[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by VoLTaG3 /img/forum/go_quote.gif What was useful and helpful about this? Now I see where this guy gets 22,000+ posts from, wow.... If some one else would have posted an apple they would have not gotten the same compliment...

Well, the OP asked a very simple question -> "To apple or not to apple?"
Which only require a one word answer. So instead of writing the word "Apple" I posted a picture of an apple...

..and if you read some of my posts you find out that most of them are way longer than the previous one. Anyway!

 

[pata2001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oya? /img/forum/go_quote.gif as does the Zune and the Rio Vibez. I think the Tonium Pacemaker has it too (would be absolutely silly if it didn't). The old Karma had it. And I'm sure all DAPs that have RockBox can do gapless too. Didn't they finish RockBox for the Cowon D2? And the Clip also has a (uncompiled) RockBox interface available? (Have I missed any others?)

The Zune is only reliably gapless with wma. Unless you're a hardcore MS fan that you only use wma, it's just like the old Sony, only gapless capable with 1 codec.
Trekstor (not Rio) Vibez does support gapless, but can you actually find them for sale? It's not even that commonly sold online.
Rio Karma, gosh, that's an old timer. Its gapless capability is actually overhyped, mainly due to the fact that at that time, nobody else can do gapless playback except Sony Atrac. The Karma was great at its time, but its gapless capability is not as reliable as current iPods.

Yes, Rockbox is the best. Now think about it, if a bunch of people can create a free firmware on their spare time with full gapless capability, why can't big companies like Sony, Cowon, etc? Even Sony doesn't care anymore about gapless playback on their NWZ players (only gapless with wav).

The irony is, before iPods can do gapless, they were slammed left & right, and gapless playback was deemed as the holy grail of a DAP feature. Fast forward, now iPods do gapless, nobody cares about it anymore. I have yet to see anybody slamming Sony for not implementing gapless playback of lossy codecs on their NWZ players.

 

[pata2001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by neoufo51 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Why is it so difficult to implement gapless playback in a DAP?

It's not difficult, as shown by the Rockbox team. Current codecs/encoders like Lame MP3 and OGG even make it easy to implement gapless playback by providing the necessary tags built-in. I'm sure companies like Samsung/Sony/Cowon have more money and R&D team than a bunch of people doing a free firmware on their spare time. It's because people still buy players that don't support gapless. If the demand is still there, then why bother, right?

 

[indydieselnut]

...I went through this decision but came at it from the "server" standpoint, not the player standpoint. I decided on Apple (20" iMac) because I wanted iTunes and everything it did and I wanted to be sure I was using a platform that would be supported for a long time. I'm in the process of loading about 3,000 cds into iTunes in ALAC format. I'm about 30 cds into it after three days (

) and I love everything about it. I have a Drobo storage device hooked up via firewire 800 and everything is moving along smoothly.

I have an iPod Nano and am waiting for something like a 100GB Touch to come out before I buy anything else.

Cheers!

 

[inukage0029]

I think im still leaning towards apple.

indydieselnut, its really taking you that long? 10 CDs a day seems really slow. I import using my Dell laptop, and I can probably import twice that many from the time i get home to the time i leave for basketball practice, so about 5 hours

 

[PhilS]

I was going to post a picture of an apple or iPod, but apparently you can't post pictures if you have more than a certain number of posts of something?

Anyway, I would recommend the Apple products from personal experience. I think the new generation iPods, including the touch, sound quite good and have a variety of features. And I'm a big fan of Apple's customer service also.

Of course, there are other good choices as well, and it comes down to personal preference in the end. But if you want to use an amp with it, doesn't that more or less exclude the Zune as a practical matter since it doesn't have a line out? If you're going to go to the trouble of using an amp, it would seem you would want the best configuration possible (i.e., amping from the line out instead of the headphone out).

 

[thechungster]

S9 doesn't support gapless? :| That's going to make my live albums going to sound crap then :/

 

[shigzeo]

most audiophile companies refuse to support gapless and good headphone performance

with cowon, you could draw up a cue sheet and wav it

 

[Oya?]

Reminds me of a funny thing I noticed on ABI a while back, in this article. It's got a timeline of DAP models up until 2008. The Karma's gapless was praised while the iPod's gapless seems to have been conveniently omitted.

It is ABI though, so it didn't really surprise me.

