Anyone recommend a portable FLAC player ?

[The Caffeine Kid]

64kbs aac is all you need. lol

[VNVObit]

64kbs aac is all you need. lol

It's not just a snob thing it's science fact

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/ ... und-worse/

[Deckard]

Doesn't get much better than this - watching the sunset to the Flac of Vangelis "to the unknown man" on my colorfly and new Sony headphones chill central

[meta]

I got a Clip Zip. Picked it over the Clip+ because I wanted the option of AAC files without having to mess with third party firmware. Stuck a 32GB MicroSD in it, for 40GB of music. Sound quality is much better than the iPod, let alone my mobile phone.

I use 320kbps MP3s, because I actually did proper double-blind tests on myself (decoded all the files back into lossless for comparison, wrote a program which randomized the filenames and logged which was which in a file which I didn't examine until after the tests), and found I could readily hear the difference with lower bit rates even on midrange headphones. For home listening I have everything as FLAC, but I like having a really big selection on the player, so 320kbps it is.

Oh, and not having to use iTunes 11 is worth fifty quid of anyone's money, frankly. What a steaming pile that is.

[Deckard]

Just noticed something interesting on an app update for my iPhone - Flac player now supports USB DAC via the camera connection kit which could be useful......

[VNVObit]

Like the look of the new Fiio X5
Externals are a close to iPods but looms a very capable player


Due out in March. :-)

[Deckard]

240 quid for Neil Youngs super quality player - Ummm why is it this pocket unfriendly shape ?

[(o)(o)]

240 quid for Neil Youngs super quality player - Ummm why is it this pocket unfriendly shape ?

I seem to recall Neil Young making some rather silly comments regarding digital audio quality in the past?

So what makes this device superfidelity hmm... better take a look see...

[adam]

iirc anything less than 24\192 was low quality http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb03/a ... tmazer.asp

Digital Audio Comes Of Age

As CD gives way to DVD-Audio and SACD, however, both Young and Mazer are converted to the merits of newer digital recording and playback formats, and Elliot recently produced a DVD-Audio version of Harvest to mark the 30th anniversary of its original release. So when did he finally feel that digital recording moved from being an interesting experiment to being a viable technology for making records? "Last year I heard 192kHz sampling at 24 bits and, for the first time, I felt that we could make great-sounding recordings in the digital domain. Today I am using a Pro Tools HD system at 192kHz with 100 percent dynamic and static automation. This thing is amazing. It sounds like analogue."

The high-sample-rate HD system at last seems to offer the kind of neutrality Elliot Mazer likes, in a digital format. "With 192kHz, the recording medium is not there, which is slightly different than when you use the best analogue system. The 192kHz format makes listening to digital pleasurable, and it does not sound digital. It moves me more. I feel the same about DSD [Sony's one-bit, super-high sample rate technology used in the Super Audio CD format] but 192/24 PCM is my favourite, and 192 sounds better than 96 by a long shot. I'll bet that 384 will sound even better. The differences are in the width, depth and height of the recording. When one compares a CD with 192, the CD sounds small in every dimension: height, width, depth, breadth. The higher the sampling rate, the greater the bit depth, the more natural things seem to sound. Pflash Pflaumer, one of the inventors of HDCD, said that he thought that these higher rates removed things like time smear, whatever that is.

"This new Pro Tools system has a mixing engine that does not give up. I did one project where I had 38 tracks of 96/24 and a lot of tuning, EQ, compression, reverb and edits. The thing just sailed right through it and sounded great. I am now working on a 5.1 mix at 192kHz and that uses a lot of DSP and it is fine. Their converters sound amazing, although I still prefer the PMI converters. We did experiments at Neil Young's studio that shocked us. Take an analogue master and run it through a Model 2 PMI (HDCD) converter at 44.1kHz, then make a CD. Take the same analogue master and run it in at 176.4kHz, then use the PMI box to downsample it to 44.1. Make a CD. Listen to them both and the one done at 176.6 smokes the other one. Sony Music Studios in New York had the first Pro Tools HD systems that I saw and they are doing great things with it. They and Georgetown Masters in Nashville are my support system for these projects. Both have wonderful rooms for surround and engineers that can handle the various systems needed to master and author SACD or DVD-A."

