COWON J3 & MP3 Player Thread - Page 4

On January 08 2011 06:09 Neoto wrote:
Best DAP i've ever used is the iRiver iHP-140. Nothing I've used since has come close to it. It had FLAC playback via rockbox firmware 5 years ago. The DAC it used was pretty good too. I still have mine to this very day.



Mine is a bit more battered than that of course

On January 31 2012 22:09 althaz wrote:
Why the Zune hate? Its the best media player around, imo - I mean the software, btw, not the mp3 player. Though that is pretty decent, just not as flexible as the iPod or with particularly good sound quality.

Btw, who doesn't just use their phone as their mp3 player?

On February 01 2012 01:51 uriel- wrote:


People who listen to music so much their phone will run out of battery if they used it as their mp3 player

On February 01 2012 02:25 attwell wrote:
Question 1: if you are using this for MP3s why would you consider yourself an audiophile?

If you aren't working with a less lossy format then you aren't really experiencing the music at its fullest.

It seems like new headphones and using better audio files is a better move than buying a new music player, especially if you are having problems with audio quality, which can sometimes just be from bad mp3s that have been converted a few times. Having a nice music player with regular headphones and lossy audio files won't be a good experience, whereas using raw data and good cans out of pretty much any decent music player will enhance the experience greatly.

Question 2: do people still use MP3 players?

It seems like at home I listen to music on my computer, and on the go I use my smartphone (droid bionic, battery lasts ~8 hours active). I figured only people with flip phones would use a separate music player.

EDIT: also, smartphones have the benefit of using Spotify/Pandora/Grooveshark to get high quality audio, so potential library of smartphones are infinite whereas for music players it's limited.

On February 01 2012 21:20 althaz wrote:


A Sound to Noise ratio of 95 is not achieved by any smartphone that I'm aware of, but the iPhone 4S is 92 and the Galaxy S2 is the same. A lot of other phones hover around the 88-90 mark.

As for the battery issue, there's no possible way for that to be an issue if you are used to having a smartphone OR an MP3 player like the iPod touch. The iPhone 3GS can play music all day through the headphones along with normal use with a little web browsing and some games played with no problems - I know because I used to have this phone. If it lasts all day, then that's just fine - because you should be used to charging your phone every day by now.

I now have an LG Optimus 7 (was meant to be a temp phone, but WP7 is frickin' awesome, phone is kinda ugly though) and the battery is sitting at 55% right now and has been unplugged for over 15 hours - and I have used my phone quite a lot today. If it had've spent the whole time since I last charged it playing music through headphones, I'd be getting low on battery - but it wouldn't be flat yet .

Playing music through headphones uses sweet frick all battery power on modern smartphones. Even the three year old 3GS lasted ages (longer when it was new of course).

On March 01 2012 22:25 SuperPro wrote:
I highly doubt you can decipher any significant difference in the sound quality of these two devices. Any perceived difference is most likely placebic. Of course I know relatively nothing, but I cannot see this being a factor at all. I would wager that the speaker itself, if upgraded, would yield a more significant difference than this device. I've tried apple headphones vs some other crappy headphones I had lying around and did notice a difference. I say this not to say that apple is good, but that there is actually a perceivable difference in headphone quality.

I don't quite understand, unless you were a dog, or blind(better hearing capability), why exactly you would need a 2 dnb difference.