Help on MP3 player purchase.

[Kuroshima]

Very nice the s9 is a good player. I read inany places the oled screen is beautiful.
I wouldn't mind getting one myself...

Yeah I guess the downside to the iPod is video conversion since it doesn't support many codecs. However since it uses h.264 video, the process can be greatly reduced with a stream or cuda converter...
I'd prefer to convert my videos anyways because I can increase the size of the subs.

[kostya]

iPod can play flac. Rockbox on iPod video. IPhone/itouch have a way of playing flac.

Rockbox does not support the sixth gen iPods :'(

Hopefully they crack it soon since I have one and hate iTunes. It generally takes 2 or 3 attempts for it to sync right (likely because I keep my music on an external, but that is no excuse)

[fohfoh]

Screen wise... I would rank them in this order for clarity.

Sony>P3>S9>>>>>>iTouch.

I absolutely abhor the iTouch interface. I'm the opposite. I jumped on hating iPod starting from around gen 3 nanos, when they just started being retarded design wise. Improvements? Not useful that I can see. Sound? I really didn't mind that much back in the day, but current gen ipods still don't seem to cut it. (I tried loading the same song on my S9 vs a newer iPod, same headphones, the iPod still sounded not quite right)

Headphones, make a huge difference. But iPods look retarded and silly with anything in them other than the stock headphones. But yes, sound is better with other headphones, aesthetics look down, but the sound is still ear cancer.

Playlists are the only damn thing that iPods are good at. Even then, it's not a big enough pro for it to be ranked high on the "awesome usage" scale.

[Kuroshima]

I guess many people are picky on the sound. It is after all a preference. For portable use a iPod works perfect for me. I make sacrifices, the same sacrifice I would generally have to make when listening to music on the go from other pdaps... I prefer to listen to my music when at home. It is cumbersome to have to bring an amp. I'm fairly sure the other pdaps mentioned here would also need some sort of amp to reach the expectations of some here...
At the level of listening directly to the headphone out, the audio players here are on similar ground... They have a fairly standard dac with little or no amplification (if I'm correct). They shouldn't sound a whole lot different. The headphones should make a difference.... I'll try some more players with my headphones. Maybe you guys are right.

Looks are a preference too... Just putting that out there...

There's always a trade off in different players. I'd say the interface on iPods is fairly polished.

I just don't get those 160gB players that apple makes... It would take quite some time to cycle through all your media =\ I have playlists in my computer that I cycle through... Yes I listen to all my music.

I guess regarding the headphone matter (just thought of this) I'll take what I said earlier back... The spl and impedance would most likely vary among the players resulting in different headphones sounding better with different players....

I also don't quite understand why people like those stock earbuds... All the pdaps I have gotten have crap stock buds including iPods. They don't even look cool... I hear the zunes are pretty decent. Some people also swear by the creatives. I'd stil buy some nice cans.

Get a amp to bring out the potential of your source. Pair it with a nice headphone complement.

Edit:
just curious on how you rate the screen clarity...black levels or something? Hue saturation? 

[Klocknov]

I guess many people are picky on the sound. It is after all a preference. For portable use a iPod works perfect for me. I make sacrifices, the same sacrifice I would generally have to make when listening to music on the go from other pdaps... I prefer to listen to my music when at home. It is cumbersome to have to bring an amp. I'm fairly sure the other pdaps mentioned here would also need some sort of amp to reach the expectations of some here...
At the level of listening directly to the headphone out, the audio players here are on similar ground... They have a fairly standard dac with little or no amplification (if I'm correct). They shouldn't sound a whole lot different. The headphones should make a difference.... I'll try some more players with my headphones. Maybe you guys are right.

Looks are a preference too... Just putting that out there...

There's always a trade off in different players. I'd say the interface on iPods is fairly polished.

I just don't get those 160gB players that apple makes... It would take quite some time to cycle through all your media =\ I have playlists in my computer that I cycle through... Yes I listen to all my music.

I guess regarding the headphone matter (just thought of this) I'll take what I said earlier back... The spl and impedance would most likely vary among the players resulting in different headphones sounding better with different players....

I also don't quite understand why people like those stock earbuds... All the pdaps I have gotten have crap stock buds including iPods. They don't even look cool... I hear the zunes are pretty decent. Some people also swear by the creatives. I'd stil buy some nice cans.

Get a amp to bring out the potential of your source. Pair it with a nice headphone complement.

Edit:
just curious on how you rate the screen clarity...black levels or something? Hue saturation? 

I will say that the newer ear buds coming with the Zunes do have a good quality, but that being said, if I were to go buy a player made for HD and it came with shit buds I would complain a lot more then an iPod with shit buds.

[zherok]

Most people are not audiophiles. The earbuds are convenient and arguably an important part of the "image" of owning an mp3 player, especially the white iPod ones. It doesn't hurt that they're free too.

A large capacity mp3 player is useful as an external hard drive. I'd argue video in particular, but most hard drive models don't really have great screens to make it worth the bother.

[fohfoh]

I might want to add... (Sorry, missed saying it above) that the S9 is considered an audiophile PMP player. While it sounds hardcore and expensive, it's actually CHEAPER than the iTouch. The S9 also comes with shit headphones too. But that being said, someone buying an S9 is more willing to buy cans or high quality headphones than someone buying an iPod. I believe that cowon pairs their players with shit headphones because they assume a large percentage of their purchasers will upgrade headphones independently or already have a good headphone that they wish to pair with their purchase.