It's taken a long time for digital recording to evolve to the point where Elliot is happy with the sound, but he's very happy to embrace its other advantages, such as instant recall. "I really enjoy knowing that everything about the mix is controlled in that little Digi icon. I love it when I click on the thing and I am exactly back to where I was last time."

If there's a down side to working at 192kHz, it's the fact that few other systems currently support the standard, and many plug-in developers have yet to adapt their products to work at such high rates. "There are only a few plug-ins that work at 192kHz. Focusrite's D2 EQ and D3 compressor and Digi's Reverb One are my favourites and they do the job. Digi also have a 5.1 compressor/limiter that has possibilities. I am going to experiment with some 192kHz plug-ins from Universal Audio. They have a complete system with 192kHz I/O and a DSP card that can run their stuff at 192kHz. This would work on a second PC with digital I/O from the Pro Tools machine. I love their 2-610 mic pre package and have used it for external processing of digital stuff. Janis Joplin's voice was run through it on the Cheap Thrills SACD that I did. I will try the TC 6000 and Sony 777 reverbs, but the interface will be analogue as they do not support 192kHz."

[(o)(o)]

192/24.. I'm sure it's better, "as an issue of faith", and believe me I have spent years of debating the validity of double blind tests with even a key designer of the CD and MP3 formats... can 44/16 even produce a neat looking square wave?

Some other stuff I dredged up :

Young argues : "A CD is a reconstruction of the sound. It's not even a clone. It's more like a toy or a robot, just a sting of ones and zeros, whereas analog recording is a true reflection, like a pool or a mirror. Imagine telling Picasso, 'That's a nice painting; now we're going to fax it to the public.'"

[Deckard]

Some good reviews for the X5 - Very tempted

http://headmania.org/2014/03/15/fiio-x5-review/

http://www.head-fi.org/products/fiio-x5 ... iews/10579

Looks good too

[VNVObit]

Some good reviews for the X5 - Very tempted

Likewise though would like to see review of production version first

192/24.. I'm sure it's better, "as an issue of faith", and believe me I have spent years of debating the validity of double blind tests with even a key designer of the CD and MP3 formats... can 44/16 even produce a neat looking square wave?

Some other stuff I dredged up :

Young argues : "A CD is a reconstruction of the sound. It's not even a clone. It's more like a toy or a robot, just a sting of ones and zeros, whereas analog recording is a true reflection, like a pool or a mirror. Imagine telling Picasso, 'That's a nice painting; now we're going to fax it to the public.'"

There's lots of discussion around this (separate thread on here too)

Understand Young's point but suspect there's a tipping point where higher bit/sample rate makes no perceptible difference. Remember covering digital vs analogue when I did my post grad and even then (last century ) my lecturer pointed out the difference with analogue reproduction (ignoring attenuation -it was comms module) of an analogue signal would be a direct copy rather than a series of samples, however high the sample rate was.

[matt303]

X5 does look nice, dual memory card slots mean no issues with carrying plenty of music around.

[VNVObit]

Took the plunge and picked up an X5. Overall impressed with it and glad I picked it up.
Like the sound from it and the controls are easy to use (a bit more fiddly than an iPod but not by much).
The firmware has been upgraded so can now access 2 128gb micro sd cards (with 512gb promised in future firmware )

while it does use the tags for navigating albums/artist it shows full file names when looking at all (shame as really should be song name ). Other irritant is if album tracks have different track artist to album artist it'll split up the album in album view but uses album artist for sorting by artist

While it's fine listening to earphones it did struggle with my AKG550s (have a E7 which I used as an amp and then it was fine).
It also can be used as external DAC (drivers for Windows required, worked seamlessly with the mac) and it produced an impressive sound

Certainly very happy with the purchase and a definite step up from the Colorfly C3 now to sort out earphones ( have bought a new pair, currently in the post)

Apparently Fiio are already talking about the X7 (essentially android based with touchscreen interface). The X5 will do me for quite some time

[Deckard]

Either this or a Sony NWZ1 as I cant really afford the Askell or Colorfly C4.