Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems MP3: Lossy vs. Lossless

I agree, it's the hard drive spinning up and reading that takes the battery life.

For MP3 players, I mean portable players, they all have more or less, average preamp, not audiophile design and so on. Using the iPod classic, I attest that the sound is adequate for a portable player, but it's not audiophile, so why use lossless with that?
Are there audiophile portable players out there?
The iPod before the classic had laughable preamp, noisy and crappy...
The classic is only decent, I don't know about the newer ones though.

I use a 20GB iRiver portable player with an optical digital output into an external DAC and headphone amp, thereby bypassing the (marginally better than) average internal amp and DAC. This does make it somewhat less portable, but for relatively quiet environments such as offices, the improved sound quality over the internal components is definitely noticeable (as are the differences between lossy and lossless tracks).

I use Apple lossless on the main system and exactly the same on the iPod. I wanted the best sound quality for both, and didn't want the inconvenience of maintaining two libraries.

The 30Gb 5.5 gen iPod I own will give around 4-5 hours of playback using shuffle, and longer if it's running through complete albums. I don't need it to run for any longer than that, so it works for me.

Cheers

George

Edit: the portable which was regarded as an audiophile machine was the Cowon iAudio M5. It has now been superceded, but I don't know which model in the current line up replaced it. Certainly sounded better than my iPod, but the interface was a bit clunky. It would however play FLAC files if that was your preference.

Can iPods play FLAC?

Nope, which will be abhorent to many!

I listened extensively to FLAC vs Apple Lossless a few years back, and as both sounded identical to me (with both sounding inferior to WAVs), ease of use won the day (metadata, artwork, and working across several devices) so I bought an iPod and ran with iTunes.

Cheers

George

EDIT: There are hack programmes which offer a replacement OS on the iPod which do play FLAC. However, the GUI is pot ugly and you lose all that nice integration!

Like a Microsoft product then.....

Thanks everyone for your contribution, I hope that I interpreted some posters correctly to tally:

Lossy: 6
Ian, Mr_Sukebe, VK, crion, Steve, 1337

Lossless: 3
Ronnie, t42, Mr. Meridian

I appreciate that my situation is a bit different in that I by necessity do some critical listening with my portable player, but I am still surprised that amongst Hikers who spend a fortune on their home kit, 67% compromise for negligible cost saving on their portable.

To answer the specific comments to me:
- Ian, I do find WMA lossless better sound than MP3 lossy. That is all that I have compared. Thanks for the suggestions. I am presently using a process similar to your suggestion but am having lots of metadata issues. I am presently upgrading my gear to a NAS drive rather than using my computer before I tackle the metadata issue. The cost here is so cheap compared to Meridian that I am tackling the hardware before the software.

- Ronnie, Thank you, you made my arguement much better than I did. My main earhone use is the Shure E530 partly because they cut out ambient so well and also because I find the bass surprisingly good. In spite of everyone's critiques on another thread, I also like my Shure HD650's if I need to hear my wife in the background. My wife uses the Etymotic ER-6i for her audio books listening as they fit right in her ears and we have 4 sets of Sennheiser PX100's laying around our 2 main abodes for quick easy accessibility. Your point on cost of players is well taken. We have 3 with additional 16GB chips. I await the day that I can combine my phone with a GPS and all my music in one neat package.

t42, I had dismissed the idea of external DAC's or amps as too compromising on my need for portability, but after your comments I am reconsidering...

iPods can play FLAC, but you need to hack them first. Not sure I want to do that as I can't see the tube being the quietest of places to be able to discern the difference.

FYI, the reason for me using MP3 as against AppleLossless is simply space. I have a three year old iPod with only 30GB of space. My full music collection in FLAC is nearly 400GB. Even compressed into MP3 my music collection is nearly 50GB, and I really do find it a pain to keep moving songs on or off the iPod.

[quote=Mr_SukebeFYI, the reason for me using MP3 as against AppleLossless is simply space. I have a three year old iPod with only 30GB of space. My full music collection in FLAC is nearly 400GB. Even compressed into MP3 my music collection is nearly 50GB, and I really do find it a pain to keep moving songs on or off the iPod. [/quote]

I do understand this. My solution of 3 players with auxiliary chips is not ideal. But I think that will come out in the wash with the inevitable increase in storage with a decrease in price. What I find surprising is that the majority (my interpretation) of Hikers find lossy good enough for portable use. If the audiophiles are not demanding higher quality portable music (ie lossless) there is not much pressure on manufacturers to provide it.

Ditto, I have a phone with "only" 16GB storage. I tend not to listen to music on the move; I'm much more of a daydreamer.