The player’s user interface can influence what you can and can’t do on the player (such as searches) and how easily you can perform certain tasks (such as creating playlists). Other players have proprietary user interfaces with a touchscreen, a click wheel, or navigation buttons. Some players are based on the Android operating system and will be very familiar to Android smartphone users. User interface: Aside from physical characteristics, differences between user interfaces can be dramatic, and they can make or break your overall experience. WMAL (WMA Lossless) a lossless codec commonly used by Windows devices.WMA (Windows Media Audio) A lossy codec commonly used by Windows devices.Ogg-Vorbis A lossy codec that is popular, but less common than MP3.MP3 (MPEG audio layer 3) A very common lossy codec.MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) A digital audio file format that applies a digital fingerprint to a file to guarantee it was sourced from the original master recording.FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) A common free lossless codec.DSD (Direct Stream Digital) A high-resolution codec that originated with SACD (Super Audio CD).AptX Adaptive A near-CD-quality audio codec supported by some Bluetooth devices.APE A free and very efficient lossless codec from Monkey’s Audio.ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) Commonly used by iOS devices.AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) A lossy codec commonly used by iOS devices and at the iTunes store).These are the most common audio codecs you’ll encounter (in alphabetical order): We recommend that you look for a player that supports, at a minimum, ALAC, DSD, and FLAC files since those are the most common codecs that high-resolution download sites use. You need lossless, high-res music files to take full advantage of a high-res DAP. On a side note, my brother who has the Gateway laptop, has an ipod, and he says it sounds considerably better using the data plug on the bottom with a docking station, and then hooking the docking station up to the amplifier using IT'S headphone connection.Audio codec support: This spec is important. Using headphones, or hooking it up to the amplifier, there is no hum. To somewhat compensate, I added a 3db boost at 16khz (using winamps' eq) and truly, I'm amazed how good it sounds. The CD won out, but only very marginally. I can honestly say I've never heard a better sounding laptop with no external DAC than this one. I got the two sources synced up, and switched back and forth between laptop and CD. Compared to my laptop, it's not bad, but the laptop is far superior.Īs an experiment, I ripped a cd into flac, and played the files while also playing the CD through my Yamaha CD player. ![]() ![]() My brother has a Gateway, and playing the same lossless source, using the same program and into the same amplifier, it just sounds flat and lacks mids and treble. ![]() ![]() I've got a Sony Vaio, and it sounds pretty amazing through just the headphone out plug. Maybe it's just got too-many bells and whistles (like the way iTunes and Winamp are when it comes to ripping.). I guess Dell's mp3-players were among the exceptions because I've heard some negative comments about iPods regarding sound-quality. I would still have thought that the overall sound from a computer would have been better than a battery-powered portable. My brother has 4 or 5 of them, and even his first-generation one from like 12 years ago is still working). I was just curious about the PC/laptop sound-quality (on it's own, plugged into the headphone-out) vs the sound you get from various mp3-players and iPod-type devices (My DJ has the same drive that's used in one of the expensive portable media-players - I just can't remember which one - I have yet to hear of someone's Dell DJ breaking down. That's why I bought the external DAC, because I DO understand that the stock, internal soundcards in most PC's/laptops aren't very-good, not to mention the fact that most PC/laptop power-supplies are not audio-friendly and cloud up the audio-signal with nasty ground-loop noise (My laptop doesn't have a digital-audio-out aside from the USB-port, which is why I had to get an external USB-compatible DAC).
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