Phoenix Gold Phorum

Well atleast i think so I just purchased this sony from work today, and i absolutely love it.. It sounds waaaaaaaaaaay better than an ipod. it even has a 5 band eq on it.. It sounds great.. I suggest anyone to look into it..

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Sony-4GB ... tDetail.do

I didnt know sony had a new one coming out. I bought the older Vaio 40 gig when it was available, and I love it. In side by side comparisons, it sounds way better. Also, I read that Apple used even cheaper parts for the new ones, so who knows what will happen to them.

The iPods have had EQ's in them for quite some time.

Francious70 wrote:The iPods have had EQ's in them for quite some time.

They dont sound very good though..

True, but an mp3 is an mp3.

Mackenzie wrote:They dont sound very good though..

What do you base that on? The Wolfson Audio DACs in them is widely regarded as one of the best audio processors on the market. The 5G iPod is notorious for having excellent sound quality:
http://homepage.mac.com/marc.heijligers ... rison.html
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/review ... 60gb-ipod/
http://www.redwineaudio.com/iMod.html

Joyride is correct however, that the new iPod classics are slightly lower quality, due to a new Cirrus audio chip:
http://homepage.mac.com/marc.heijligers ... ments.html

But apparently the iPod touches still use the older Wolfson DACs which do not have these same issues:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPod/iPod-Touch/130

I am guessing that they made the iPod classic as an afterthought, so maybe with time they will have their firmware patched to solve this issue. In the meantime I will just cuddle with my precious 5G.

iPod killer is a strong term simply because raw technical superiority has relatively little to do with sales and market share when it comes down to it... unless of course you mean iPod technical specification killer

lol did your forget that the sony intergrates with nothing...while the ipod intergrates with everything.


Id take an ipod any day of the week, I think Ill have to get one of those ipod touch....

I just used that for the thread name. i wont say its a killer, but imo its far better.. One thing i also really like about this, is that it has a radio built into it.. As for the sound of the ipod, i never thought they had that great of sq.. I just simply did some a and b comparions, and i thought the sony sounded much smoother.. It didnt cost much at all either..

bdubs767 wrote:lol did your forget that the sony intergrates with nothing...while the ipod intergrates with everything.


Id take an ipod any day of the week, I think Ill have to get one of those ipod touch....

True, but i sure as hell wont use an ipod/ compressed music in my car.. As i thought you wouldnt either mr sq

The iphone was a total failure, as will the itouch be. Working at circuit city, we constantly saw people coming into our verizon store getting black berrys, and taking in their pos iphones back. Sure it looks cool, but is not practical at all. The i touch may do better though, since it doesnt have a phone The internet, meh.. Got my black berry/laptop for that..

Zune's were pretty close to IPOD Killers, however they were 5 years too late, and a dollar too high.

Mackenzie wrote:

bdubs767 wrote:lol did your forget that the sony intergrates with nothing...while the ipod intergrates with everything.


Id take an ipod any day of the week, I think Ill have to get one of those ipod touch....

True, but i sure as hell wont use an ipod/ compressed music in my car.. As i thought you wouldnt either mr sq

lol I wouldnt dare....I wont even use MP3s on the ipod, as Im pretty sure you can get it use those flac or what ever you call it files.

Wakeup wrote:Zune's were pretty close to IPOD Killers, however they were 5 years too late, and a dollar too high.

Close? Not even remotely...

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Te ... 6674C.html

bdubs767 wrote:

Mackenzie wrote:

bdubs767 wrote:lol did your forget that the sony intergrates with nothing...while the ipod intergrates with everything.


Id take an ipod any day of the week, I think Ill have to get one of those ipod touch....

True, but i sure as hell wont use an ipod/ compressed music in my car.. As i thought you wouldnt either mr sq

lol I wouldnt dare....I wont even use MP3s on the ipod, as Im pretty sure you can get it use those flac or what ever you call it files.

Or you can use the Apple Lossless that comes with iTunes

As Paul mentioned, the lossless compressed files are Apple Lossless. FLAC is not supported by itunes. But for the best quality (very near CD) in itunes you'll want to use AIFF (~1400kbps).

Even if the Sony sounds better, which I doubt, the tiny amount of storage on it relative to the ipod is likely the real limiting factor in quality audio reproduction. What type of files are you using Mack? What type of files were on the ipod when you made this comparison?

