Sound Quality?

[PolloLoco]

Can any statement be made as to the sound quality of the Pandora? Specifically when listening to music?

When grading MP3 players, general (subjective) rankings list players from Cowon (X5L, Q5, D2 then A3) near the top, followed by the Creative Zen, Sansa players (Fuse, Clip, E200V2. . .) then the Archos pmps. Sadly, though I love my PSP - I have to agree with PMP reviews ranking it below all of these dedicated mp3 players and pmp's. The sound is somewhat "tinny" and lacks clarity. Though the sound is more than adequate (even excellent) when it comes to gaming.

Can anyone say whether the Pandora will exceed the sound quality of a PSP? I've heard nothing about the sound chip in the Pandora - so I'm wondering whether I should temper my expectations.

The reason I bring this up is that I was at one point considering a flash Archos 605 mp3/mp4 player. At 4gb it costs ~$200 but allows for SD expansion. It has the same touchscreen as the Pandora, and you can buy plugins to allow for various codecs and even a web browser for $30. In one of the hardware videos from Craig - I spotted a 605 in the background, so I'm sure he's aware of their features and limitations.

I just realized that for another $100 - the Pandora offers a lot more than the Archos PMP. I just wondered if there'd be any improvement - or perhaps a dropoff in performance with regards to sound quality. Besides gameplay - I see a great value in using the Pandora as a PMP.

 

[Karel Jansens]

The reason I bring this up is that I was at one point considering a flash Archos 605 mp3/mp4 player. At 4gb it costs ~$200 but allows for SD expansion. It has the same touchscreen as the Pandora, and you can buy plugins to allow for various codecs and even a web browser for $30. In one of the hardware videos from Craig - I spotted a 605 in the background, so I'm sure he's aware of their features and limitations.

I just realized that for another $100 - the Pandora offers a lot more than the Archos PMP. I just wondered if there'd be any improvement - or perhaps a dropoff in performance with regards to sound quality. Besides gameplay - I see a great value in using the Pandora as a PMP.

Archos was a nice company once (I still have their PMA430 doing semi-active duty as an emergency PVR), but their new habit of charging customers extra for the on/off button really turned me off them.

Where are the days when you bought an Archos and really only had to think about spending extra cash if you wanted a second battery? I mean, charging for a frakking codec???!! You bastards!

 

[whiskthecat]

Gp2x's sounds quality was crap. I wanted to use it as an mp3 player, but my ears started bleeding. Hope pandora gets it right, I'm sure it will.

 

[closetwam]

Anyone know what the DAC hardware will be?

 

[MWeston]

It should be substantially better than the GP2X. The DAC is made by Burr Brown.

 

[JerryG20]

It should be substantially better than the GP2X. The DAC is made by Burr Brown.

Can you reveal the model number of the DAC?

 

[BaDToaD]

I'm hoping the Pandora will have decent sound quality but I don't expect a jack of all trades device of this sort to be Audiophile Quality. Even decent MP3 players need to be amped to start reaching levels I'd class as Audiophile.

I am however, hoping to be proved wrong

 

[Game_over]

Yeah it should be way better than the GP2X. The PSP (I can only really speak for the S&L) is just not loud enough, you would think that they would go ahead and put the original sph sound chip from the psx (or something like it) in there, but no dice. Anyway, I'm more concern with the output to something like auxiliary for it.

 

[Javacat]

I believe that some specs for the audio part of the Pandora were mentioned a couple of months ago, although I can't remember who by or what they were. + They didn't make much sense to me, although I'm sure an audiophile would love them (I believe that one of the pandevs mentioned that they were a bit of an audiophile so had made sure it sounded decent).

 

[Tobriand]

The specs on MWeston's site are listed as:

QUOTE

- headphone output up to 150mW/channel into 16 ohms, 99dB SNR (up to 24 bit/48KHz)



Means nothing to me either, but I recall some people drooling when they were first mentioned...

 

[gruso]

They are nice numbers, the last half in particular. 99dB Signal to noise ratio is great in any language.

For sample rate (KHz), here's a comparison:

8KHz = Telephone quality
22KHz = Radio quality
44.1KHz = CD quality

48KHz = another win for Pandora!

