Can Anyone Report On Music Sound Quality?

[Leshalles]

I haven't found direct comparisons of sound quality with popular mp3 / mmp devices.

Cowon A3 & X5 are often considered to have much better sound than recent iPods.

What sound quality comes out of the headphone jack? If anyone can compare the sound to an mp3 player...

 

[Yigguth]

Evil Dragon posted a video with sound coming from the Pandora,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDbLQI91510&fmt=18
Sounds pretty good to me

 

[mali]

I haven't found direct comparisons of sound quality with popular mp3 / mmp devices.

Cowon A3 & X5 are often considered to have much better sound than recent iPods.

What sound quality comes out of the headphone jack? If anyone can compare the sound to an mp3 player...

There have been several discussions on this matter.I've no link at hand I suggest, that you put DAC in the search field, and look at the Dev Updates link in my signature.

 

[whiskthecat]

Pandora Headphone output is 99dB SNR (wiki folks)

Cowon iAudio X5 is 83.2dB SNR<---(CNET) and/ 95dB SNR<---(Cowon's Website)
Apple iPod (5G) is 83.0dB SNR
Sony PSP is 83.0dB SNR
Complete List

BTW, SNR = Signal to Noise Ratio (should be self explanatory as to what that means)
So, higher SNR is better.

 

[Fishbong]

Evil Dragon posted a video with sound coming from the Pandora,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDbLQI91510&fmt=18
Sounds pretty good to me


Well, an analogue recording of the sound of a 16 bit game which has been compressed two times (once when being recorded, once when uploaded to youtube) is hardly a good indication of sound quality. So we'll just have to wait until we have our Pandoras and see for ourselves. AFAIK they chose a pretty good and expensive soundchip though.

 

[mazza558]

Pandora Headphone output is 99dB SNR (wiki folks)

Cowon iAudio X5 is 83.2dB SNR<---(CNET) and/ 95dB SNR<---(Cowon's Website)
Apple iPod (5G) is 83.0dB SNR
Sony PSP is 83.0dB SNR
Complete List

BTW, SNR = Signal to Noise Ratio (should be self explanatory as to what that means)
So, higher SNR is better.



Nice!

However, why is Cowon supposed to be so much better when its SNR is only slightly higher than an iPod?

 

[jdh2550]

Pandora Headphone output is 99dB SNR (wiki folks)

Cowon iAudio X5 is 83.2dB SNR<---(CNET) and/ 95dB SNR<---(Cowon's Website)
Apple iPod (5G) is 83.0dB SNR
Sony PSP is 83.0dB SNR
Complete List

BTW, SNR = Signal to Noise Ratio (should be self explanatory as to what that means)
So, higher SNR is better.



Nice!

However, why is Cowon supposed to be so much better when its SNR is only slightly higher than an iPod?

Also, note the discrepancy between Cowon's stated figure and CNET's figure. Is it possible that the panda's 99db SNR will degrade once it's in a production unit with possibly more EMF than was present with the initial testing that gives the 99 figure? Even if 99 is optimistic if it "falls" to mid to high 80's then it will still be great...

To further increase the quality I imagine one could use a USB based high resolution A/D converter on a long cable and well shielded against EMF from other sources? (If one were an audiophile - which I'm not - what comes out of the headphone output is more than good enough for me!)

 

[fischju2000]

The Pandora has a 24-bit 5-50khz Burr Brown DAC with a 150mW amp
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=45093
So, much better than current mp3 players. Also will play FLAC. The bottleneck for sound quality will probably be your headphones.

From what I can find, the DAC in the latest iPod classics is 8-48khz, 98dB SNR. 40mW output

 

[Leshalles]

I think the sound quality depends on the DAC, the amps, as well as the noise environment and power conditioning, etc. The tech specs help, but how people like the final sound is subjective and not well predicted by the tech specs.

Only a blind listening test can tell for sure, but it seems this should at least compete with if not best- possibly by a wide margin- current mp3 sound quality.

There are portable audiophile headphone amps with DAC's that can connect to a line out or USB port.
See Head-Fi.org.

The power output on the headphone jack is, I think, much higher than current mp3 players. The Q5w is only 35mw/channel, and that is one of the latest & greatest. That means you can drive higher quality headphones, and it also means the amp will have less distortion when run at lower volumes.

 

[mali]

That's the reason I suggested to use the search function, we had a similar discussion some time ago.