"The iPod's measured behavior is better than many CD players—ironic, considering that most of the time it will be used to play MP3 and AAC files, which will not immediately benefit from such good performance. But if you're willing to trade off maximum playing time against the ability to play uncompressed AIFF or WAV files, the iPod will do an excellent job of decoding them. Excellent, cost-effective audio engineering from an unexpected source."

quoted from this stereophile link with lots of specs & data...
http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourc ... ndex5.html

With that in mind, yes, an ipod does compromise some fidelity (when used to its max potential) in exchange for the convenience it offers. But if using nice equipment to interface the ipod (like the Alpine iDA-X001) and uncompressed music files the difference between the ipod and a cd will be difficult to differentiate.

dedlyjedly wrote:As Paul mentioned, the lossless compressed files are Apple Lossless. FLAC is not supported by itunes. But for the best quality (very near CD) in itunes you'll want to use AIFF (~1400kbps).

That's not necessarily true. The Apple Lossless codec uses data (not acoustical) encoding, kinda like zip files, to reduce the overall filesize while still being 100% lossless.

So by switching to AIFF all you do is gain larger filesize... an AIFF at 1400kbps would probably average out to 900kbps using Apple Lossless while having the exact same resulting data.

dedlyjedly wrote:As Paul mentioned, the lossless compressed files are Apple Lossless. FLAC is not supported by itunes. But for the best quality (very near CD) in itunes you'll want to use AIFF (~1400kbps).

Even if the Sony sounds better, which I doubt, the tiny amount of storage on it relative to the ipod is likely the real limiting factor in quality audio reproduction. What type of files are you using Mack? What type of files were on the ipod when you made this comparison?

"The iPod's measured behavior is better than many CD players—ironic, considering that most of the time it will be used to play MP3 and AAC files, which will not immediately benefit from such good performance. But if you're willing to trade off maximum playing time against the ability to play uncompressed AIFF or WAV files, the iPod will do an excellent job of decoding them. Excellent, cost-effective audio engineering from an unexpected source."

quoted from this stereophile link...
http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourc ... ndex5.html

With that in mind, yes, an ipod does compromise some fidelity (when used to its max potential) in exchange for the convenience it offers

I dont understand why you would doubt that the sony sounded better.. Everyone seems to act asthough ipods are the means to the world.. Other products are available that offer equal or better performance... I will give apple the benifit that they did a hell of a job marketing the ipod, but their are better units.. The zune being another one.. Nothing against the ipod, not really trying to start an argument, just sharing a new product with everyone that is worth trying out, thats not an ipod..

dedlyjedly wrote:But if using nice equipment to interface the ipod (like the Alpine iDA-X001) and uncompressed music files the difference between the ipod and a cd will be difficult to differentiate.

The will be no difference if you use the IDA-x001 w/ uncompressed files vs a CD. It's the only unit in car audio that takes the music from the Ipod digitally. So basically it's the Alpine's dacs effecting the music not the IPods.

fuzzysnuggleduck wrote:

Wakeup wrote:Zune's were pretty close to IPOD Killers, however they were 5 years too late, and a dollar too high.

Close? Not even remotely...

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Te ... 6674C.html

Excuse me...let me Clarify, CLOSE to IPOD Killers if they were 5 years EARLIER.

I am not saying they are killing ipods. We were on the subject of IPOD Killers, this is probably the closest competitor to Ipods in a sense of what it does, and what it can do. I didnt mean that it was killing them. Just as far as features go and what it can do, this is probably the cloesest thing.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I didnt mean they were outselling ipod or anything...just saying if they had released this in and near the same time as IPOD, it would have given Ipod a run for their money.

Mackenzie wrote:I dont understand why you would doubt that the sony sounded better.. Everyone seems to act asthough ipods are the means to the world.. Other products are available that offer equal or better performance... I will give apple the benifit that they did a hell of a job marketing the ipod, but their are better units.. The zune being another one.. Nothing against the ipod, not really trying to start an argument, just sharing a new product with everyone that is worth trying out, thats not an ipod..

Why wouldn't he doubt that the Sony sounds better? You could at least start by sharing some information to back up WHY it sounds better.

For example, I stated that the iPod is touted as one of the best sounding media players, due to using the same DACs as exist in many high end home audio CD players. Say in car audio for example, you have a headunit with dual-24 bit burr brown DACs... well you know that is going to sound better than your typical off the shelf or stock unit, right? How is this case any different?

So WHY does the Sony device sound better? And HOW? I don't care if you even post your subjective opinions like "the iPod seemed to have a hiss at the end of certain notes that the Sony lacked", or objective opinions like "the Sony has better quality DACs and fewer capacitors in the audio chain". Instead all you tell us is that it "sounds better", without any reasoning whatsoever.

