When I do dinner parties I like to do quick listening tests - well at least with the guys and before the wine has started taking hold :-)
My last one was only two days ago on portable mp3 players. I have an Apple iPod Video 80Gb, a Sony NW-HD5 20GB and an iRiver HP-120 20Gb and a special edition top end Sony D-EJ01 CD Walkman. We tested all these devices with high quality Sony MDF-F1 Headphones. For the jukebox players the music was in a very high bitrate format so audio compression problems could be ruled out. The most obvious first point is that the iPod and the Sony D-EJ01 CD Walkman had lots of volume, the iRiver was OK, but the Sony NW-HD5 didn't go loud enough. I held all the players in my hand and pulled the headphones socket out and switched it into different devices for the test. I also turned the volume down each time so the user then had to tell me how hight he would like it. The results of the test were unamious (always nice): the Sony D-EJ01 CD Walkman won. The NW-HD5 came next, then the iPod and iRiver came way behind. The iPod just sounded kind of lifeless compared to the NW-HD5 and CD Walkman. It annoyed a couple of people to see their beloved iPod loose so bady. It's a shame that these big computer companies like Apple can't do a decent job of the music playback. If sony can make a lovely sounding CD Walkman so can Apple - it's just lazyness. I kind of feel the SB3 is the same - if they had put a little bit of extra effort in which wouldn't have cost much more I wouldn't need an external DAC or an expensive transporter. -- willyhoops ------------------------------------------------------------------------ willyhoops's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10563 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=34849 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