 

[ingrin]

That's the reason I suggested to use the search function, we had a similar discussion some time ago.

You suggested someone search for 'DAC'. Unfortunately, this doesn't pull any results because the search function ignores words 3 chars or less. Just FYI, since alot of well meaning people don't realize this.

I think if the OP follows your link and looks at MWESTON's posts, he should find the info he is looking for.

 

[mali]

That's the reason I suggested to use the search function, we had a similar discussion some time ago.

You suggested someone search for 'DAC'. Unfortunately, this doesn't pull any results because the search function ignores words 3 chars or less. Just FYI, since alot of well meaning people don't realize this.

I think if the OP follows your link and looks at MWESTON's posts, he should find the info he is looking for.

Oh, sorry! I didn't know that :blush:

 

[nikkopt]

full sound specs have been discussed here: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showt...=45093&st=0
read the whole thread

The bottleneck for sound quality will probably be your headphones.

Bingo!
You will have to make a choice since there are lots of types (headphones, earphones, earplugs, etc)

More impedance = less distortion and noite but also less power
Less impedance = less quality and more power
Most 16ohm earphones don't handle more than 50mW, headphones do..
My advice: get some 32ohm head/earphones, you won't have the 150mW of power but even with 75mW you'll have more than you need

PS: the ipod earphones are 32ohm, and the 40mW on its amp is also for 32ohm loads

PS2: latest ipods use cirrus logic DAC's

 

[Tor]

How are we software-wise?
On the Nokia N8x0 MP3 files are played through the DSP. But there's no DSP driver for Ogg-Vorbis, so those formats have to be decoded through the CPU.. which takes a significant toll both on the CPU and the battery. This is because the DSP code is closed, as I understand. (lardman is the one to ask about this I think..)
Is the DSP programmably available on the Pandora? That is, can we actually use it, easily, to play different kind of file formats without having to rely just on the CPU?

 

[Chip]

Is the DSP programmably available on the Pandora? That is, can we actually use it, easily, to play different kind of file formats without having to rely just on the CPU?
No, it's just there for aesthetic reasons

Of course it's available for programming. The real question is "Is anybody going to use it?" Judging by these posts (1 2 3 4), it looks like there is some interest.

 

[Tor]

So, I take it there's a published DSP API and supporting libraries and documentation.. because that's exactly what's missing on the Nokia series (omap2 based). It's programmable there too, it's just that it's low-level hacking and testing to get it to do anything.

 

[Chip]

So, I take it there's a published DSP API and supporting libraries and documentation.
There is a link in the wiki to TI's coding tools for the DSP. It requires free registration.

 

[Squidge]

So, I take it there's a published DSP API and supporting libraries and documentation..

QUOTE
We are pleased to announce the availability of DSP bridge driver for OMAP3 (Pandora) platform. DSP Bridge driver provides features to control and communicate with DSP enabling parallel processing for multimedia acceleration. It enables the applications running on MCU to offload the processing to DSP.

Some of the key features of DSP Bridge are listed below.

- Messaging: Ability to exchange fixed size control messages with DSP.
- Dynamic memory management: Ability to dynamically map files to DSP address space.
- Dynamic loading: Ability to dynamically load new nodes on DSP at run time.
- Power Management: Static and dynamic power management for DSP.

The information on the following is available at
http://www.openomap.org/pub/dspbridge/

 

[Tor]

Thanks, Chip and Squidge. Clearly TI is much more open about the OMAP3 chipsets than with OMAP2. That's good.

 

[AireTamStorm]

So, I take it there's a published DSP API and supporting libraries and documentation..

QUOTE
We are pleased to announce the availability of DSP bridge driver for OMAP3 (Pandora) platform. DSP Bridge driver provides features to control and communicate with DSP enabling parallel processing for multimedia acceleration. It enables the applications running on MCU to offload the processing to DSP.

Some of the key features of DSP Bridge are listed below.

- Messaging: Ability to exchange fixed size control messages with DSP.
- Dynamic memory management: Ability to dynamically map files to DSP address space.
- Dynamic loading: Ability to dynamically load new nodes on DSP at run time.
- Power Management: Static and dynamic power management for DSP.

The information on the following is available at
http://www.openomap.org/pub/dspbridge/
Chip/Squidge, will two programs be able to access the DSP at once, and divide the DSP "cycles" between the two? Fearing the DSP getting locked down to one program at a time is my biggest fear in implementing it.