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Yep, $1,200 for a Sony Walkman!!!

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NutBucket said:
There is a limited (but growing) market for lossless/"HD" audio. While it is certainly a niche device there is some precedent for releasing halo devices that sell in small numbers. Certainly, Sony has done this for decades with home audio/video components. I mean, how many $5k DVD players did they (expect to) sell?
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Slashdot has a post that explains the HD Audio mess:

AmiMoJo said:
That's the genius of Hi-Res Audio, the same company can both create the problem and sell you the solution.

Sony Music releases extremely loud, clipped and generally crap sounding CDs. Then they release a Hi-Res version that also happens to be properly mixed, but you need an expensive player to listen to it.

Their plan is working. In Japan Hi-Res Audio is a big deal at the moment, but many people don't realise that it is more to do with the recordings being properly mixed and not insanely loud than it is the higher sample rate and bit depth.
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So if you buy this, I presume you should be spenidng equally luxurious/high quality headphones to go with it yes?

So $2400 for a portable audiophile music player? lol.
 
steppinthrax said:
It makes a big deal of a audio format called FLAC. Which I've heard of, but never used. Of course MP3 is a lossy media format, maybe FLAC isn't. I wouldn't mind listening to it to hear how it "actually" sounds. They should put a Ipod 5 and this side by side playing the same FLAC and have people tell the difference..
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Can people actually tell the difference between flac and mp3? Like in actual blind tests?

When you see phrases like "compromise the purity of the original signal" you know to run far away.
 
steppinthrax said:
When I saw the amazon link I thought they forgot to add a additional zero after the 9. Only dis for me is it's a windows phone and you can't put android on it. I would like to play around with it and see what it does.
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this is a thread about walkmans.

And for 30 bucks thats an extremely nice walkman.
 
steppinthrax said:
When I saw the amazon link I thought they forgot to add a additional zero after the 9. Only dis for me is it's a windows phone and you can't put android on it. I would like to play around with it and see what it does.
Click to expand...

Just for playing music, Windows is not bad, it has pretty good players
 
dainthomas said:
Can people actually tell the difference between flac and mp3? Like in actual blind tests?

When you see phrases like "compromise the purity of the original signal" you know to run far away.
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That's kind of where I was trying to get with my last post. I would think most people probably wouldn't be able to tell the diff. Unless they are adding "loudness" or other audio artifacts into the audio to give it the "impression" of higher quality, but no real change.
 
DesiPower said:
Just for playing music, Windows is not bad, it has pretty good players
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LOL,

My last MP3 player was a Ipod Nano. The battery went bad and i had it exchanged at the genius bar... After a year of using the new one, the shuffle button on the side got jammed inward (no warranty).

To replace is overpriced junk, I got a Wal-mart brand Eclipse MP3 player for $14.00. Has worked very well for years!!! No touch screen, no nothing, just a few buttons for music selection and a shitty pixelated postage stamped sized screen.
 
dainthomas said:
Can people actually tell the difference between flac and mp3? Like in actual blind tests?

When you see phrases like "compromise the purity of the original signal" you know to run far away.
Click to expand...

I can tell the difference, but I don't care enough to spend extra money on headphones or waste space on lossless audio.

I'm not trying to get lost in an endless field of immersion while the homeless guy vomits next to me on the subway, I just want to listen to some music.
 
DesiPower said:
Sure, one can easily carry a vinyl player and a car battery around their neck!
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5386.jpg
 
dainthomas said:
Can people actually tell the difference between flac and mp3? Like in actual blind tests?

When you see phrases like "compromise the purity of the original signal" you know to run far away.
Click to expand...
Too many variables but generally speaking yes. In many ways it's like the difference between SD and HD video.
 
Rakehellion said:
I can tell the difference, but I don't care enough to spend extra money on headphones or waste space on lossless audio.

I'm not trying to get lost in an endless field of immersion while the homeless guy vomits next to me on the subway, I just want to listen to some music.
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Apparently Android can support up to 48Khz FLAC. I'm not sure about the other audio specs it's indicating ("no dither applied for 24-bit")

http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html
 
HamburgerBoy said:
hahahahahaha no. Unless you're comparing FLAC to 128kbps or something.
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From my memory in courses I've taken regarding file compression etc.., lossy MP3 is so small because a general microphone can record frequencies of sounds that can't be heard by the human ear. One of the processes the audio goes through to become a Mp3 is to take those frequencies away. This is where most of the space saving happens.

So who here has dog ears?
 
steppinthrax said:
From my memory in courses I've taken regarding file compression etc.., lossy MP3 is so small because a general microphone can record frequencies of sounds that can't be heard by the human ear. One of the processes the audio goes through to become a Mp3 is to take those frequencies away. This is where most of the space saving happens.

So who here has dog ears?
Click to expand...

if you have a sound system the audio quality matters tremendously. if you have $19.99 apple ear buds, probably not so much.
 
Oyeve said:
Meh, my vinyls still sound better.
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It's warmer, but it's further from the original recording than most people realize.

I read a pretty good article about the problems with vinyl, and what some people consider "good quality" is just a completely different way of producing which they prefer. The gist of it is that to save space and fit the music onto vinyl records, you have to reduce the amount of low frequency sounds which take up a lot of physical space (low frequency makes thicker grooves). Places that stamp records usually put a low cut filter at around 40Hz to control this.

On the flip side, high frequency notes can cause distortion if they force the needle to move too quickly. So there's usually a high cut filter at around 16kHz. They recommend that producers/sound engineers de-ess their vocal tracks and cymbals so they don't run into issues.

After all that processing to account for the physical limitations of carving physical grooves into a medium, you end up with a recording that has lost a lot of high end and some of the "oomph" from the low end. This results in a warmer sound because you're not hearing a lot of sibilance from the cymbals and such. Some people like it, but it's still nowhere near what was originally recorded... and it's FAR less accurate than any digital medium because of it.

So, when it comes to discussing vinyl with people they usually fall into two categories:

1.) People who say "vinyl SOUNDS better". This is perfect, because what "sounds better" is entirely personal preference. If the warmth of how vinyl is recorded sounds good to you, that's great. BTW, you should be able to get that same warmth with an equalizer on your digital music.

2.) People who say "vinyl has better sound quality". Sound quality as judged by how close the playback sounds vs. the source means it's physically impossible for vinyl to replicate the instruments as recorded. So no, it really can't have better sound quality. It may sound better to you, but what you're listening to isn't what was recorded.
 
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