Good portable music. Are there any options out there?

[Linnofil]

I received the sensa and K24p and boy do they sound good together. ---

Linnofil have you compared wma9 with other encoders and what do you think ---

intek for 75GBP - linn kans - took them into my hairdressers
and hooked them up to the sensa now the shop rocks big time! everyone seems happy at work now! ---

I hooked the sensa up with linn blacks and a wee adapter from Maplins is there any other cable out there

Great to hear from another satisfied Sansa/K24P customer! :D I think that what you have done is one of the best ways to use a Sansa. The problem with setting up any budget system is that the source is usually very (to) expensive. Even in what is supposed to be a budget system. I think that the Sansa M series is the best source choice for a sub £3-400 system. No CD player that fits the budget for such a system is likely to be better than the Sansa.

It is great that your hairdresser can enjoy good music all day! Getting a haircut these days is really expensive. But I couldn't imagine that it would be profitable to give away a Linnsystem just to get free haircuts! :shock:

As mentioned earlier in this thread, I have had most success with Windows Media Player 9. Making files with the highest possible bitrate, 192kb/s. (Always "max-out" the bitrate!) I have tried some other encoders, but none with better results. (Worse, even when using the windows WMA codec!) I lost interest quickly since none of the free encoders I could find was better. I can't even remember the names of them. The results when playing wav files is slightly better, but the difference is not big enough to motivate the space disadvantages. (Not all Sansas work with wav files.)

Personally I have not tried anything that has bettered a simple small adapter, 3.5 mm to RCA female, (made by myself 15 years ago) with standard Linn Black. All the finished 3.5 to RCA cables I have tried have been worse. One day I'll make my own Linn Black with 3.5 mm in one end!

If you live in the UK, as I suspect, you might find this thread interesting: http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/sh ... php?t=3206
I certainly did, and I now have a pretty decent tuner in my Sansas. I went from firmware version 2.2.3E to 2.2.5A on my two M250's and my wife's M230. It's a FREE tuner! :P

[Lego]

Thanks for that Linnofil i think you misunderstood me its my own hairdressing business;so work is even more enjoyable. :D .Dug out my old walkman pro and old naim snaps power supply which was configured to power the pro;forgot how good that combo sounded although have not compared it with Maplin batteries yet(another story),then i went on e-bay to get some cheap metal tapes!!?? What was i thinking! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TDK-MA-XG-90-Meta ... dZViewItem
Let me think about that one!? Anyway I manged to get some cheap SA from Richer sounds so all is now cool with lp12 recordings in the shop.
Last week while out and about with the K24ps my rechargeable batteries died on me so i popped into maplins and bought their own brand ones.i dont know if it was my imagination but it sounded as if my sansas had been upgraded with a Lingo; i dont intend to throw out batteries ad finitum so I'll be sticking with the rechargeables

[ThomasOK]

Seeing as we're getting back into the realm of cassettes here I thought I would share some additional findings. When I was regularly using my WM-D6C Pro Walkman I decided to spend some time investigating tapes. I reasoned that since the industry was often wrong about what was best I had no reason to believe accepted ideas on what were the best tapes. After all Dolby noise reduction was promoted as the wonder circuit for tape recording yet it made them sound substantially worse. And Dolby C was even worse than Dolby B. So I bought samples of about every decent tape I could get and did A/B comparisons of them all to find out what was best. I was quite surprised by the results. The worst tapes were the High Bias which were the most popular and the best tapes were the Standard Bias which were generally considered to be the least desirable. Metal tapes were in the middle, better than High Bias but poorer than Standard.

Within all the tapes I tried the best were the Premium Standard Bias from TDK and Maxell with TDK AR being the best I found and Maxell XL1 being not far behind. I think a Sony tape came in third but I'd have to find my notes to be sure. I remember mentioning my findings to a friend of mine who worked for another Linn dealer and he said he hadn't tried a bunch of A/Bs but he used TDK AR as well as it was the best he had heard. Unfortunately none of these tapes are still made but there are still some normal bias tapes that are quite decent and still better than the other types. My current recommendation is Maxell UR which is still readily available and is inexpensive.

