Will Pandora Satisfy My Music Needs?

[conso]

I still think of a little bar that can be plugged into the usb-ports of the pandora, containing 5 buttons for media-management / guitar-hero like games + a trigger for blocking the buttons when in the pocket. If solid enough, the bar could contain a little box for extra-sd cards and in-ear phones.

 

[TaG]

I still think of a little bar

This little bar? I'll have a Guinness.


I'll get my coat.

 

[whiskthecat]

If the media player ends up being similar to foobar2000 I will be very happy indeed. IMO the most important features for a media player is to have music in a list organizable by ID3 tags, a good search function, and the most important part is a programmable random play button.

As for headphones I have to recommend skullcandy. Got a pair for 10 bucks at circuit city and they sound good to me. Cheapest in-ear buds I could find.

 

[bigtruck]

I'm sure there will be plenty of music players. Now I've never really delved too deep into the workings of linux music players, but would I be correct in assuming that each individual music player would not need to be optimized to take advantage of the DSP? My package manager tells me both the mpd and moc packages depend upon libmad, for example. So if that is optimized for the DSP, just a simple recompile of the actual players should take advantage of the DSP, no?

As for headphones and offtopicness, I've been using head-fi as my main information source, and apparently skullcandy's are not a particularly good value, even for the price. This is just what I've read, I have no personal knowledge and have never used anything other than crappy <= $10 earbuds. However, I've decided to finally bite the bullet and buy a decent pair, something I've been meaning to do for a while. Right now I'm settled on the denon c700 (specifically c751, as that is just the c700 with accessories and for less). I had to draw the line somewhere; I went through several steps of "oh, hmm, these are apparently better and only ~$20 more..." My music taste is mainly metal (which is mostly symphonic/gothic stuff) and electronic (which is mostly trance). Unfortunately, this is going to take a huge dent out of my SD card fund. I hope 32GB cards are down to $60~$70 by the time the Pandora is out...

 

[waffles]

i have a pair of p-100s, i like em, great sound quality, but the cloth covers are terrible, they always snag and fall off.
also, im guessing no rhapsody support, mirite?

 

[AireTamStorm]

the lost quality between Lossy, and Lossless audio is so negligible when using headphones, you would be totally full of shit if you said you could hear/appreciate the difference.

Well I reserve the right to be totally full of shit


I second that. I can hear the difference quite easily.I could tell you what audio format the track is using, even. Be it the watery sound of windows media, the crisp highs and deep lows that are gone in mp3, or the sweetness that is AAC (which has better lows than mp3, but the highs are still meh imo). Pandora = FLAC for me.

 

[WizardStan]

the lost quality between Lossy, and Lossless audio is so negligible when using headphones, you would be totally full of shit if you said you could hear/appreciate the difference.

Well I reserve the right to be totally full of shit


I second that. I can hear the difference quite easily.I could tell you what audio format the track is using, even. Be it the watery sound of windows media, the crisp highs and deep lows that are gone in mp3, or the sweetness that is AAC (which has better lows than mp3, but the highs are still meh imo). Pandora = FLAC for me.

I can't ascertain any major difference between my friends $30 headphones and the ones I picked up at the dollar store. There's a little difference in the treble, but I just use the software mixer to give it a bit of a boost, and then I can't tell any difference at all.
Am I broken?

 

[quadomatic]

I just bought some JVC Marshmallows today...$9 on Newegg. Supposed to be pretty good, especially for the price.

 

[AireTamStorm]

I can't ascertain any major difference between my friends $30 headphones and the ones I picked up at the dollar store. There's a little difference in the treble, but I just use the software mixer to give it a bit of a boost, and then I can't tell any difference at all.
Am I broken?

Not referring to headphones, I'm referring to audio codecs. And I could likely discern the different materials of audio diaphragms in most common headphones even with a treble / bass boost modification to the signal. Such is the way of the Audiophile®.

 

[WizardStan]

I can't ascertain any major difference between my friends $30 headphones and the ones I picked up at the dollar store. There's a little difference in the treble, but I just use the software mixer to give it a bit of a boost, and then I can't tell any difference at all.
Am I broken?

Not referring to headphones, I'm referring to audio codecs. And I could likely discern the different materials of audio diaphragms in most common headphones even with a treble / bass boost modification to the signal. Such is the way of the Audiophile®.

