The Open Pandora: An ultimate portable player?

[RAFA]

Its kind of interesting how people react (hate) on the Pandora. This thread is no commercial, just a discussion!
 
The iPod Touch has this Cirrus DAC, which runs with 3.3V. It is DAC and Opamp in one. It is trimmed for efficiency, so you can have longer battery life on your portable device. The Pandora on the other hand has a dedicated audio section on its PCB. Since the Pandora is working, it is logical to assume that the engineers who created the Pandora also were capable to implement the audio section correctly. That given, sure it must sound better than the iPod Touch. I listened to the 4G iPod Touch and it was average sound.
 
Assumptions were about marketing and cost management.

 

[CantScareMe]

As a Pocket PC and an audiophile player, my Samsung sgs i9000 (with voodoo sound kernel) would most likely beat the pandora. And the average price for one new or refurbished from the main place you can still buy it from (ebay) is £160. 

 

[MorbidToaster]

They might have to ramp up the looks for me to consider it at that price. Not much, just a little. The other issue is storage price. That's why I want the lowest price possible. Paying an extra $250 or so for the 256gb of storage is a tough swallow.
 
Quote:

$300-350 is the range I'd place it value-wise. (This is the 600 MHz, 512MB RAM version. The 1 GHz unit I'd value at about $575.)
 
These prices may be attainable in the future if marketing goes as planned. Your suggested price, however, is just far too low to ever happen.

 

[takato14]

The Pandora gets up to 50 hours playing music.

 

[takato14]

Quote:

As a Pocket PC and an audiophile player, my Samsung sgs i9000 (with voodoo sound kernel) would most likely beat the pandora. And the average price for one new or refurbished from the main place you can still buy it from (ebay) is £160. 

Nope, no phone is going to have a dedicated audio section. It's always going to be a sub-par all-in-one chip such as the Cirrus chip in the iPod Touch (as mentioned above). 
 
And while the Galaxy S is a good phone, its specifications are no better than the Pandora, and because it can only run Android the emulators will be slower. Not to mention Android is NOT a full desktop operating system, so it doesn't even qualify for a PocketPC to begin with.

 

[takato14]

Quote:

Its kind of interesting how people react (hate) on the Pandora. This thread is no commercial, just a discussion!
 
The iPod Touch has this Cirrus DAC, which runs with 3.3V. It is DAC and Opamp in one. It is trimmed for efficiency, so you can have longer battery life on your portable device. The Pandora on the other hand has a dedicated audio section on its PCB. Since the Pandora is working, it is logical to assume that the engineers who created the Pandora also were capable to implement the audio section correctly. That given, sure it must sound better than the iPod Touch. I listened to the 4G iPod Touch and it was average sound.
 
Assumptions were about marketing and cost management.

Michael Weston is the person who designed the audio section of the Pandora. He's an audiophile, and hes the one who gave me all of the Pandora's specifications.
 
Not sure if he's apart of Head-Fi but I know he's apart of some audiophile forum...

 

[RAFA]

Quote:

Michael Weston is the person who designed the audio section of the Pandora. He's an audiophile, and hes the one who gave me all of the Pandora's specifications.
 
Not sure if he's apart of Head-Fi but I know he's apart of some audiophile forum...

Would be quite interesting, what he would say on this

 

[tds101]

Sorry, this isn't 1999, so this is fail. And I'd LOVE to see this thing run for  - what did you say? - 50hrs of audio playback. There is no way this can run for that long of a clip. Especially if it contains such high quality energy sucking components.
 
And, FWIW, I'm no iPod fanboi, but the iPod touch does not sound average. Well, that's an "opinion", and we're all free to have them. Especially since it's cirrus logic chip is actually excellent - stating otherwise is actually another falsehood. Unless you fall into the "Wolfson" cult,...

 

[Achmedisdead]

Quote:

Sorry, this isn't 1999, so this is fail. And I'd LOVE to see this thing run for  - what did you say? - 50hrs of audio playback. There is no way this can run for that long of a clip. Especially if it contains such high quality energy sucking components.
 