(Also, on the player Comparison page, gapless playback humorously seems to be non-present as a tickbox option.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by pata2001 /img/forum/go_quote.gif The Zune is only reliably gapless with wma. Unless you're a hardcore MS fan that you only use wma, it's just like the old Sony, only gapless capable with 1 codec. Trekstor (not Rio) Vibez does support gapless, but can you actually find them for sale? It's not even that commonly sold online. Rio Karma, gosh, that's an old timer. Its gapless capability is actually overhyped, mainly due to the fact that at that time, nobody else can do gapless playback except Sony Atrac. The Karma was great at its time, but its gapless capability is not as reliable as current iPods. Yes, Rockbox is the best. Now think about it, if a bunch of people can create a free firmware on their spare time with full gapless capability, why can't big companies like Sony, Cowon, etc? Even Sony doesn't care anymore about gapless playback on their NWZ players (only gapless with wav). The irony is, before iPods can do gapless, they were slammed left & right, and gapless playback was deemed as the holy grail of a DAP feature. Fast forward, now iPods do gapless, nobody cares about it anymore. I have yet to see anybody slamming Sony for not implementing gapless playback of lossy codecs on their NWZ players.

 

[uncle b]

For the longest I avoided Apple and the iPod like a plague. "Not gonna be a drone", "No little white apple stickers on the back of my car." iRiver and Cowon had served me very well on previous purchases. I purchased a Cowon S9 around Christmas, and was really disappointed by it, just kinda confusing and buggy (at least by my standards). I thought I really want a lot of storage, and the time came to upgrade to a high-capacity player and the black iPod Classic 120 was the way to go. Ownership of the Classic has been nothing but a pleasure, from a seamless purchase at an Apple store to the loading of my discs into iTunes. Sure, the sound and "EQ" has left just a little to be desired, but I am armed with a Hornet amp, a LOD, and a brand-new pair of Westone 3, I think I am alright. Most of the time it's just the W3 and the Classic, wrapped in a beautiful black Vaja case. I am extremely happy I came over to what I once considered "the dark side"!

 

[indydieselnut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by inukage0029 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think im still leaning towards apple. indydieselnut, its really taking you that long? 10 CDs a day seems really slow. I import using my Dell laptop, and I can probably import twice that many from the time i get home to the time i leave for basketball practice, so about 5 hours

The six-month-old at home makes it really slow...

Also, quite a few of my out-of-print classical cds have no cover-art anywhere and I really like the cover-flow view in iTunes. Thus, I am scanning in the album artwork as I go. If I'm doing contemporary pop/rock albums I can do about twenty in the time it takes me to do five out-of-print classical cds.

 

[Tomikans]

i go with apple. I can't live without gapless since most of my music composes of trance albums. Nothing kills the feel like having 1 second gaps during a trance session.

I really like the ipod LOD (don't know if it actually helps but it does make my rig look smexy), and huge space was a big factor to me too.

Although i know the ipods SQ compared to other DAPs are lacking, but i got a portable amp. If i didn't have a portable amp and the zune didn't have any playback problems, i would of still had my zune 120.

So To Apple it is!

 

[tspinning]

I'm in a similar boat, I bought my first iPod (1G touch) back on 10/10/08 and started the painful process of properly tagging and finding art for my 160GB+ collection of music (I'll note about 1/2 my collection is live shows, sbd or aud and horridly mis-tagged, if tagged at all)

Anyway, last week my iPod was stolen and I'm faced with buying a new one or going to a different DAP (I would have to do 16GB as the 8GB just wasn't enough)

Apple has a fairly secure hold on me as I just spent 100 or so hours updating my library to "iTunes spec" and still have a way to go but the feature set and use has grown on me (long time apple hater)

I'm more held back by the fact that the 2G touch can't be easily jail broken (untethered) and are a bit cost prohibitive.

The S9 just didn't meet my (high) expectations and I was given a 1GB nano (1G) for gym usage so the touch screen and size don't bother me. I'm sold on the internet and other app things my touch could do (Jaadu VNC was sweet!)

Long rant short...
I vote to APPLE again

 

[bakercj93]

If you like fascism, go with Apple. Personally, I like freedom, so I got a Sansa Fuze and am very happy with it. I'd also recommend a Cowon.

 

[indydieselnut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bakercj93 /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you like fascism, go with Apple. Personally, I like freedom, so I got a Sansa Fuze and am very happy with it. I'd also recommend a Cowon.

Getting the Apple barcode tattoo'd on my neck hurt a bunch, but it sure does speed up service at Party HeadQuarters...err, I mean the Apple Store.