It would be interesting to see if anyone else has had similar experiences.

[lejonklou]

Tune Method applied to cassette tapes - great work, Thomas! Funny I never thought of that back in the days when I used cassettes extensively. I do remember using TDK AR, but I had even more SA.

I do remember that when I got my first LP12 and started recording cassettes with an expensive TEAC deck, I found that Dolby B and C sounded absolutely dreadful musically. The tape hiss was lowered but the rhythm and tunefulness was destroyed at the same time.

A question: Do the cassettes from this period get bad with age? I don't mean the recording on them, which does slowly deteriorate, but rather if one was to make a new recording on the old AR's now.

[lejonklou]

i dont know if it was my imagination but it sounded as if my sansas had been upgraded with a Lingo

If you are comparing standard batteries with rechargeables, it doesn't sound all that strange. Your results could come from the fact that standard (and alkaline) batteries have a voltage of 1.5V compared to only 1.2V for rechargeables.

I know that some battery freaks even compare different non-rechargeable types and one opinion that I have come across is that the older non-alkaline type sounds the best of all. Don't know if there is any truth in that, but a disadvantage is that they don't last as long and the voltage falls more gradually from 1.5V to zero.

[ThomasOK]

A question: Do the cassettes from this period get bad with age? I don't mean the recording on them, which does slowly deteriorate, but rather if one was to make a new recording on the old AR's now.

I know that some tapes deteriorate over time but I don't know how much it happens with different tapes. Studios that want to use 30+ year old master tapes have to bake them first! Otherwise the binder that holds the oxides to the tape base don't work and the oxides are shredded off the tape while it is played. A customer of mine messed up an expensive tape machine when an old master tape he had gotten shed its oxides and gummed up the heads.

I haven't heard of this being a problem with cassette tapes and mine are more like 20 rather than 30+ years old. I have used some of my older tapes recently and I haven't seen a problem. As to any change in sonic quality of blank tapes as a result of aging, I am not aware of any. But I haven't tried to do a comparison recently to see how an older AR would compare to a fresh UR - it would be an interesting test.

I do remember that when I got my first LP12 and started recording cassettes with an expensive TEAC deck, I found that Dolby B and C sounded absolutely dreadful musically. The tape hiss was lowered but the rhythm and tunefulness was destroyed at the same time.

I once had a representative (I believe it was from Nakamichi) explaining the workings of cassette decks to a group of us salespeople. He explained that Dolby B worked by boosting lower level high frequencies during recording and cuting them back after playback and this reduced the tape hiss. So if the highs were at -5dB they wouldn't get boosted but at -20dB they might get boosted 5dB and at -35dB and below they would be boosted 10dB. Then on playback the same frequencies would be cut by the same amount reducing tape hiss by 10dB.

When I heard this I wondered how the Dolby circuit could tell the difference between signals that had been boosted and ones that hadn't when it went to expand them back. I asked this question and was told that they just ran the signal through the same circuit backwards and that took care of it. Somehow this never seemed a satisfactory answer so I wasn't surprised when I started listening to the effects of Dolby NR and found that it really screwed up the music. And the more powerful the noise reduction the more it screwed things up.

[lejonklou]

When I heard this I wondered how the Dolby circuit could tell the difference between signals that had been boosted and ones that hadn't when it went to expand them back.

I am familiar with all the major noise reduction systems and your description of Dolby B/C is correct.

There is no problem in the conversion back if only the signal is unchanged between "after encoding Dolby" and "before decoding Dolby". I suspect you are doing some kind of logical mistake when you say "tell the difference between signals..." as all sounds go through the compression. There is nothing to tell apart.