It's possible that it "sounds better" because it has some built in equalization that is meant to "improve" certain characteristics of the sound... like a constant loudness function or something like that. I have definitely heard many portable players that color the sound in order to make the listener think it sounds better, just like many stock systems now include built in equalizers to improve their sound quality as well (that's why the JL cleansweep exists!).

As far as the Zune being a "better" unit, Fuzzy already posted a fabulous and mostly objective review on that device that is well worth reading.

So please, at least give us something else to roll with besides "it sounds better", and don't be offended when we try to refute you for not backing up your argument well enough.

Wakeup wrote:

fuzzysnuggleduck wrote:

Wakeup wrote:Zune's were pretty close to IPOD Killers, however they were 5 years too late, and a dollar too high.

Close? Not even remotely...

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Te ... 6674C.html

Excuse me...let me Clarify, CLOSE to IPOD Killers if they were 5 years EARLIER.

I am not saying they are killing ipods. We were on the subject of IPOD Killers, this is probably the closest competitor to Ipods in a sense of what it does, and what it can do. I didnt mean that it was killing them. Just as far as features go and what it can do, this is probably the cloesest thing.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I didnt mean they were outselling ipod or anything...just saying if they had released this in and near the same time as IPOD, it would have given Ipod a run for their money.

Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to come off aggressively. I know that you weren't supposing anything about the current market. My snappy reply without explaining where I was coming from wasn't exactly the nicest reply I could have come up with.

However saying "hey, if this came out 5 years ago it would have been awesome" is, after all, a more or less pointless statement. If you take ANY reasonable technology from today and supposed that it came out 5 years ago of course it would be have been more impactful.

stipud wrote:

Mackenzie wrote:I dont understand why you would doubt that the sony sounded better.. Everyone seems to act asthough ipods are the means to the world.. Other products are available that offer equal or better performance... I will give apple the benifit that they did a hell of a job marketing the ipod, but their are better units.. The zune being another one.. Nothing against the ipod, not really trying to start an argument, just sharing a new product with everyone that is worth trying out, thats not an ipod..

Why wouldn't he doubt that the Sony sounds better? You could at least start by sharing some information to back up WHY it sounds better.

For example, I stated that the iPod is touted as one of the best sounding media players, due to using the same DACs as exist in many high end home audio CD players. Say in car audio for example, you have a headunit with dual-24 bit burr brown DACs... well you know that is going to sound better than your typical off the shelf or stock unit, right? How is this case any different?

So WHY does the Sony device sound better? And HOW? I don't care if you even post your subjective opinions like "the iPod seemed to have a hiss at the end of certain notes that the Sony lacked", or objective opinions like "the Sony has better quality DACs and fewer capacitors in the audio chain". Instead all you tell us is that it "sounds better", without any reasoning whatsoever.

It's possible that it "sounds better" because it has some built in equalization that is meant to "improve" certain characteristics of the sound... like a constant loudness function or something like that. I have definitely heard many portable players that color the sound in order to make the listener think it sounds better, just like many stock systems now include built in equalizers to improve their sound quality as well (that's why the JL cleansweep exists!).

As far as the Zune being a "better" unit, Fuzzy already posted a fabulous and mostly objective review on that device that is well worth reading.

So please, at least give us something else to roll with besides "it sounds better", and don't be offended when we try to refute you for not backing up your argument well enough.

Im not offended at all. Hell, i think this is an interesting discussion of the players... Anyways I found with my ipod the sound to be a bit bright at times, and the bass to be slightly distorted when listening loud.. I found my sony to sound similar as pluging it in to a decent home reciever.. Not nearly the power, or as loud, but very smooth.. Like it had a built in highpass filter.. (who knows, it may have one ) In all honesty though, I have been listening to it flat, and it sounds great.. I will have to do some more listening tests with the ipod... I may also throw in the new samsung players , with the built in speakers. Those look real nice. I will admit though, these new sony mdrv6s I have can make most anything sound good.. Im glad i took back the sony mdr600s..

So you are comparing an iPod with arbitrary headphones to your new sony player with MDRV6's? To do a true apples to apples comparison, you would have to use the same setup.

The only thing I notice with my iPod is reduced bass, which is consistent to any portable device I have ever heard, and is very easily solved with a proper headphone amplifier.. To be able to accurately play flat from 20-100Hz when loaded down, the amplifiers would need to be much bigger, and they would suck a LOT more power.

i switched to some over the ear headphones and my iPod sounds 100% better. Those headphones you get with the iPod suck ass.

it's pretty funny actually, I have the old school shuffle, and these big ass headphones that easily weigh 3 times as much as the iPod itself.