What did the team do, in order to make Pandora audio output so good?

[jottt]

I only have 1 free SID from my poor old C64 (the RAM and CIA are doing weird stuff), and getting a working 6581 is really hard now-adays, with all these artsists grabbing them up. Someone needs to steal the original dies from the old MOS warehouse and start re-producing them. I'd certainly buy a dozen, for testing purposes.

It also works with one (some emulators support it directly for sound output). My Catweasel has to live without any chip (for the reasons you mentioned) and serves as a floppy controller.


I have 2 C64 in my shelves but it would brake my heart to take their 6581 out while still alive. This is unethical

Yes, but I can't use speakers for the discotheque effect in the office.


She drives my Shure 535 headphones very nicely!

Time to change the job, eh


Judging by the make/modell, I guess your headphones are probably better than my setup anyways A worthy companion for a Pandora.

 

[Hitnrun]

Wow, I'll start using my Pandora to listen to music just because of this thread.

 

[BaDToaD]

Headphones? I'd say this barely tickles Pandora's potential.

This is obviously a comment from someone that doesn't own decent headphones


The day a car stereo no matter whether it worth hundreds or even thousands of pounds can match up against my Pandora and some of my better headphones for sheer sound quality is the day cars become square, soundproofed and have a comfy chair bang in the middle of the listening space


Most people have never heard decent headphones driven properly. My AKG K701's have been likened quality wise in a review to speakers costing 50K dollars (yes fifty thousand)

 

[Hitnrun]

Just went out for lunch just to buy a good headphone to listen on the Pandora. Got an AKG K518, and I have only one thing to say: WOW. I plugged it on my Milestone 2, on my computer, but on the Pandora it is just incredible. Besides going 2x louder than the other devices, its quality is incredible.


Just need to find a curved jack adapter to use it in my pocket now.

 

[Grench]

Just need to find a curved jack adapter to use it in my pocket now.

That is actually one of my very few complaints about the current hardware design - though I understand the 'why'. I would really like it if there were a 2nd side-mounted audio jack just around the corner from the volume wheel on the right side. When flying I keep the Pandora in my shirt pocket - and with the headphones sticking out of the jack it's left-end up and I can't get to the volume wheel.


My solution was to get a set of Sennheiser PX200-II headphones with a volume wheel built into the cord.


The audio quality out of the Pandora IS amazing. I consider that to be a 'must have' on any future device.

 

[sswam]

The audio quality out of the Pandora IS amazing. I consider that to be a 'must have' on any future device.

MWeston told me that the Pandora 2 audio will be just as good as Pandora 1, or perhaps better.

 

[Binky]

The audio quality out of the Pandora IS amazing. I consider that to be a 'must have' on any future device.

MWeston told me that the Pandora 2 audio will be just as good as Pandora 1, or perhaps better.

Does the audiophile crowd know about the pandora yet?


I think they'd get us a good few sales if they did

 

[BaDToaD]

Yes it's been mentioned on some audio forums. Here's a review on The Rock Grotto headphone forum written by someone I won't name


http://rockgrotto.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=talk&action=display&thread=8422


And here's a thread about the Pandora on Head-Fi


http://www.head-fi.org/t/629592/the-open-pandora-an-ultimate-portable-player

 

[Hooka]

Nothing in the world makes me happier than listening to music on my Pandora through an old Polk audio computer speaker set in my backpack while I walk around... that is until I adventured so hard it busted the headphone jack in my Pandora... I re-soldered it but I don't wanna have to open the pandora up every few months to fix a headphone jack cause I party too hard with mother nature... Michael Weston, you know how to design some solid-ass hardware man!

 

[dgame]

I use a Radio Shack Volume Control Cable for Stereo Headphones (42-2559) to save the jack and volume wheel.

 

[Loonie]

Wow. Surprised at the head-fi hostility. Funny how someone purportedly caring ultimately about audio would spew so much vitriol over something based on its looks.


For me its only shortcomings as an audio device are the lack of playback controls when closed. I'm going to grab a bluetooth hands-free thing with playback controls to see if I can knock up a simple audio player that can be controlled using it. Of course I'll still be using the Pandora's output to drive the headphones.

 

[TrashyMG]

Those head-fi comments surely raised my blood pressure a bit.

 

[Nardella]

I'm going to grab a bluetooth hands-free thing with playback controls to see if I can knock up a simple audio player that can be controlled using it. Of course I'll still be using the Pandora's output to drive the headphones.

You can get them from dx.com for cheap, if you do this please let me know if you get it working!

 

[traylorpark]

Totally appreciate the Panda more after reading this ... actually kinda upset I didn't know this originally.


And yeah, I'm not really understanding the negativity on those head-fi forums. Why do people get so upset about the existence of a "thing"?

 

[Loonie]

You can get them from dx.com for cheap, if you do this please let me know if you get it working!

I'll likely pick one up when I order a USB-to-go cable from them. My hope is the bluetooth controller will generate capturable events within SDL.

 

[vandyswa]

I can't help but ask, why is this? Is this software or is this hardware, or a combo?


The reason the sound impresses me is as follows:


(...)

I've now used this unit with a variety of headphones, from $10 plastic through my $500 "bed side" AKG's.


And I really have to second this opinion--the audio quality is excellent.


If you want to fiddle with


anything audio-wise in a new generation of circuit, the only issue I've noticed is that the external volume


pot (I *like* having that direct control, BTW) is clearly a pair of pots physically linked, and at very low


volume levels the audio level balance is a little off. Workaround is to turn down the volume on the digital


side so you can bring up the pot higher. You might want to change that to a single pot which biases the


gain of the L and R channels from a single reference voltage.


Well done, guys!

 

[sswam]

I'm listening to Ronald Jenkees "Fifteen Fifty" on my Pandora with the Shure earbuds.

Talk about high definition, it doesn't get much better than this in my experience!

I highly recommend Ronald Jenkees' three albums.

All of his music is totally awesome... even his raps!

He has a huge following on youtube - and yeah I know youtube is ultra low-fi,

so go buy his albums, check out bandcamp and his website!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/lg8LfoyDFUM?feature=oembed

full disclosure: I am Ronald Jenkees pimp, no just kidding.

I don't think this is spam, I am a just a fan - & his music (flac not youtube) is great for showing off the Pandora's audio!

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Another frustrated guitarist ^^.

 

[alucart1984]

Wow this has me even more excited for my Pandora.....OMG the wait is killing me......Friday.....please let me go to bed and it be Friday when I wake up.

 

[klapse]

The one thing the reviews fail to mention is the uneven volume pot at low levels. This was a pretty serious drawback back when the Pandora didn't have a digital volume control. With digital volume control, I can set the digital volume lower and move the analog volume to a level where balance is even across both ears.