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

[MongGrel]

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.

Yeah, was going to mention that one myself.

Have a Sansa Fuze+ that does FLAC and Rockbox as a secondary OS on the little thing I picked up a few years back refurbished for $39 bucks off the Egg.

With a MicroSD, yeah, for 40Gb total.

Controls on the Fuze+ are a bit borked, but more usable with Rockbox on it.

For what they are the Sansa's are pretty nice, have a couple sets of decent IEM's for it.

 

[Oyeve]

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.

Its a hipster fad NOW but im talking about albums I bought in the 60s 70s and 80s. They sound fantastic today as they did years ago. And not remastered CD or digital format is ever going to reproduce that without seriously heavy processing. I havent bought a vinyl in years so I dont know what the hipsters are buying now. I do have some great orchestra music from the 80s that was recorded digitally prior to laying down on vinyl. They came with warning labels on them stating that your tweeters can be blown at high volumes. Which they did as I blew some on a 30 yr old (at the time) Advent speakers.

 

[repoman0]

And not remastered CD or digital format is ever going to reproduce that without seriously heavy processing.

You mean an EQ? The only reason vinyl sounds different was covered already in this thread .. it's a far from perfect reproduction of the original recording. In fact, even the signal etched onto the vinyl is purposely not flat over frequency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization

If it sounds better to you, great, but you can reproduce the same effect digitally with a simple EQ curve, and it will never degrade. That said -- I still think vinyl is cool. I have a handful of records but don't have a player yet. I think it's cool mostly for novelty .. putting on a record, the large album art, the fact that vinyl is an impressive technology for its time. I'm only 25 so I grew up with cassette tapes and CDs. If I'm going for sound quality, I'll pick my $120 Onkyo standalone CD player over any record player.

 

[Ns1]

What people think vinyl sounds like:

What vinyl actually sounds like:

 

[steppinthrax]

Yeah, was going to mention that one myself.

Have a Sansa Fuze+ that does FLAC and Rockbox as a secondary OS on the little thing I picked up a few years back refurbished for $39 bucks off the Egg.

With a MicroSD, yeah, for 40Gb total.

Controls on the Fuze+ are a bit borked, but more usable with Rockbox on it.

For what they are the Sansa's are pretty nice, have a couple sets of decent IEM's for it.

I was really close to pulling the trigger on the Sansa Fuze+. I had rockbox on my old fuze. Is the player slow? How well are the controls fixed with rockbox?

 

[Rakehellion]

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.

Both of these things are accurate.

 

[Rakehellion]

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.

DSD sounds like ass and is no better than PCM. But you're right, this thing does way more than an MP3 player and anyone who even mentions compression ratios is missing the point.

 

[lxskllr]

Its a hipster fad NOW but im talking about albums I bought in the 60s 70s and 80s. They sound fantastic today as they did years ago.

I have vinyl that instruments completely disappeared from due to extensive play. It happened so slowly I didn't notice until I bought the same thing on CD, and thought "Holy shit! Where did they come from?!" The only thing I miss on vinyl is the out of print stuff I have, but most things are available digitally.

 

[Rakehellion]

Every time you play an MP3 file, the quality diminishes slightly. That's why you always keep backups.

 

[lxskllr]

Every time you play an MP3 file, the quality diminishes slightly. That's why you always keep backups.

:^D

Bit rot is a concern though. That's one thing I'll give vinyl. When it gets defects, it usually isn't infuriatingly irritating, unlike a bad cd, or digital file.

 

[MongGrel]

I was really close to pulling the trigger on the Sansa Fuze+. I had rockbox on my old fuze. Is the player slow? How well are the controls fixed with rockbox?

The touch controls on the Fuze+ seems better with Rockbox, but it's still a pretty PITA player sometimes control wise.

Does hold a nice charge, I usually either stick it on radio, or random on FLACs or MP3's myself.

 

[BoberFett]

Every time you play an MP3 file, the quality diminishes slightly. That's why you always keep backups.

Sometimes your trolling amuses me. You may continue.

