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

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gorcorps said:
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.
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The same thing is done for MP3 mastering. Too many frequencies at once will make it sound muddy.

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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It's physically impossible for ANY recording medium to exactly replicate the source.
 
Anything over 320k I can't tell the difference at all. When I used to actually like having music files, that's what I used to rip at. Now with GoogleMusic streaming, I haven't ripped/downloaded anything in years.
 
gorcorps said:
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.
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That's only possible if you use the equalizer on the source before it's converted to MP3.
 
GagHalfrunt said:
I've got an 8 year old Sansa Fuze that plays FLAC and has a MicroSD slot. Cost about $50. Wonder if I can get $500 for it now.
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You're talking about the one with the wheel right?

I bought that player years ago. It cost maybe 30/40 bucks on woot. Now, they are selling for over 100 because the Fuze+ came out and it's a POS...
 
Rakehellion said:
The same thing is done for MP3 mastering. Too many frequencies at once will make it sound muddy.

It's physically impossible for ANY recording medium to exactly replicate the source.
Click to expand...

Music production as it stands now is pretty terrible in general, so I agree it's not going to sound great either way.

And yeah, nothing is PERFECT, but the physical limitations of vinyl are well within the human range of hearing.
 
Ya, saw that yesterday. Holy shit, that's expensive. And it's the ZX-2. I just discovered the ZX-1 weeks ago. Sony also has an A19 that they released recently for "only" $300.

I found this guy recently, a FiiO X1:
http://www.amazon.com/Fiio-X1-FiiO/dp/B00NS3MRKC/

MicroSD up to 128 GB and "high quality" for only $110 + memory card. Battery life is "bad" compared to the Sony Walkmans though. I'm using a cheaper ~$90 Sony Walkman right now -- don't really use it now that I'm unemployed and have my full stereo at home though.
 
steppinthrax said:
You're talking about the one with the wheel right?

I bought that player years ago. It cost maybe 30/40 bucks on woot. Now, they are selling for over 100 because the Fuze+ came out and it's a POS...
Click to expand...

Yep. GREAT player, had better sound quality than the iPod and was WAY ahead of its time with FLAC support and the built-in MicroSD slot. I paid about $50 for it and another $12 or so for a 32GB card, so I got a 40GB player for $62.

B0015L0T3G-2.jpg
 
Digital audio players are a fast-dying consumer niche. The only survivors will be very low priced players like the Sansa Clip and very high-end players like this Sony and players from companies you never heard of. Everyone else will listen to music on their smartphones.
 
Newell Steamer said:
Stupid question; the quality that this device provides in terms of sound - it is better or just as good as vinyl??

There certainly is a demand for vinyl, since sales have been going up; http://www.vox.com/2015/1/5/7494461/vinyl-record-sales-2014, so I can understand an audiophile's pursuit of high quality music.
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No real audiophile in the world will be listening to Vinyl. Vinyl is a hipster fad.

Same with listening to FLAC. Complete and total waste of space on a mobile device. It has its uses as a master copy to covert to 320 kbps mp3 or another lossy codec, but it has absolutely no place on a PMP.
 
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I was semi-interested in getting a vinyl player for shits and giggles until I found out the records had to be maintained. MP3 maintenance = CTRL+C and CTRL+V to backup drive for me.
 
Honestly I like it but I wouldn't pay that much for it. However I'd really like a modern, dedicated audio device. I don't need the touchscreen or android, but I'd love hardware button controls, no mechanical drive, more storage and that kind of battery life.
 
Carson Dyle said:
No digital player, whether it's a portable or a high-end $40,000 player, will ever sound the same as vinyl on a decent rig.
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you're absolutely correct - digital is gonna sound sooooo much better. Especially after you listen to the vinyl 100 times.
 
NikolaeVarius said:
Same with listening to FLAC. Complete and total waste of space on a mobile device. It has its uses as a master copy to covert to 320 kbps mp3 or another lossy codec, but it has absolutely no place on a PMP.
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I have 160GB of FLAC ripped from my CD collection at the moment. Why would I want to either maintain a separate mobile version of my music, or spend hours transcoding it every time I want to change the set list on my mobile device?

A FLAC player makes perfect sense.
 
BoberFett said:
I have 160GB of FLAC ripped from my CD collection at the moment. Why would I want to either maintain a separate mobile version of my music, or spend hours transcoding it every time I want to change the set list on my mobile device?
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I have a 1.25TB FLAC library that I've transcoded into Mp3 for use on my mobile players. The initial transcoding took something like three days (it's not something you have to babysit), but now I add a few new albums to my FLAC library every month and the maintenance takes a couple of minutes.

At 1/4 the size of the FLAC files (approximately - it depends on the Mp3 quality level chosen), I get four times as many tracks on my mobile players. The sound quality of Mp3 is more than adequate for how/where I use my portables. The cost in disk space to store the Mp3 mirror library is just a few dollars. Maintain that Mp3 library and you don't have to transcode anything just to change the music files on your portable.
 
BoberFett said:
I have 160GB of FLAC ripped from my CD collection at the moment. Why would I want to either maintain a separate mobile version of my music, or spend hours transcoding it every time I want to change the set list on my mobile device?

A FLAC player makes perfect sense.
Click to expand...

Because the 20 GB of stored mp3 is massively cheaper on a desktop hdd versus on a PMP?

Because if you converted it all to mp3, you wouldn't NEED to change the setlist on the PMP on the first place because you could fit everything in the PMP.
 
Carson Dyle said:
I have a 1.25TB FLAC library that I've transcoded into Mp3 for use on my mobile players. The initial transcoding took something like three days (it's not something you have to babysit), but now I add a few new albums to my FLAC library every month and the maintenance takes a couple of minutes.

At 1/4 the size of the FLAC files (approximately - it depends on the Mp3 quality level chosen), I get four times as many tracks on my mobile players. The sound quality of Mp3 is more than adequate for how/where I use my portables. The cost in disk space to store the Mp3 mirror library is just a few dollars. Maintain that Mp3 library and you don't have to transcode anything just to change the music files on your portable.
Click to expand...

Damn. That's a big collection. What is that, about 5000 CDs?

Maybe I'm not using the right tools, but everything I've tried using to transcode to a second mobile copy has done a bunch of crap to try to "helpfully reorganize" my music for me in the transcoded location. Ends up creating totally different folder structures than the simple AlbumArtist\Album\Song I use for my collection.
 
NikolaeVarius said:
Because the 20 GB of stored mp3 is massively cheaper on a desktop hdd versus on a PMP?

Because if you converted it all to mp3, you wouldn't NEED to change the setlist on the PMP on the first place because you could fit everything in the PMP.
Click to expand...

As I noted above, maintaining a second copy has proven painful in the past. I'm open to better library management tools.
 
It supports DSD as well which none of the cheap players in this thread will do. You guys are clearly not the market for this thing.
 
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