Technically speaking, I would say the problems with Dolby noise reduction comes from 2 things: The first is that you have a recording, storage and retreival from tape between the Dolby encoding and decoding. Any detrimental effect those 3 stages have on the musical signal will be multiplied by the Dolby circuits: If a signal at -10 dB incorrectly becomes -11 dB after it is put on tape, the Dolby playback expansion will take the -11 dB down to -25 dB instead of the correct from -10 dB to -20 dB. (All numbers are purely fictional here).

The second problem is that the circuits in themselves don't seem to sound very good. If you connect a Dolby encoder directly to a Dolby decoder you will most likely hear a very noticeable reduction of sound quality when you send music through it compared to listening without it.

[ThomasOK]

We are on the same page here. As you note even very small changes caused by the recording process between the two Dolby stages will cause substantial problems. And I agree that the circuits themselves are not very musical. My additional question has to do with the expander's ability to properly decode the signal. Since this compression/decompression is non-linear, I believe the decoding process is unlikely to be able to properly discriminate the levels accurately enough to do a proper job. If you look at Dolby's data you will see that a -20dB signal is compressed 4dB while a -25dB signal is compressed by 8dB. This means that what was originally a 5dB range is now reduced to 2dB. It seems to me that unless the circuits are extroardinarily precise (unlikely in a simple chip implementation) the decoder would be unlikely to get the expansion to properly match the compression. In other words, when it sees a -17dB signal is the circuit really able to tell whether it should be expanded by 5dB instead of 6dB or 7dB? Add to this the sliding hinge point for where the compression starts and you certainly have a recipe for disaster.

Of course, all this is theoretical mental exercising. The fact that is important is that it sounds horrible and should therefore be avoided regardless of why it sounds horrible.

[Linnofil]

I have been recommending the Sandisk Sansa M250, 2 GB player as the best portable MP3 player I have ever heard. However I must now issue a warning for this worthless and useless player! :twisted:

What? :?:

Well, I recently bought a pair of M250 players as a backup if the other ones where lost or broken. I bought two players for less than $100. I thought that was pretty good value for money. But I was wrong! The newer players are of a different HW and SW generation and they sound just like all the other players out there... Total crap! (Mine was 4.x.) If you want to buy a Sandisk Sansa, make sure it has firmware starting with 2 (indicates HW generation). The FW version can be found under "Information" in the main menu.

Apparently the M260 player with 4 Gb memory was only sold on the 2.x HW platform. So if you want to be sure of good sound and the seller can't look up the firmware for you, go for a M260, it should be a safe bet.

Do not buy a 4.x player! :evil: It sounds bad and it has SW bugs as well.
(See: http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/sh ... php?t=6933 )

[Lego]

You're correct linnofil I lost mine and the new one sounds terrible,I must admit the first difference I noticed was that it had a higher ouput thru the linn compared to the old version.I wasn't initially enamored by the player but I thought it was just the particular cds i had ripped in,tho for 2 weeks it had just sat on top of the piano,that should have been a sign that all was not well;No wonder it only cost me 12GBP.Hope my old one shows up.I've gone back to my old 40Gb iriver ihp140 which sounds OK, but good fun when I use its 'line in' to record vinyl from the lp12 ekos akiva in WAV of course.The recording level firmware isnt great so I turn the level up to max and feed the signal thru the walkmanPro using its levels,then it really rocks.
Haven't made my mind up whether recording from the Lintos output is better than the kairns tape out.Any thoughts gentlemen?

Lego

[mazganistan]

SanDisk Sansa e280 8 GB MP3 Player - any words on this one?

Thanks in advance!

[doze84]

It's been a year since last post, so i wounder if anyone has found a better player than Sandisk Sansa m250 HW 2.x.x/m260 or the sandisk sansa clip , which i think were rated second best??
Anyone compared with e280??

