Is it just me, or do others wonder how Stereophile could rave about the
iPod?
It just doesn't sound very good, especially in comparison to the two iRiver
products I use. I'm not saying it sounds _bad_, just that it's not that
good.

The Zen sounds just as good for a fraction of the price. The iRiver
(iFP-120)sounds
spectacular by comparison - better dynamics, much wider frequency range -
especially with ogg files. I really wanted to like my iPods (yes, plural;
the first one was DOA), but the damn thing crashed all the time, the amp had
_no balls_, and, after less than a month of use, the little remote began to
separate from the wire. It was really pretty, has the best menu/navigation
solution, and was small. But it crashed everyday. By crash, I mean I had
to give it the two handed salute because it usually wouldn't start after
being turned off after a couple of hours of use. In the car, this was a
serious problem as it was too easy to not change the volume settings when
grabbing it in a hurry trying to take a phone call. (I had it jacked
straight into the amp, so it was more complicated than just pulling the
earbuds out. Jacked straight in, the only volume control was the iPod; it
was easier to just turn it off than to try to lower the volume while not
looking at and trying to activate the phone before it went to voicemail.)

So I got a Zen; in part, because I read somewhere that the headphone amp
made more power that the iPod's. Whatever, it sounded no better than the
iPod, but no worse either. After a firmware upgrade, I had a nifty, easily
read clock, and all the music the iPod held for $150 cheaper. The USB
hi-speed transfers seemed quicker than the firewire transfers to the iPod.
And much longer battery life - I have never run it down. And, it didn't
crash. But, it was too big to be comfortable in my pocket and the buttons
were too random in their layout. (And, the remote was a $60 (!!!) add on,
but
did purport to include an FM tuner.) At least the volume worked every time I
wanted it to. Not as nice a menu system as the iPod's, but more than
workable once I got used to its quirks.

However, after a while the in-fidelity rankles too much. I discover the
portable audiophile bargain of the year - the radioshack "3 channel
headphone volume amplifier." What a little amp. Move over airhead, there's a
new ($21 on sale) sheriff in town! The little rat-shack amp made the Zen
sound tolerable, it was just a PITA to carry them together. Oh well, I said
the same thing in 81 when I tried to carry my original walkman while
skateboarding. It had a lot of dents before it died. But, I digress.

Then, one night on The Screensavers, one of them waxes about the iRiver hard
drive based player! Hard Drive? iRiver? Since the only compressed file music
device I had ever thought sounded really good was my iRiver solid state
player (I heard the B&O player the other day - impressive with their
selections of music, but a thousand dollars for a 256 mb player? They are
clearly on drugs! Or think their customers are. I will admit that I bought
the B&O headphones, but only as a gift for my wife to go with her iRiver 1.5
gig player. The B&O 'phones cost too much but at least she likes them.), I
resolved to find one to try the next day. I find it and buy it and love it.
It is as small as the iPod, pretty in its own way, sounds way, way, way
better, and has only hiccupped twice; both times on the same file. I
re-encoded the file and no more problems.

The remote is far more useful than the iPod's, if not as expertly executed.
It feels flimsy but has held up better than the iPod's did. The remote
displays song info, lets you change settings, in short, everything that can
be done on the main player can be done with the remote.

It also is an FM radio that works, albeit not as well as the FM in my
solid-state iRiver (iFP-190?). There is also a voice recorder (I don't ever
foresee using it, but, one never knows, does one?

Optical and electrical lines in and out(!!!). You can even encode in real
time using the line in. Again, something I'm sure I'll never use, but good
ammo in the bragging rights fight.

And the headphones, while not an instantly recognizable status symbol, sound
damn good for freebies - I think they are made by Sennheiser. I like them
better than the little Sony earbuds I happily paid 80 dollars for several
years ago. Twice. OK, OK, I didn't really pay 80 bucks for them, my buddy
works for Sony so I only paid 40 for them (twice, because the first pair was
stolen by the office low-life) at the Sony store.