And, FWIW, I'm no iPod fanboi, but the iPod touch does not sound average. Well, that's an "opinion", and we're all free to have them. Especially since it's cirrus logic chip is actually excellent - stating otherwise is actually another falsehood. Unless you fall into the "Wolfson" cult,...

I sure don't.....

 

[takato14]

Quote:

Sorry, this isn't 1999, so this is fail. And I'd LOVE to see this thing run for  - what did you say? - 50hrs of audio playback. There is no way this can run for that long of a clip. Especially if it contains such high quality energy sucking components.
 
And, FWIW, I'm no iPod fanboi, but the iPod touch does not sound average. Well, that's an "opinion", and we're all free to have them. Especially since it's cirrus logic chip is actually excellent - stating otherwise is actually another falsehood. Unless you fall into the "Wolfson" cult,...

It has a 4000 mAH battery. Of course it can run 50 hours with the screen off. That's almost the equivalent of a laptop battery.
 
The Cirrus chip is inferior to the Wolfson chips in the older iPod Classics. 
 
And what does the year have to do with ANYTHING? What, you think because it's not 1999 that people can't carry around a PocketPC? People use netbooks all the time, which are PocketPCs that can't actually fit in your pocket and give you equivalent or worse performance. There are several small Android tablets that are literally a PocketPC without a keyboard. The Pandora is a great device and it is most certainly usable in today's "modern" world.

 

[RAFA]

Quote:

Sorry, this isn't 1999, so this is fail. And I'd LOVE to see this thing run for  - what did you say? - 50hrs of audio playback. There is no way this can run for that long of a clip. Especially if it contains such high quality energy sucking components.
 
And, FWIW, I'm no iPod fanboi, but the iPod touch does not sound average. Well, that's an "opinion", and we're all free to have them. Especially since it's cirrus logic chip is actually excellent - stating otherwise is actually another falsehood. Unless you fall into the "Wolfson" cult,...

 
Stopped being Cowon fanboy a long time ago and actually I am working on a DIY project including a Cirrus chip. However this is not the topic... I just do not like devices being bashed, where people put much work into. We could bash everything, especially iPods are bashable, but lets not do this...

 

[Achmedisdead]

Quote:

 
 
The Cirrus chip is inferior to the Wolfson chips in the older iPod Classics. 
 
 

 

[stozzer123]

Quote:

 
Stopped being Cowon fanboy a long time ago and actually I am working on a DIY project including a Cirrus chip. However this is not the topic... I just do not like devices being bashed, where people put much work into. We could bash everything, especially iPods are bashable, but lets not do this...

Im sorry but since when was it bashing to call a spade a spade or pointless junk, pointless junk?
 
This is a terrible idea the op is talking all sorts of nonsense, possibly misleading people.  This is the sort of toy you get, then realise just how bad and pointless the whole endevour is after a few short weeks.

 

[takato14]

Quote:

Im sorry but since when was it bashing to call a spade a spade or pointless junk, pointless junk?
 
This is a terrible idea the op is talking all sorts of nonsense, possibly misleading people.  This is the sort of toy you get, then realise just how bad and pointless the whole endevour is after a few short weeks.

The OP has absolutely no nonsense in it whatsoever. This device is NOT pointless in any way, it does quite literally anything you want it to, and does it very well at that. 
 
Oh, and I was mistaken on the music playback time: it can last up to 60 hours.

 

[tds101]

Quote:

The Cirrus chip is inferior to the Wolfson chips in the older iPod Classics.

That statement proves to me you don't know what you're talking about. Especially since a Wolfson is actually proven to be inferior (and yes, Cowon uses Wolfson - but they have a pretty solid eq). Be a fanboi, but be honest.
 

 
And I'm not a Cowon lover either,...but I love me some Sony!!!
 
But, as someone has mentioned, calling a spade a spade is what it is. This is no longer a valid device. But in 1999 I would have been a tech king with it!!! A modern cell phone toasts it!!!
 
Anyways,....LATERS!!!