[Engadget] Smartphones for audiophiles - Page 6

I don't understand the FLAC hate. Yeah, it's overkill for a phone, but do you really want to convert several thousand tracks from FLAC to AAC or ogg vorbis just to put them on your phone? I don't. Just buy a bigger SD card.

Be careful with this train of thought. Sometimes if you can't hear a difference, its because the difference doesn't exist, not because you need to spend more money. A lot of people claim to hear big differences that are inaudible to anyone, with any gear. There is a reason you get banned for mentioning ABX or blind testing on head-fi outside of sound science, and that’s because their scam falls apart faster than you can imagine. If you can't hear a difference on a well engineered cheap setup (read: no serious audible flaws) with a decent pair of headphones, no high end system in the world will magically make differences appear in a blind test.

The biggest difference in being able to tell those tracks apart isn't gear or magic ears, it's just knowing what exactly to listen for and having tracks that really show off the flaws in the compression. Once you are shown a great example of the weird artifacts compression can cause, it gets much easier to pick them out of noisier tracks. Tracks mastered very hot also tend to mask a lot of this crap too, so having properly mastered tracks can make certain flaws stand out even more.

For a long time I kept my music in two major folders. Backup/computer playback was in FLAC and mobile was in a bunch of different lossy formats. You don't have to transcode thousands of songs if you keep up with it in the first place. I could see how this would be a HUGE pain for people who already have an audio library though.

I'm too lazy to do this now, especially after doing plenty of my own ABX testing. I don't really care that much anymore.

I don't recall saying otherwise. I've even stated exactly that elsewhere.

I'm not sure what you're referencing. If it's the ability to tell the difference between when an external amp, DAC, or amp+DAC is used and when it's not, I can say with confidence that most people can. Every single person I've had compare could tell a difference between when the E6 was used and when it wasn't. All of them stated a positive difference, no less. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're commenting on?

You're not aware of what Cowon and HiFiMan do with their players, then?

Weren't you the one that mentioned "[n]o use of double-blind test techniques or software." I truly doubt your testing was done with confidence in consideration of sound blind-testing methodology.

My media player experience is limited to my Clip +, several generations of iPod, and several older and newer phones. Cowon and HiFiMan owners love their players. Maybe it's the Bose effect, maybe it's not. I'm no electrical engineer and have no first hand experience with either company's players to compare. Even so, I find it hard to believe either are as poor as some of the players sold in the local Radio Shack (for example), hence their mention.

As for testing, the best I can readily accomplish with no prep and without making a damn fool of myself in informal, public settings is single-blind: I know, they don't. Good enough to infer, not enough to draw statistically relevant conclusions. I still stand by what I said about the difference even the little E6 made for people who know virtually nothing about audio.

i agree with you on this
too bad bluetooth audio doesnt support Beats audio

No Apple product is ever under consideration for audiophile use. If it is in testing, it is used only to compare to the mainstream device. I will stick with my standalone PMP.

You're missing one of the most important elements of testing: level-matching within 0.1dB, nevermind statistical significance to declare a non-null result that you've so kindly brought up.

I'm seriously impressed that people still hate on iPods/iPhones for audio. This isn't 2001.
Edited by friend'scatdied - 10/3/12 at 12:57pm

International GS3 has the Wolfson DAC and has way better quality output than an iPhone.

Not true.

Hint: DACs don't really matter anymore. It's all about implementation.
Edited by friend'scatdied - 10/3/12 at 1:02pm