 

[Imported]

Built in amp and DAC? Beats carrying a portable.. Hmm.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Sometimes your trolling amuses me. You may continue.

It might not be trolling. That was started as a rumor ages ago to fuck with audiophiles because audiophiles are stupid enough to believe anything. That's why they're audiophiles. A lot of them bought it, so it's entirely possible that some of them still believe it's true.

 

[moonbogg]

This is a $1,200.00 smart phone without the phone function. Got it. Does it even take pictures? Does it even play games? Can you even text on it, bro?

 

[spamtly]

In the 80's Sony had a high class Cassette Walkman called the "Boodo Khan" selling for $1000 bucks back then (That's $4000 in today's money). It was only sold at Sharper Image, etc. I always wanted one.

 

[steppinthrax]

It might not be trolling. That was started as a rumor ages ago to fuck with audiophiles because audiophiles are stupid enough to believe anything. That's why they're audiophiles. A lot of them bought it, so it's entirely possible that some of them still believe it's true.

Years ago when I was in H.S. and just starting with computers. Someone told me every time a computer locks up a transistor within the CPU blows.

Those were during the windows 3.1/3.11/NT and 95 days. I remember some advertisement saying a Intel Pentium processor contain about 3.1 million transistors, so I believed this "lockup" statement to be correct.

 

[IronWing]

I went and read the Amazon reviews for the Sony now that it's out. Didn't sound too promising.

Now this, this is an audio player. 256GB plus SD slot! Woot!




Edit: I wonder if I can still get replacement foam cuffs for my circa 1986 Kenwood earphones?

 

[SSSnail]

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.

That means all the people that are vinyl aficionados should have just bought themselves some Bose speakers and be done. :awe:

 

[Gunbuster]

Be sure to get the full snake oil package and use the Sony "For Premium Sound" SD cards.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...mpossible-hd-audio-memory-card_n_6719114.html

 

[IronWing]

Be sure to get the full snake oil package and use the Sony "For Premium Sound" SD cards.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...mpossible-hd-audio-memory-card_n_6719114.html

The 1s are sharper and the 0s better rounded leading to better separation between the ons and offs. Your ears will hear the difference.

 

[Wreckem]

How much do they expect to recoup for all the research and development involved to make a 5K dvd player and only sell a few thousand?

Because over time the r&d trickles down to lower priced goods.

 

[mmntech]

Be sure to get the full snake oil package and use the Sony "For Premium Sound" SD cards.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...mpossible-hd-audio-memory-card_n_6719114.html

Lol. I saw that and face palmed. Sony's claiming that it generates lower electrical noise. However, that doesn't make sense. Digital systems aren't really affected by noise. You either get a signal or you don't. They're pulling some Monster shenanigans there.

My theory is that Sony's repackaging all their overpriced Class 6 NAND from the Vita in order to cut their losses on that hunk-of-junk console. It's genius really. Audiophiles will buy anything.

As for vinyl sounding better... well yes, it does. Only vintage vinyl though pressed before the Loudness War started. Some time in the late 80s / early 90s, recording engineers started using dynamic range compression to boost the overall loudness of a track. However, it clips out sharper sounds, making the music sound muddy and less realistic. New vinyl is made from these masters, so it's not going to sound much different from the CD version.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

 

[Ns1]

As for vinyl sounding better... well yes, it does. Only vintage vinyl though pressed before the Loudness War started. Some time in the late 80s / early 90s, recording engineers started using dynamic range compression to boost the overall loudness of a track. However, it clips out sharper sounds, making the music sound muddy and less realistic. New vinyl is made from these masters, so it's not going to sound much different from the CD version.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

So what you're saying is...

properly mastered CD > properly mastered vinyl > non-properly mastered cd > non-properly mastered vinyl

 

[NikolaeVarius]

So what you're saying is...

properly mastered CD > properly mastered vinyl > non-properly mastered cd > non-properly mastered vinyl

In terms of strict sound quality, yes.

In terms of personal preference? Vinyl will sound better to people who prefer the incorrect vinyl sound.