Point is, since I stopped looking in only the cool places, I have found
really good stuff for not that much money. Koss makes a over the head
'phone for radio shack that they sold for 40 bucks that is the best I have
found for portable use. They just closed them out for 20 bucks - bought
another set just to have a spare or an easy gift.

Oh, I forgot to mention, with the ratshack amp, my Sennheiser 580s actually
sound good with the iHP-120! Damn good! Did I mention that I don't even
know where my airhead is? I never really liked it, and the little ratshack
amp blows it away. I lost track of the airhead a long time ago, I know
exactly where that little rat shack amp is, though. I bought a Creek 'phone
amp (though, not the SE, that I hear is far superior), liked it better than
the airhead (no surprise) but I stopped using it after a couple of months
too.

Sorry, this was supposed to be a short response to who ever said he can't
hear the difference between an MP3 encoded at 128 and one encoded "...over a
128 bitrate since it can't be heard..." It might be that you need a better
MP3 player; to my ears, the improvement is pretty easy to hear.

james w wrote:

Sorry, this was supposed to be a short response to who ever said he can't
hear the difference between an MP3 encoded at 128 and one encoded "...over a
128 bitrate since it can't be heard..." It might be that you need a better
MP3 player; to my ears, the improvement is pretty easy to hear.

It also depends on the encoder. All 128-bit MP3 encoding is not alike.
I noticd this when I made an mp3 of 'Papa Was a Rolling Stone'
by the Temptations -- the 'naked' cymbal at the beginning was
quite dire with the codec I was using (and old version of Frauhofer).
Using a different MP3 codec at 128 made real difference..obviously
better. But not as good as 160 or 192. But
then I checked out the reams of info at www.hydrogenaudio.com (where the
resident ahrdcore codec-heads advocate ABX comparison of codecs and
bitrates, btw). After spending a few session there boning up on
the issues involved, I set up Exact Audio
Copy to pass .wavs off to a version of LAME, configured to make high-quality
variable bitrate files. My mp3s now sound very good, and
I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't tell them from the original
wavs (though I have yet to do the proper comparison).

--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
news:yXlKb.753133$Tr4.2091486@attbi_s03...
james w wrote:

Sorry, this was supposed to be a short response to who ever said he
can't
hear the difference between an MP3 encoded at 128 and one encoded
"...over a
128 bitrate since it can't be heard..." It might be that you need a
better
MP3 player; to my ears, the improvement is pretty easy to hear.

It also depends on the encoder. All 128-bit MP3 encoding is not alike.
I noticd this when I made an mp3 of 'Papa Was a Rolling Stone'
by the Temptations -- the 'naked' cymbal at the beginning was
quite dire with the codec I was using (and old version of Frauhofer).
Using a different MP3 codec at 128 made real difference..obviously
better. But not as good as 160 or 192. But
then I checked out the reams of info at www.hydrogenaudio.com (where the
resident ahrdcore codec-heads advocate ABX comparison of codecs and
bitrates, btw). After spending a few session there boning up on
the issues involved, I set up Exact Audio
Copy to pass .wavs off to a version of LAME, configured to make
high-quality
variable bitrate files. My mp3s now sound very good, and
I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't tell them from the original
wavs (though I have yet to do the proper comparison).


I use an older version of easy cd-da - 5.0.3 with lame 3.92. It makes
better mp3 files at 128 than the other "solutions" available to me: Creative
and Musicmatch (the worst, it came with the iPod I hated so...), but it
sounds best at high bitrates like 320. I did get good results when I
accidently did one at variable bit rate. lately, I have been using ogg at
45% - which translates to roughly 144. That sounds at least as good as mp3
at 320... no, it sounds better. I don't know how to incorporate later
versions of the ogg codec, but this version, 1.0, is very nice. I can't wait
to try a newer version.

Steven Sullivan says,

But
then I checked out the reams of info at www.hydrogenaudio.com (where
the
resident hardcore codec-heads advocate ABX comparison of codecs and
bitrates, btw). After spending a few sessions there boning up on
the issues involved, I set up Exact Audio
Copy to pass .wavs off to a version of LAME, configured to make
high-quality
variable bitrate files. My mp3s now sound very good, and
I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't tell them from the original
wavs (though I have yet to do the proper comparison).