[Linnofil]

I have now done some further testing, by my own and with Stefan on the Swedish Linn Forum. At first I bought the Sandisk Sansa Clip 8 Gb. I had heard good things about it and was curious about it's performance and FLAC support. Sadly the Clip was not better than my old Sansa M250 and the FLAC support was not really worth anything since 320 kbit/s MP3's made from the same FLAC files sounded as good. The tuner was worse as well. But it was pretty good at playing MP3's. It's very light, has a nice display, good features (over the M250) and comes with a built in battery. But since it was not an improvement over the old Sansa M250 Gen 2.x, I ended up selling it.

A few days ago me and Stefan met at our Dealer Tonlaget for testing MP3 players. (And headphones, he ordered AKG K420 the same evening!) M250 won over Sansa Clip earlier and now we tested the Sansa Fuze against the M250 and again the old M250 came out on top. From memory I would say that Clip and Fuze sound similar when playing MP3's. I would still recommend the Fuze over the Clip. Not much more expensive and with more features (video, microSD/SDHC support, colour display etc.), better tuner (not good at all on Clip) and possibly better music with FLAC files. (According to Stefan FLAC is better than MP3 on the Fuze, but I've not tested this myself.)

So if a Sony WM-D6C is not your thing, the Sandisk Sansa Fuze driving a pair of AKG K420 is probably the best portable system available for purchase right now. If used as a source, don't forget to turn up to max volume for best quality.

[Komri]

Many thanks Linnofil for your effort.

I just ordered a Sandisk Sansa Fuze 8 GB and a pair of AKG K420!

:D

[Linnofil]

I just ordered a Sandisk Sansa Fuze 8 GB and a pair of AKG K420!

Interesting! Please let us know how you like the combination. It's not a Linn source or like a tape recorded with LP12, but it's pretty good for MP3/Digital. Much better than most standard CD players. (I.e. non-audiophile players.)

[Lego]

Managed to get an old used sansa m260 for £3 on ebay it says version 2.2. 5A it comes with an FM radio..it sounds fabulous ..now I can forget about my lost one..me thinks I accidentally threw it out ..next purchase is the new headphones and a safe!

[lejonklou]

Great Lego! I was looking for one of those myself last year. Seem to be a rare find, because I never saw one.

With a pair of AKG 420's, you might have the best sounding portable file playing system that is possible to have! Until Linnofil makes the next discovery, that is... :)

[Lego]

I found this but not sure ..you takes your chance....

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sandisk-Sansa-m260- ... 94:50#shId

[Linnofil]

Managed to get an old used sansa m260 for £3 on ebay it says version 2.2. 5A it comes with an FM radio..it sounds fabulous

Great news! I want a M260 for £3 to... :D

Are you going to get pair of AKG 420's?

[Lego]

Managed to get an old used sansa m260 for £3 on ebay it says version 2.2. 5A it comes with an FM radio..it sounds fabulous

Great news! I want a M260 for £3 to... :D

Are you going to get pair of AKG 420's?

Yes you bet, my kids wrecked my old pair ..keep the tips coming Linnofil loved the tip about listening to your music files from the RAM

[Linnofil]

keep the tips coming Linnofil loved the tip about listening to your music files from the RAM

Did someone actually try this? I thought it was to weird for most people to try. ;) But it does work. How are you using this in your daily life? Just for occasional testing or for actual listening? It really is an interesting difference. Yet no one is talking about this. (I have seen nothing about this on the web.) I told your "£3 story" about the M260 to my brother who has a M240 v. 3.2A and after testing my M250 v. 2.5A he really wants a M260 to!

Are you using the M260 as source now to your work system, or the WM-D6C with LP12 recorded tapes? I think I need to fly Ryanair to Glasgow for my next haircut! :mrgreen:

[k_numigl]

i'm residing at 75 deg N at sea, so connection is unstable and i keep my
sentences short.
my recommendation: get you a rme fireface 400, record your lps
with 192 kHz (!), have beautiful sound abroad. (needs notebook, of
course). grado sr80 headphone, fini. the price and size of the fireface is
comparable to the sony walkman pro (which i owned happily for a
long time).
cheers, klaus