This may be a dumb question, but is it possible to get truly good sound from a
portable CD player? What about MP3 portables?

My home system is by no means high-end: Rotel RCD555 CD player, Arison Icon
turntable, Rotel pre- and power amp, B+W DW100 speakers. It's old and it was
never impressive, but I like it. It does a pretty good job of reproducing real
sound.

I can't say the same for either of the two portable CD players I own. Nor the
brick-sized Sony Walkman Professional (!) tape player. When I'm listening to
these devices in noisy public places the sound quality doesn't really matter.
But sometimes I'm not, and it does.

Are MP3 players worth investigating? Probably I'm behind the times, but the
idea of digitally compressed music doesn't sound particularly promising to me.

--Paul

Paul,

Paulfxfoley wrote:

This may be a dumb question, but is it possible to get truly good sound from a
portable CD player? What about MP3 portables?


Yes.

You might want to check out the Apple iPod equipment report in the
October 2003 Stereophile magazine. Wes Phillips and John Atkinson
both have nice things to say about this portable music device (e.g.,
performance "better than most CD players", sound "worthy of some
serious consideration by an audiophile", AIFF encoded sound
"completely indistinguishable from the original CD"). Actually, this
article is already out of date - the 30GB version now goes for $399
(vice $499) and the high end of the iPod product line at $499 is now
occupied by the 40GB version. The 40GB unit provides enough portable
storage space for over 60 CD-quality albums in uncompressed AIFF
format (and over 4 times that amount using 320kbps MP3 or ACC
compression). One could build a decent stereo system around the iPod.

FWIW, one rumor currently circulating is that Apple will be
introducing an iPod with analog recording capability sometime in the
near future. Now that would make it an even more attractive package.

Best regards,

Terry

BTW, anyone remember the Radio Shack CD3400 portable CD player? It
also got good reviews as a basic good-sounding portable (plus a number
of suggested power supply and other mods to improve it still further).

(Paulfxfoley) wrote in message ...
This may be a dumb question, but is it possible to get truly good sound from a
portable CD player? What about MP3 portables?


I haven't heard the iPod device but I do own the Archos 20G portable
MP3 player. When I travel, I take it along and I listen to it with
either a pair of Sennheiser HDC 451's or (if I've got a base camp
somewhere) Cambridge Soundworks's Model 12 transportable speaker
system. I also just bought a little FM transmitter from Radio Shack
so I can listen to the Archos device in my car. I use the MusicMatch
jukebox to record MP3s at (I think) 320 bits/s. The sound quality I
get is very good but as far I'm concerned, it's no where near
cd quality. The dynamic range just isn't there. You can hear the
difference immediately. That being said, I still love my Archos box.
It's made travelling a lot more fun. I listen to a little bit of everything
so having the MusicMatch jukebox on my computer helps me keep it
all organized and I enjoy putting together different song lists for
different moods or situations. The Archos box is great for parties.
I hook it up to my home stereo and I can set it to play hours of
what ever type of music I think my friends might like to hear. I
wouldn't sit down myself and listen to the Archos box when I'm at
home, but in situations where you might want to turn on the radio,
it's like having several perfect radio stations available.

Aldo Pignotti wrote:
(Paulfxfoley) wrote in message ...

This may be a dumb question, but is it possible to get truly good sound from a
portable CD player? What about MP3 portables?



I haven't heard the iPod device but I do own the Archos 20G portable
MP3 player. When I travel, I take it along and I listen to it with
either a pair of Sennheiser HDC 451's or (if I've got a base camp
somewhere) Cambridge Soundworks's Model 12 transportable speaker
system. I also just bought a little FM transmitter from Radio Shack
so I can listen to the Archos device in my car. I use the MusicMatch
jukebox to record MP3s at (I think) 320 bits/s. The sound quality I
get is very good but as far I'm concerned, it's no where near
cd quality. The dynamic range just isn't there.

Ah. It's the encoder. MMJB has a pathetic encoder in the standard distro.

I would recommend a recent version of LAME and set the settings to
dual channel stereo, maximum quality, and VBR 0(roughly 320 bits/second).
The sound should be much better.(it's free and makes a nice improvement)

Next, the FM transmitter is killing your sound. Badly. FM is by
definition compressed to worse than good tape *and* has a pretty
definite 15-16khz top-end. Also, it has hash and RF interference
from the car's electronics like a typical analog cellphone - though
usually you won't notice it unless you turn it way up when there
is a silent part in the music. Still it all adds up to a flat sound
compared to CDs.

I would recommend just getting a good MP3/CD player for the car
and skip the intermediate components in the chain.