Emotive Mp3 ?

[admin_exported]

Well, my Discman has finally given up the ghost (I did buy it in 2000!) so I'm researching the market for a portable player again.

Basically I wanted to know if Mp3 players still sound rubbish. The last one I listened to was awful; very cold, sharp and digital sounding with no richness and the worst treble I have ever heard in my life.

I do like a rich, smooth and warm sound with lots of emotion (more analogue-like I suppose) is this now possible with Mp3s, or do they still sound the same? Also are they big enough now that I wouldn't have to compress my collection - 480 CDs at last count?

Many thanks, Marco123

 

[Anonymous]

Mp3 players have come a long way! I was committed to Minidisc until a few years ago as I similarly believed that flash or hard disk players just couldn't compete. But I was converted and have recently purchased a Sony X Series Walkman, which gives outstanding sonic results. I'm sure others will say the iPod is also an excellent player so it's worth reading reviews, having a play around with the contenders and listening to them if you can. Most 'Mp3' players will play AAC,WMA (and uncompressed WAV) so you have a choice of compression to use. The main music sites use all of these formats...iTunes - AAC, 7 Digital - Mp3 and WMA, at varying bit rates. Obviously the higher the bit rate then generally the better the sound quality. 7 Digital compress most albums at 325kb, iTunes at 250.

 

[idc]

A vote for the ipod here. With its EQ settings including 'accoustic', 'jazz' and 'lounge' you will find it can do a rich, warm sound. 480 CDs at lossless will fit onto the 120gb Classic with ease.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much for the replies. I had a look on both websites and it looks like the only feasible one is the classic ipod because of the size (160).

I Googled "lossless" and had a look at the links, including the Wikipedia one, and it said that the only free one is "Flac" - does the ipod play them?

Many thanks, Marco123.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I've made a start copying my CDs to the computer in Flac, using a program my son put on here for me. I'm up to 230 CDs at the moment and it's taking up 93gb, so hopefully I'll squeeze it all in under the 160gb mark. I seem to be averaging 12 CDs an hour, is that good?

I like the idea of having an archive of my CDs that can be re-recorded if need be. (CD rot, scratches, et cetera.)

Many thanks, Marco123.

 

[sc1]

I may be wrong, but I don't think you can play FLAC files on an ipod of any size or generation without converting the files to .aiff or apple lossless format first. You can however rip the cds straight to apple lossless format using itunes.

 

[Anonymous]

I think you're right - I can't find anything on their site about Flac playback - which is insane considering it's free to use and license??

My son reckons I can convert them all to whatever format music player I buy from Flac and not lose quality though.(Says it's the best out there?) I'll probably need to compress some of them to fit them onto even a 160gb ipod though; I'm coming close to 160gb and I'm not even 3/4 through my collection yet.

Many thanks, Marco123.

 

[JonnyD]

If you want to use lossless on a iPod, you need to use the apple version of flac, which is ALAC, (apple lossless audio codec). This too is free to use, and is one of the ripping options in iTunes, so that you can rip directly to ALAC. If you've started ripping already don't panic because your son is right, and you can convert from FLAC (or any lossless format) to anything else.

Depending on if you use a Mac or a PC, you'll need different software to do this. On a Mac XLD is great (for ripping and converting), and on a PC, I've dbpoweramp is good, but I haven't used it, so maybe other forum users will have suggestions too.