 

[Snu]

The specs on MWeston's site are listed as:

QUOTE

- headphone output up to 150mW/channel into 16 ohms, 99dB SNR (up to 24 bit/48KHz)



Means nothing to me either, but I recall some people drooling when they were first mentioned...

i dont know much about how much watts translates to how much volume, or what the significance of the ohms is (would love it if someone who knows more about it than i would give a good comparison).

what i do understand tho:
the 48khz is better than cd quality (44.1khz) and is the maximum supported by mp3 files. audiophile/pro audio by comparison would be 96khz - which only your dog would be able to appreciate, its doubtful that many could hear the difference between 44 and 48 even.

the signal to noise ratio is really the dynamic range, how many db can be between the lowest and highest possible volumes. 99db snr is a bit better than perfect 16bit quality sound, which is around 96db snr.
this would be better than desktop onboard soundchips, and better than the ubiquitous soundblaster 16 and equivalents, but nicer soundcards seem to start around 106db snr, and go up from there, so dont expect it to compare to those.

regardless, this is absolutely phenomenal audio quality for such a small device...
for comparisons, look at this http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11297_7-6510133-2.html

and by the way, if the sound quality on your psp is significantly lower while watching movies/listering to music than when you are playing games, maybe your media player software is poor quality, or its purposfully using lower quality decoding to save cpu (and thus battery life). hopfully the pandora's dsp will prevent any such problems on it.

 

[PolloLoco]

A comment on the chart listed above with regards to mp3 player sound quality. EVERY ONE of the manufacturers on that list cites a much higher decibel to noise ratio than what was listed. The Creative Zen M, is commonly advertised to have a 96 db snr, which the chart shows isn't true.

There's much more to factor in sound quality than volume, power or frequency. I was hoping to dig up the Sony PSP sound specs - but was unable to after a half hour's online search. I just know that while nitpicking - it's tinny with limited highs and muddy lows. There was a full review as a pmp this year on dapreview.com.

I'm just hoping the Pandora's audio quality ends up better than the PSP - and it sounds promising.

 

[Geuben]

QUOTE
- headphone output up to 150mW/channel into 16 ohms, 99dB SNR (up to 24 bit/48KHz)


Although it says it uses a 24bit DAC, it may not. 24bit DACs are reasonably expensive and the same or better results can be achieved with a 1bit DAC using oversampling and quantisation noise shaping. This is a much cheaper way of achieving the same/better results. Most hi-fi's will use this technique to save on cost. The stated 24bit/48KHz is probably the 'effiective' resolution and frequency.

All that aside, it should still sound pretty good when using some decent headphones.

 

[magicman5421]

as long as it isn't popping and snapping in my ears, i'll be happy.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

Don't forget that it's not just down to the DACs. The amp the Pandora uses will have quite a big baring on how rich the audio output will be. You can have the best digital to analog conversion but if you feed that in to a crummy amplifier the output will be dire.

 

[PolloLoco]

Don't forget that it's not just down to the DACs. The amp the Pandora uses will have quite a big baring on how rich the audio output will be. You can have the best digital to analog conversion but if you feed that in to a crummy amplifier the output will be dire.

I definitely understand that. On my MP3 players, most of the time I enjoy music via an unamplified line out - to an external portable amp. I was amazed that even the clarity of sound from my Cowon X5 was improved.

 

[JerryG20]

Don't forget that it's not just down to the DACs. The amp the Pandora uses will have quite a big baring on how rich the audio output will be. You can have the best digital to analog conversion but if you feed that in to a crummy amplifier the output will be dire.

This is true. Of course, you can always bypass the headphone amplifier circuitry using line-out, which would place more emphasis on the quality of the DAC as I doubt the Pandora will have digital audio output (though I guess it may be possible via USB?) I figured we'd be able to recognize the DAC better than the headphone amp given a model number, but if MWeston has info on the headphone amp as well, that'd be great...

 

[mafia-man]

Don't forget that it's not just down to the DACs. The amp the Pandora uses will have quite a big baring on how rich the audio output will be. You can have the best digital to analog conversion but if you feed that in to a crummy amplifier the output will be dire.

Wish the Pandora had user changeable OP-Amps, like my Auzentech Prelude

 

[magicman5421]

Don't forget that it's not just down to the DACs. The amp the Pandora uses will have quite a big baring on how rich the audio output will be. You can have the best digital to analog conversion but if you feed that in to a crummy amplifier the output will be dire.

Wish the Pandora had user changeable OP-Amps, like my Auzentech Prelude

lol...keep dreaming