much as to graphic equalization. There is a video review of the Zune on this site. I believe the Zune has a "mode" equalizer (Jazz, Rock, etc ....).
I know that the Cowon players (or at least the X5) do have pretty decent equalizer support. However the best equalizer support would have to be rockbox of course.
I just want to chime in a few points others have brought up...
In my experience, people aren't switching to macs in large numbers because itunes or the intel chips, they're doing it because they are fed up with spyware and viruses and having to reformat their machines after dealing with both. At least the people who pay me to help them switch (I teach computer classes at our local university, which is a windows only enviroment). to them, it's not about the ipods, itunes, or what's on the inside of the box, it's becuase they don't have to deal with all the hassles just to browse the web or receive email (which is all most people what to do with a computer now-a-days).
I don't see iTunes as a monopoly as it doesn't "force" me to buy my music from apple or anyone else, and it lets me choose which format I want to encode my thousands of CDs to. if i could only buy itunes music OR only rip my own cds to AAC then we'd have a problem. even if you DO buy a few songs from the itunes store, rip them to an audio CD and then turn around and import them back into itunes, poof DRM issues are gone and you can do what you want with YOUR music (that's for the people who said that your stuck with apple's DRM forever). Apple's never prevented this, and i take that as being quite a fair deal.
As for apple and zune and every other DAP maker out there, they have NEVER catered to the audiophile crowd. we aren't their target market and they would go broke trying to please us. we're just too darn picky. it just so happens that some DAP's do sound good, some sound better, heck some even sound great, but they aren't making them to please US. they are making them to please joe and susan pop-culture consumer. if we like it too, then all the better, they'll sell more units and stay in business a little longer.
For me, i'm going with the one that sounds best. right now people to be leaning towards the new ipod shuffle. there isn't any place on the island to actually buy one right now, but i'm heading back to the states next week and i intend to listen to all the latest DAP offerings I can get my ears on...
Originally Posted by dave-g I just want to chime in a few points others have brought up...
In my experience, people aren't switching to macs in large numbers because itunes or the intel chips, they're doing it because they are fed up with spyware and viruses and having to reformat their machines after dealing with both. At least the people who pay me to help them switch (I teach computer classes at our local university, which is a windows only enviroment). to them, it's not about the ipods, itunes, or what's on the inside of the box, it's becuase they don't have to deal with all the hassles just to browse the web or receive email (which is all most people what to do with a computer now-a-days).
I find this quite amusing actually. I know of a couple of people who use macs and they picked them for the artistic style work that they do but also because they wanted something that wasn't going to have security/spyware issues. One of them uses just bog standard firewall/virus security like anyone would have and the other is very security concious (because of the work he's doing his PC would be a target) and has software and hardware firewalls and loads of other stuff setup to help stop any probs. Long story short they have more problems in 1 month then I do in 12 months running WinXP (not that I'm saying I love XP - just that I don't know anyone running a mac that have less problems then someone running windows - if I was going for ultimate security from spyware and viruses then I'd go Linux all the way!)
Quote:
I don't see iTunes as a monopoly as it doesn't "force" me to buy my music from apple or anyone else, and it lets me choose which format I want to encode my thousands of CDs to. if i could only buy itunes music OR only rip my own cds to AAC then we'd have a problem. even if you DO buy a few songs from the itunes store, rip them to an audio CD and then turn around and import them back into itunes, poof DRM issues are gone and you can do what you want with YOUR music (that's for the people who said that your stuck with apple's DRM forever). Apple's never prevented this, and i take that as being quite a fair deal.
Buy a AAC track, burn it and then re-import into MP3?? Now I know we're audiophiles here (as you agree) but I know non-audiophile people and even they wouldn't want to do that as they realise that they are going to lose so much quality.
For me, i'm going with the one that sounds best. right now people to be leaning towards the new ipod shuffle./QUOTE]
I think people are leaning towards the new shuffle because of the admiration for the originals sound quality coupled with the size/look of the thing. Has there been any posts or reviews about the sound quality of it yet? I'm not saying it does/doesn't sound good as I've never heard it but I don't think many reviews of the sound quality are out yet (I could be mistaken)
They say one in a million. I guess the "couple of people" are two in two million.
I don't doubt your observations, but gleaning a truth would be faulty.
Simply not true.
Oh I have no doubt that the mac OS has less exploits then WinXP and that also, with the less user base, is seen as less of a target to impact against too. I just find it interesting when I hear people say this when I've had no probs with WinXP and I know people who have with macs (that being said I also know loads of people who have had problems with Microsoft problems and Windows faults)
I'm still of the thought that Linux is the more secure operating system available (could just be my perception of course) and if it would play my games a well as WinXP then Linux would be my operating system of choice.
Totally off-topic of course.
Back on topic though having read in the other thread about Microsoft paying Universal for each Zune that they sell - this is something that I'm not sure I'm happy with at all! Why on earth should Universal get cash for Microsoft selling Microsoft hardware (I know it's Toshiba made)
Buy a AAC track, burn it and then re-import into MP3?? Now I know we're audiophiles here (as you agree) but I know non-audiophile people and even they wouldn't want to do that as they realise that they are going to lose so much quality.
Actually, i meant you could import it as an AIFF audio file, not an MP3. I would never rip anything that i actually wanted to really listen to as an MP3. I know there would be some loss issuses, but the people having the DRM issues with downloaded music aren't among those in the audiophile crowd to begin with. maybe one day we'll have a choice to download uncompressed audio (and it shouldn't cost a dime more either as they are still saving money over the price of the physical media!) but until then, we're stuck with less than stellar sound quality.
as for the windows/mac thing, I do Microsoft Active Directory and Exchange consulting for the Banking and Financial services companies here on the island, I also teach windows and web development classes at the university. all the money I've made in most of my adult life is because of microsoft products so I'm not going to bust on them. that being said, I don't own a PC. Painters don't want to paint their own house when they get home, mechanics don't want to fix their wife's car when they get home and I don't want to fix my registry when I could be chilling on the beach with a cold beer and my ipod. I've got a 17" powerbook that runs MS RDC (so I can remote into my client's servers) and I've got virtual pc for those times when i need to check out an application that I intend to use in the classroom. My laptop is just over 3 years old and I have never had to reformat, reinstall the OS, reinstall any application (except pro tools!) and I run just about every office app (word, excel, powerpoint, quickbooks), audio programs (pro tools 7.1, live 6, logic 7.2, peak 5, etc), graphic design (photoshop, illustrator, freehand, etc), web development (dreamweaver, go-live) so it's been put through the paces and it still runs great. I'm not even going to tell you how many times my father has had to reformat and reinstall windows on his gateway tower in that same time period (he's a pretty typical computer user and the inspiration for my computing for senior citizen's class that I teach!) luckily 2 of my 3 brothers are also systems engineers and they live close by to him...
I agree - until we're able to get lossless files of audio tracks to purchase online I'm sticking with CD's and ripping the tracks myself. Maybe that's what Microsoft could do to really push the iPod - sell lossless tracks on their Zune shop and that could give them a difference (although whether many people are audiophile enough to want it is another matter of course)
(again off topic):
I know all about reformatting on Windows machines (I've done it a couple of times in my life but now I've got some decent defrag software I find that it's not needed that much at all) however I'd still love to be able to run all my games on Linux as the times that I've used it (used it pretty much everyday when I was at uni as I dual booted and did uni work via it) it's always ran perfectly and never needed any caretaking done on the machine
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