Walkman vs iPod?

For the Mac/iTunes users (I'm looking at you, Gary), there is a very good plugin called iTuneMyWalkman. I use it with my SE W800, it autodetects when I plug the Memory Stick in and syncs the card with a playlist. Easy peasy

 

You see, I'm approaching this from the POV of:

1. slowly recording most of my vinyl for the purpose of archiving/protecting and making available to DJ using CDs/laptop instead of damaging my discs when playing out.

In this regard I want to make sure I pick the most suitable digital file format - fidelity takes priority over file size, but size is a consideration. This would of course make my vinyl collection available to listen to elsewhere - at work and on personal audio device and would also mean I could opt to use a SqueezeBox or similar at home without using my decks.

2. ripping my CDs for organising and listening at work (and SB at home)

3. listening to a subset of music on a PAD when cycling. My commute to work is a sub 10min walk so not the greatest need for music.

4. I guess I will at some point fancy dipping my toe in buying tracks via iTunes so I dont really want to rule that out.


As such I do want to buy a device, but the decisive factor would most probably be which file format I would be happiest recording my vinyl to. This choice would probably determine which device was the natural pick.

So any thoughts regards the benefits and drawbacks of the various file formats? Am I to presume tracks downloaded from iTunes can be converted somehow to other formats? Is the Sony format the best regards quality and compression? etc,...

 

Greg the format for most download sites including itunes is not great and connot reasonably be converted to anything better.

Lossless will be the best bet for sound quality through HIFI etc but this means far far less music on your MP3 player which always state the amount of tunes you can store in the lowest quality possible. Battery life will be seriously compromised on harddrive based models as well as the harddrive will need to be accessed a lot more, this is also true of Sony. Their excellent battery life comes from for instance a measurment of 64kbs burns (really f**ing poor) and no back light. Apples iPods state for 128kbs (Pretty poor) and no back lights etc.

My opinion of any of these devices is can it do me what I want? For instance who is likely to ba able to listen to one (Or want to) 16 hours out of a day? If you are not that person get a device that you can easily plug in when you get home, job done.

The main down side I see to your wish list is a lot of what you need to do will naturally need to be in different formats. Such as best for home listening and compressed for MP3 storage, this is often a pain.

One other thing, I would far prefer to damage, even a rarish disk than my Laptop. In other words, back up the records to harddrive but continue to use them on the road (this would be my opinion)

 

Gary - useful advice, much appreciated. I think I'm being too businesslike about it - ie. I'm trying to formulate an end-to-end "solution", but along the way I'm not facing the reality. Broad brush strokes an all that...

 

I presume this would also work with a NWA1000 too?

 

Atrac 3 at 64kbps sounds JUST THE SAME as wav through earphones and even Sennheiser PX100 headphones. Now I am sure that played through a very good hifi system there is bound to be a noticeable drop in quality but through portable headphones the Atrac compression is amazing. Fact, I've tried it. Recording at 64kbps not using Atrac compression DOES sound cack. So, on a Sony Walkman you will be able to store more songs due to the superior Sony compression tools and thus need less hard drive capacity. I have 2500 songs on my 6GB Walkman and all are recorded at Atrac 64kbps. If they had sounded rubbish trust me, I would have upped the rate. I tried the exact same song ripped at lossless and also at Atrac 64kbps - both sounded IDENTICAL through headphones on my Walkman. Why, in that case, take up more hard drive space using a supposedly higher quality file? Oh and my idea of music quality isn't poor, I am a musician by trade and have a decent home hifi rig. Atrac is the best compression tool out there for portable devices IMO.

 

Jeep you are passionate and thats great but because you have heard something and formed an opinion does not make it 'Fact'

As usual its down to the individual to try out these devices and decide for them selves what sounds the best for their preferences, it might be that shiny knobs and funky software will have no baring for some people once they have heard the devices.

 

My recommendation for vinyl would be to record it to wav files and burn to CD. I use a Yamaha cd recorder with a built in hard drive. This is an amazing piece of kit and allows minidisk style editing ie you can cut out the silent bits and create track that relate to the track on the LP. This may not be much help but for archiving vinyl you really should be looking at uncompressed wav files IMO. After this I guess the most widely used format for "distributing" the files would be mp3 but I still think for personal use you'd be hard pushed to beat a 64kbpd Atrac3plus file on a portable player

Donut

 

Some people want a very high fidelity "interchangeable" format like a lossless in case they need a higher quality version in perhaps another format later. In such a case they don't relish re-ripping the entire collection. So one might have a high-quality archive and a lower quality set of copies for specific purposes like fitting on a mobile mp3. I'm not one of these people and make do with 320bps mp3 for both purposes (archive and working copies) but you see the point I hope.

 

Hi,

My wife has the latest Sony Walkmen Phone.

Atrac at 64kbps sounds atrocious, even listening on a noisy bus or tube train. Even on easy to compress and low production value pop music. With the supplied earbud headphones which sure are nothing special. MP3 at 192kbps or better 256kbps still has notable problems with some material but is bearable for the Bus and Tube.

All in my experience of course.

Ciao T

 

Regarding ipods its worth noting earlier ones had a "bass deficiency" problem - there is plenty on the internet about this issue. The later ones (shuffle, nano, etc) apparently use a new output and sound a lot better.

