jwvm wrote:
My research into high-end audio players shows that the high-end
"audiophiles" are behind the curve in this area. And if lossless
formats do not become more widely "useable" in the new devices, the
high-end market will suffer due to no demand for audiophile lossless
formats. So I came to rec.audio.high-end to find out from the experts

bob wrote:

Ok, but understand that you're a very unusual customer. Most of us have
no need for more than one lossless format. (And besides, iPods and the
like really aren't designed for lossless formats--they use up too much
juice.) And if you hadn't ripped your CDs to a particular format before
getting a player, you wouldn't be having this problem now.

bob

I still don't understand why the OP has a problem converting between
lossless formats There is *NO* loss in quality and is very easy to do
with the right software tools.

Time and effort is my only problem with converting formats, I have
everything in wmalossless and flac and was hoping to find a player that
does both. I want to avoid that and be able to play either format.

Also, it is not clear that he needs an
"audiophile" player for karaoke and dj purposes but he has a point in
needing lossless compression for voice cancellation.

The horns on a typical PA system make lossy MP3 files sound horrible
compared to CD's or lossless, also anything is going to sound smoother
going through an audiophile quality A/D converter and analog buffer.
And yes the center stage phase relationships (to remove vocals) are
completely destroyed by MP3 compression, but stay intact on my
wmalossless files.

I'm looking at the Windows Media Center portables which are not really
"players" but rather palm-sized copies of Windows where you can load
whatever codecs you may need yourself, and keep them up-to-date.
Because the codecs are software based not firmware based like a regular
MP3 player would be. For my use this looks like the best route for a
flexible lossless portable solution (short of bringing a laptop). And
it will also handle my midi files and probably even play Apple lossless
if I install that codec.

I'm also still wondering why Krell or other high-end companies have not
jumped on lossless with their own players. Looks like Apple will
dictate the music technology of the future, CD's will one day
disappear, and all consumer media will be lossy compressed, sad if that
happens, I know jazz artists now who would like to scrap CD's and sell
only MP3's online.


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