S9 understands that people are willing to dedicate time to their possession.
Apple targets people who want shit that works out of the box and no dedication is required. (Which is why they slag windows so bad)

[Kuroshima]

With an iPod, at least the option is there. They offer a line out. Though there is no direct line out from the player... But that's asking for too much.

Most flash bases pmps these days are flashed based making for poor hdd...
Edit:
lol redundancy sorry...

Apple has their own lossless codec for the audiophiles out there.... Aiff. If rockbox is not an option rip your stuff in that format.

The only image I see in owning the apple earbuds is unifomity...which I'm not really a fan of. You can be similar but you shouldn't be all the same...

I think that complaining about an iPhone with shit buds is like complaining about a psu that came with the case when you bought it.... Unless it's antec or something.
You just shouldn't expect much.

Or buying a retail computer... You can expect top components or anything. Unless you specifically shopped for that

[mgz]

With an iPod, at least the option is there. They offer a line out. Though there is no direct line out from the player... But that's asking for too much.

Most flash bases pmps these days are flashed based making for poor hdd...
Edit:
lol redundancy sorry...

Apple has their own lossless codec for the audiophiles out there.... Aiff. If rockbox is not an option rip your stuff in that format.

The only image I see in owning the apple earbuds is unifomity...which I'm not really a fan of. You can be similar but you shouldn't be all the same...

I think that complaining about an iPhone with shit buds is like complaining about a psu that came with the case when you bought it.... Unless it's antec or something.
You just shouldn't expect much.

Or buying a retail computer... You can expect top components or anything. Unless you specifically shopped for that

a loseless codec does not equate to something designed for audiophiles there are sites that hook these players up to equipment to test signal quality loudness, and all kinds of other shit that isnt even necessarily audible except tot he instrumentation.

Another reason the cowon players are nice is their wide range of codec support and extremely customizable EQ

[Kuroshima]

Uhhh virtually exact audio wave with original is not audiophile?


Yeah I like the cowons custom eqs...
rockbox fills that gap for me, for iPod 5th gen... Bummer for 6th gen users.

I have nothing more to say. I would be happy with a s9

[Xiong Chiamiov]

I just don't get those 160gB players that apple makes... It would take quite some time to cycle through all your media =\

I don't know what I want to listen to before I leave the house, and even if I do, I don't want to have to resync my computer.

[fohfoh]

I just don't get those 160gB players that apple makes... It would take quite some time to cycle through all your media =\

I don't know what I want to listen to before I leave the house, and even if I do, I don't want to have to resync my computer.

While I'm saddened that Cowon players don't have a huge storage capacity like HDD based ipods, (which is damn useful if you're using file types like .flac) I'm glad to know that flashed based memory will be upgrading soon and falling in price. True, we'll max out at 128GB for SDHC, but SDXC is coming soon which should push it further.

[zherok]

Apple has their own lossless codec for the audiophiles out there.... Aiff. If rockbox is not an option rip your stuff in that format.

Unless you were going to be editing the music (probably on a Mac) then wouldn't it make more sense to use say... Apple Lossless than AIFF for a media player? Carting around completely uncompressed files sounds kinda unwieldy.

[fohfoh]

Apple has their own lossless codec for the audiophiles out there.... Aiff. If rockbox is not an option rip your stuff in that format.

Unless you were going to be editing the music (probably on a Mac) then wouldn't it make more sense to use say... Apple Lossless than AIFF for a media player? Carting around completely uncompressed files sounds kinda unwieldy.

I thought AIFF had some problems. (Similar to .ape). Especially with conversion and such.

But seriously, to use AIFF properly, you have to rip the CD yourself and whatnot. Not practical if you're dling.

[zherok]

It's essentially the Mac equivalent of a .wav file in Windows. They're completely uncompressed. There is a compressed variant but I'm fairly sure it's a lossy format. No one is going to cart around a media player with uncompressed .wavs, so I imagine iPods and AIFFs are about as popular.

[mgz]

Uhhh virtually exact audio wave with original is not audiophile?


Yeah I like the cowons custom eqs...
rockbox fills that gap for me, for iPod 5th gen... Bummer for 6th gen users.

I have nothing more to say. I would be happy with a s9

the codec isnt what defines something as for the audiophile, the capabilities to play aforementioned codec and still sound amazing without adding distortion as volume and other things get turned up it more on hte player which is why audiophiles tend to like cowon products

[Kuroshima]

^---
sorry, just making a short reply....even though I said "I have nothing more to say"
it was too hard to stay out of the discussinon :p

isn't that the amps job -__-

[mgz]

^---
sorry, just making a short reply....even though I said "I have nothing more to say"
it was too hard to stay out of the discussinon :p

isn't that the amps job -__-

it can be, but when comparing out of the box performance of players and signal quality apple falls short vs the product made by cowon

[fohfoh]

Edit:
just curious on how you rate the screen clarity...black levels or something? Hue saturation? 

Whoa sorry, missed this post earlier.

How I judged it was based on the blackness level the screen was portraying. But not just that, but the sharpness of the interface that was being displayed. The S9 and P3 were VERY close indeed. While the S9 seems sharper, the P3 has a deeper black color on the "demo" videos preloaded onto the player.

Sony was in its own league. Not only were the colors crisp, the black super black, the video was very sharp as well. The interface is somewhat similar to the iTouch, but damn it was much smoother, less cluttered and less "clunky".

The iTunes isn't even OLED or AMOLED or anything. Not difficult to understand why it's no where close to the above 3 players.

On a side note... I thought I killed my S9 today. I forgot it in my car, the weather was cold, it didn't turn on.... Good thing the reset button worked like a charm. Hooray!

[mgz]

prolly just chilled your battery to the point it died