 

Don't understand that at all mate, I know it's one opinion versus another but I tried ripping at different qualities in order to test out just what was acceptable and found there to be no perceived difference between WAV at 1411kbps and Atrac at 64kbps! That's a hell of a difference in file size and I wasn't listening on the tube either! I was in a totally quiet room and listening through Sennheiser PX100 headphones (not the greatest quality but much better than the supplied earbuds) - if I noticed zero difference in sound I'm amazed that you thought it was "atrocious" when ripped at 64kbps. Were you definitely using Atrac 64kbps or just plain old 64 kbps? Isn't it amazing how people interpret different things? I'm not saying that I'm right & you're wrong but I just can't see this at all. I have good hearing and am used to the sound of a decent hifi system. I don't see how I would accept poor sound for the sake of it, as I said earlier, I would have ripped my tracks at a higher file size if I'd thought it was noticeable.

 

Hi,

I actually do.

Which suggests that you are either:

a) Not sensitive to the aberations introduced by perceptual coding (I am)

b) Listen(ed) to music which is not sensitive to the aberations introduced by perceptual coding

c) Sufficiently convinced by Sony's propaganda (or hope sufficiently that it is true) that your perception rejects the actual difference

d) Have a device whose audio stages are so bad they obscure the differences

As said, listening to pretty generic, if somewhat demanding pop on my wives Walkmen Phone (BTW, it does not sound as good as using my Pocket PC) revealed the usual artifacts (especially around vocal intelligibility and wherever stuff got complex), except to a degree that made normal MP3 at 192KHz (I normally use this as my own use, 192KHz via Lame using maximum encoding quality settings) seem quite clean by comparison.

This was Sony's own file format via Sony's software and is supposed to be "Advanced" Atrac3 64k. Music ripped via Sony's software directly from CD.

Comparison same tracks @ 192KHz via Lame, ripping via EAC.

I did this when I was disgusted with how bad things sounded when hearing what my wife had ripped into her phone (alos compared to the FM radio, which is pretty bad too), I just got her the darn thing (she loves it) and expected it all to work without trouble. I had to teach her how to use EAC/Lame and how to copy files onto her memory stick plus get a reader for the memory stick after she heard the difference as well.

Not at all. It is rather expected. Peoples hearing and the following interpretative process differ rather greatly. Many other variables are added on top.

As said, I find MP3 @ 192KHz (via Lame, most other encoders are worde) acceptable for listening on public transport in terms of quality. Anything below that datarate is just too obviously compromised, be it MP4 or Atrac or anything else I have tried so far. My wife cannot tell 192K MP3 from CD, or at least so she says (that is on the big rig, not walkmen), I can easily.

Ciao T

 

Thorsten - is it possible the W800 sounds different to the NWA1000/3000?

 

Hi,

Absolutely, it is also possible that the W-800 Atrac3 decoder is much worse than it's MP3 decoder, who is to say. Might be worth re-doing the comparison on my Media Laptop (it has a rather decent headphone stage, much better than either W-800 or my Pocket PC) using all decoders in software, latest versions and with directsound to kill K-Mixer. Except the laptop gets rarely dragged around, the test would be academic to me.

Ciao T

 

My point being DJ may have drawn different conclusions regards the ATRAC format because of the device used. Noones asking you to perform any kind of comparison so what's the point of saying such a comparison would provide nothing to you?

So DJ's conclusions may well be relevant regards the NWA1/3000 which is the subject for comparison with the iPod.

 

dj, iirc atrac is a sony proprietory closed source format which means i'd have rejected for pc audio it even if it did sound exactly the same as lossless. if you find atrac easy to use then great but personally i prefer wma at 128 transcoded from flacs (which i use to listen to when at home via my hi-fi) i've had minidisc's before which have used various versions of atrac and all have sounded less than ideal. i'd not go back to it.
cheers

julian

 

Julian, I was in the situation where I was starting from scratch much like Greg is. I'd loaded my previous iPod via a friend's pc but with my Walkman I used my new laptop. I had no mp3 files on there, no iTunes and no music whatsoever. I was in the situation where I could save tracks in any format I liked with no real hang-ups. Besides, with SonicStage you can play the saved Atrac64 files on your pc anyway. FWIW I find the (latest incarnation) Atrac64 format fantastic, anyone who says otherwise is either being pedantic (IMO) or has compatibility issues with changing from previously ripped formats etc. It has helped me a bundle as I have managed to cram tons of tracks onto my 6GB Walkman when I was wondering if I should have bought the 20GB instead. There was no need in the end so I'm glad I got the smaller and more portable unit.

 

Hi,

That is indeed so. Though it still raises the question "why", which bears on the next point

I asked myself to consider doing such a comparison, as it would be needed to determine if we have an inherent issue with Atrac3 or one with the Device used. The test I proposed more or less to myself would do so, however it would be very limited relevance to myself and indeed to others.

Perhaps the upshot is that if one considers such a device one should take along a Data-CD or memory stick with a few tracks one finds especially revealing and/or representative of the music the device would be used with, pre-encoded using a variety of methodes so the formats can be compared and to ask the retailer to transfer these files without transcoding and to have a listen to these.

In that case for example if one device was worse with trac3 than with MP3 but another had no difference one would be able to tell and decide accordingly. With only 512MB for music my wife's phone/walkman could use to sound good with 64k Atrac3, even my pocket PC (which can be given software to play it) would appreciate a good sounding low bitrate format, sadly so far that free lunch has escaped me (I usually get quite a few free lunches a year at industry events)...

Ciao T

 

I would second that. I was not impressed by Atrac either, to my ears MP3 192kbs is absolute minimum.