I knew what you were talking about. My point was that the audio differences between cheap and expensive headphones are so minimal (at least for me) that the codec becomes almost irrelevant. It makes me wonder whether I'm the freak with less than stellar hearing, or if you're the freak with super human hearing.

 

[impreziv]

the lost quality between Lossy, and Lossless audio is so negligible when using headphones, you would be totally full of shit if you said you could hear/appreciate the difference.

Well I reserve the right to be totally full of shit


I second that. I can hear the difference quite easily.I could tell you what audio format the track is using, even. Be it the watery sound of windows media, the crisp highs and deep lows that are gone in mp3, or the sweetness that is AAC (which has better lows than mp3, but the highs are still meh imo). Pandora = FLAC for me.


for the longest time i was very hyped on the FLAC format. i had GBs of FLAC audio, that i ripped myself. when i first decided i preferred FLAC over MP3, it was when i bittorrented a FLAC rip of Pink Floyd's album Dark Side of the Moon.

i noticed the differences immediately. the album opens with some quietly spoken words, which were quite indistinguishable on my 320kbps MP3 copy, but very much better on the Flac copy. the music also had a better tone.

after some time, i converted this FLAC rip of the album to 320kbps MP3 (to use on my Ipod Touch), i gave my new MP3 copy a test listen, and I could barely notice a difference between it and the FLAC copy. i compared it to my old MP3 copy, and the difference was noticable.

my point is, i had a shit copy of that music to begin with. on my home stereo system, I can notice a small difference between my FLAC copy, and my Good MP3 copy. and I can notice a large difference between my Good and Bad MP3 copies.

on my Ipod Touch, GP2X, and my Creative Vision W 30gb, I cant notice ANY difference between those 2 MP3 copies. im using a pair of Sennheiser HD 25-1 headphones (paid $250 for), at the recommendation of a friend who runs a Recording studio.

if you find you enjoy FLAC audio more than MP3, im happy for you. but i personally dont find enough of a difference to justify the storage size. a 1-2% increase in quality isnt worth a 500% increase in file size.

im certainly not going to be filling up one of my 16gb SDHC cards with FLAC audio. i have over 100gb of music, just under 30gb that i do currently listen to on my Ipod Touch.

 

[AireTamStorm]

320KBps is tolerable, but often people use some really bad MP3 encoder that loses nearly all of the small details in the sound. FLAC is the smallest, lossless audio I can get. It certainly isn't as practical, I'll give you that. I just hope that the audio chip on the Pandora is at least better than the one in my GP2X or PSP. No matter what format you crank out of either, at high volume you hear tons of distortion.

Edit: People who listen to rap or techno may not see a real difference, but comparatively things like Classical (with very low volumes at times) get hit pretty hard by bad encodes.

 

[PolloLoco]

I can't ascertain any major difference between my friends $30 headphones and the ones I picked up at the dollar store. There's a little difference in the treble, but I just use the software mixer to give it a bit of a boost, and then I can't tell any difference at all.
Am I broken?

Not referring to headphones, I'm referring to audio codecs. And I could likely discern the different materials of audio diaphragms in most common headphones even with a treble / bass boost modification to the signal. Such is the way of the Audiophile®.

I knew what you were talking about. My point was that the audio differences between cheap and expensive headphones are so minimal (at least for me) that the codec becomes almost irrelevant. It makes me wonder whether I'm the freak with less than stellar hearing, or if you're the freak with super human hearing.


I THOUGHT I was the same way. I thought headphones were a stupid way to spend money. But have you had a chance to audition great headphones at home, in the same environment where you normally listen to your music - and listen to your favorite tracks? I was amazed at the little stuff I picked up that wasn't there before - on songs I'd heard dozens of times. I've tried to go back to cheap headphones for different reasons (running, work) and it's painful.

That said, ignorance is often bliss. So my advice is to set a price point you're willing to go to and then research it for the best value. You'll be happy with where you're at . . . the only problem is that you'll start to wonder if you'd be happier at the next price point and so on . . . Headphi.org has been great for ratings and value comparisons. I've yet to go over $100 on audio equipment, though my Sennheiser CX500's are $130 regularly priced.