This is more than a little interesting. What you're saying is that
you would not be surprised if you couldn't tell the difference between
a CDDA and a file 1/6th the size of the wav file which was created by
ripping the original CDDA.

It would seem then that you couldn't appreciate the improvement
wrought by making the original recording using 3 times as much data
(SACD, etc.) Or am I assuming too much?

Cheers,

Norm Strong

normanstrong wrote:
Steven Sullivan says,

But
then I checked out the reams of info at www.hydrogenaudio.com (where
the
resident hardcore codec-heads advocate ABX comparison of codecs and
bitrates, btw). After spending a few sessions there boning up on
the issues involved, I set up Exact Audio
Copy to pass .wavs off to a version of LAME, configured to make
high-quality
variable bitrate files. My mp3s now sound very good, and
I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't tell them from the original
wavs (though I have yet to do the proper comparison).

This is more than a little interesting. What you're saying is that
you would not be surprised if you couldn't tell the difference between
a CDDA and a file 1/6th the size of the wav file which was created by
ripping the original CDDA.

Yup. Not just me, though...a German magazine ran a couple of'blind'
comparisons a few years back, at least one using 'audiophile' participants,
that came to the same conclusion: beyond a certain bitrate (IIRC 198 bps),
the differences are difficult if not
impossible to detect using music as a test signal. Which isn't
bizarre, as much of the discarded data is stuff above 20 kHz.
NB there are 'difficult' signals that can point up differences between
codecs and bitrates.

And of course many of the makers of codecs are in the business of trying
to make their algorithms as 'transparent' as they can.

The hydrogenaudio.org site has links to ABX tests and testing protocols,
if you want to do your own comparisons. I intend to eventually
avail myself of same. Anyone who's interested in the rational
development and testing of these technologies should spend some time at the site.

It would seem then that you couldn't appreciate the improvement
wrought by making the original recording using 3 times as much data
(SACD, etc.) Or am I assuming too much?

No, since I'm on record as saying that SACD or DVD-A, per se, is not necessarily
what makes SACDs or DVD-A sound good (when they do sound good). It's more likely
the mastering, from all I've read.

--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

btw, the links to the German MP3 vs CDs tests are

http://www.geocities.com/altbinaries...l/mp3test.html

this was a 'mass' blind test, involving subscribers to the magazine.
At least of one of the conclusions...that 128 bps
can be perceived as sounding *better* than the CD,
to some discerning (but 'blinded') listeners,
astonished even the editors.

there's an earlier article, involving a small panel of
lsiteners, including some 'audiophiles' (it's references
in the link above) -- but I haven't been able
to regenerate the link to and english translation of that one yet.

NB that these tests were conducted three years or more ago...and
codecs have progressed considerably since then.

--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

another ABX comparison of codecs to CD and each
other, from 2002 -- NB that none of the tracks auditioned were
encoded at higher than 128 kbps.

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/art...age_numbe r=1

--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

Steven Sullivan wrote:

another ABX comparison of codecs to CD and each
other, from 2002 -- NB that none of the tracks auditioned were
encoded at higher than 128 kbps.

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/art...age_numbe r=1


I wish they would redo the test with AAC (mp4) as one of the
contestants. My subjective impression is that at 128 kbps, AAC is the
best. At 256K and above, the differences between codecs seem to be much
smaller.

Now that iTunes has been extarordinarily well received, AAC is becoming
a very important codec.

chung wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:

another ABX comparison of codecs to CD and each
other, from 2002 -- NB that none of the tracks auditioned were
encoded at higher than 128 kbps.

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/art...age_numbe r=1


I wish they would redo the test with AAC (mp4) as one of the
contestants. My subjective impression is that at 128 kbps, AAC is the
best. At 256K and above, the differences between codecs seem to be much
smaller.

I think they mention that AAC will be in their next round.

--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director