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That's always nice, although I struggle to see the need for an additional device to play mp3's at this point...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t find it surprising. It’s a solved problem. Every phone has a music player built-in, you can even choose which one to use from hundreds of options. Offline, streaming, self-hosted cloud, the options are nearly infinite. Even if you don’t love the lack of headphone jack in the typical phone [1], the solution is an adapter that costs less than $10. What open hardware project can compete with that? [1] Non-audiop…
I mean, I don't disagree with your main point, but I hundred percent disagree with the notion audiophiles are the ones missing the 3.5mm jack. I miss it awfully and it's due to sheer convenience. Every one of my headphones used to work seemlessly with every one of my devices. I had cheap headphones (and later headsets) in each car, at the office, in the backpack, at home, and nice headphones at home, and they each an…
Curiosity question: has anyone done any work on reverse-engineering the Sony Mega Bass feature they used to have on old analog players (and ported to some early MP3 ones)? It sounded so much deeper than any phone/sound card would give. I'm wondering if it's some purely analog schenanigans (some tricky extra capacitors?) or if it can be replicated in pure software.
If you have a full Sony setup (walkman + headphones) DSEE Extreme sounds just like that, and seems to be purely software.
One of my "tests" is to run my favorite Pavarotti rendition of Verdi's La donna e mobile - with DSEE Extreme on, it's night and day.
However, on my normal FLACs, it's far less important.
Some people even dislike it: https://www.reddit.com/r/sony/comments/ipcqf9/dsee_extreme_o...
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> why is spotify et al bad Because Spotify et al doesn't give you a big directory full of MP3s. On top of that, the physical interface and features of a small dedicated player is a better user experience.
What’s better about a small dedicated player compared to using an offline media jukebox app? Smartphones can play offline media. They can play media hosted on a private server. Nobody’s forcing any smartphone user to use Spotify in particular. There’s always alternatives like VLC and countless others that offer that same functionality. To me, a dedicated player is redundant hardware with less processing power and ref…
Sometimes offline requires more effort. I would rather my kid have a dedicated MP3 player that does just that instead of a phone that requires locking down with too many points of breach. Way more cheaper to replace too compared to a lost/damaged smartphone.
Got a Fiio. Never trust Sony anymore after the forced Atrac-nonsense in almost every device: it would only play MP3 after being converted to an Atrac-file. After they blocked my Sony PSN account it is Never again Sony.
One of my most cherished personal mottoes: "If the answer involves giving money to Sony, you asked the wrong question."
I got a Fiio M7 for Christmas or my birthday a year ago. It's amazing how awesome it is to have a device that's dedicated to music and does a great job at it. There are side loadable apps like Musicolet that also do a great job of providing all the music management you could want.
[0]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.krosbits.mu...
Somebody help me understand this? If the audio quality isn’t better why is it so much better than the “bad” subscription services? I understand critiques of how little they pay artists but I mean from a customer perspective, why is spotify et al bad? I assume you have to buy download organize and sync the music for this system? Is it just nostalgia? Just a single purpose device that cant text you etc?
I have both a Walkman (for music) and an upgraded/rebuilt iPod (for audiobooks) and prefer them for a few reasons: - They don’t use any mobile data, and work when in a mobile-phone black spot (e.g. the national parks I go to most weekends). This is the main one. - I can store all my music on there, without needing to use any storage space on my phone. - They last forever with some basic maintenance. My iPod was made…
I use iPod Classics, I haven’t tried rockboxing any, though. I’ve been meaning to but haven’t yet.
Many artists I like aren’t on all (or any) of the streaming platforms. I also still buy CDs and generally like owning my copies as much as I can.
I hate user interface changes/companies like Spotify having the ability to disable basic features on a whim
No internet, buy once/no ads/no drm, and no touchscreen are important to me. The click wheel is just so good lol
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> Is this still true with latest iPhone? The latest iPhone doesn't have a DAC in it for headphones. The little 3.5mm-to-lightning dongle is active -- it contains a tiny DAC/amp powered by the lightning port. Is the tiny lightning dongle a good DAC? The answer is largely "it's fine". Anyone who isn't on the cork-sniffing side of audiophile trends will find it acceptable, assuming the amp is capable of driving the load…
My experience was (and one of the reasons I miss the headphone jack is) that the dongle quality + Apple ear buds wasn't as good as the DAC the older iPhones had.
https://www.amazon.com/FiiO-M11Plus-Resolution-Portable-Blue...
https://www.amazon.com/Surfans-F35-Resolution-Music-Player/d...
https://www.amazon.com/iRULU-F20-Bluetooth-Lossless-Resoluti...
I too assumed that dedicated MP3 players were relegated to very low-budget devices, and I didn't realize that Sony was still producing the Walkman line. I decided to take a look at their line up to what was happening in the space - https://electronics.sony.com/audio/walkman-digital-recorders... Boy... what a massive range of prices. There's a touchscreen-less device for $75, one resembling the one described by the au…
I was also skeptical, but after hearing the difference, I'm not coming back. I'm rediscovering my favorite tracks! I'm hearing instruments in the background that I couldn't hear before!!
> even $3600 (!!!) which is apparently made out of a gold-plated copper
TBH I don't care much about gold, but 40h battery life? That speaks to me. And if there's as much of an audible difference as I got from my middle range NW-Z507, I'll be happy to spend $3600 on an item that brings me happiness every single day.