What $30 headphones did you try by the way? That might be the answer - I've tried some REALLY crappy headphones in that price range. My Sennheiser sport earbuds have disappointed me, but a good starting value (IMO) are the Sennheiser CX300 canal phones from newegg.com. They're on sale for $30 - but there's a $15 rebate if you send in any old crappy pair of headphones. That's where I got my CX500's.

 

[impreziv]

320KBps is tolerable, but often people use some really bad MP3 encoder that loses nearly all of the small details in the sound. FLAC is the smallest, lossless audio I can get. It certainly isn't as practical, I'll give you that. I just hope that the audio chip on the Pandora is at least better than the one in my GP2X or PSP. No matter what format you crank out of either, at high volume you hear tons of distortion.

i agree, most MP3s out there are junk quality.

portable audio devices such as Ipods, PSPs, even the GP2X have poor audio quality compared to an expensive home stereo.

thats why i find the idea of lossless audio on a portable device such a stupid idea.

who knows, maybe the Pandora will surprise us, and I will end up listening to my FLAC audio on it. not like its a deal breaker for me, as i dont really care about quality that much on whatever device im using for portable audio.

 

[quadomatic]

How about Zen X-Fi (uses same stuff on Creative X-Fi card)? You might be able to tell the difference between FLAC and 320kbps mp3 on there.

I tried to see if I could tell the difference between a LAME 177kbps avg VBR rip I made of Good Morning from Kanye's album Graduation, a FLAC rip of the same song, and the CD version. I could not. I'm using a Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic card. However, my headphones and speakers are very much sub-par. I'm hoping to pickup a set of Logitech X-240 2.1 speakers in the next week. That'll probably make quite a difference.

 

[AireTamStorm]

who knows, maybe the Pandora will surprise us, and I will end up listening to my FLAC audio on it. not like its a deal breaker for me, as i dont really care about quality that much on whatever device im using for portable audio.

What I think we can all agree on, is we will be able to copy all our favorite music on it, and the audio player will /just play/ everything that we have regardless of the file type. FLAC, MP3, AAC, Vorbis, or whatnot. Thats the real advantage I see in getting a Pandora for audio.

 

[Snu]

My point was that the audio differences between cheap and expensive headphones are so minimal (at least for me) that the codec becomes almost irrelevant. It makes me wonder whether I'm the freak with less than stellar hearing, or if you're the freak with super human hearing.

eh, i dont think you have used a really nice pair of headphones then... i used to use headphones in the $30-40 range, which were significantly better than cheapo pairs, but my $100 akg k240s headphones absolutely MURDER anything else ive ever used... best piece of audio equipment ive bought.

 

[CyruzDraxs]

Encode your audio in OGG. It's usually smaller than mp3 for equal quality and the difference between mp3 and FLAC really isn't that noticeable if you encode the mp3s properly. Also; FLAC is way over-rated; APE has much better compression and sounds the same.

 

[BaDToaD]

I have a pair of akg K701s widely regarded as one of, if not the best all round headphones money can buy. I also have a Graham Slee Solo Headphone Amplifier, again highly regarded. I have a meerly good sony DVP as my source but this little lot produces better sound that any speaker based setup I have personally heard, or could possibly afford. To really do the phones and Amp justice I plan to get a Cambridge Audio 740c or 840c CDP.

The following review will give you some idea of what a quality Headphone based system can produce. The guy is also using the Solo headphone amp.

AKG K701 Review

However this is a home rig and for portable use I personally can't tell the difference between my 320Kbps MP3s and my original CDs on my panasonic SL-MP35 CD portable into AD823 based CMoy amp and PX-100 or HD595 cans. I do however rip using EAC as to me it's well worth the extra rip time for the increase in quality.

So if you want my opinion on quality on the move. 320Kbps MP3s will be more than up to the job for 99% of us. Me included and I consider my self an audiophile.

 

[AireTamStorm]

Encode your audio in OGG. It's usually smaller than mp3 for equal quality and the difference between mp3 and FLAC really isn't that noticeable if you encode the mp3s properly. Also; FLAC is way over-rated; APE has much better compression and sounds the same.

Vorbis has to be the most flexible and open codec I've seen for audio, ever. Sounds great, too. MP3, however, has its share of problems.