Victor alneo XA-V80-B

[Beorn]

Gotten myself one of these.. And I have yet to tested it out briefly on an ATH-ES7 and it was quite nice..

The unit has no looks. Display is kinda shite for the day and age of OLED's and even the ipod nano looks better than it.. but then again, it's meant for music.

One of the reasons I chose this replacement was the fact that it had gapless playback.

There're other features like High volume modes, sound enhancements, studio settings etc which I've yet to fully fiddle around with..

Price check..
http://kakaku.com/item/01308812201/
Item in question...
http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/audio_w/...v80/index.html

[CrowdAds]

[samueljesusfreak]

I like the gapless. Cowon, get over here! LOOK AT THIS! They pulled off gapless, now it's your turn!

[The DarkSide]

The SQ on this is supposed to be fantastic, as w/all the JVC players. Nice buy!!!

[Beorn]

Right.. Just a few moments ago, I've finally invested 1,3500 yen on a pair of ATH-A900's..

Sounded good when I tried it out on some sets at yodobashi's... Looks like I might be in for a portable amp next.

[a_tumiwa]

AnthonyFirst said he like this dap and the sound quality is good

[gcogger]

I like the nice big 'proper' buttons too If only it came in a 32GB version...

[The DarkSide]

Originally Posted by a_tumiwa

AnthonyFirst said he like this dap and the sound quality is good

AnthonyFirst? He's good people, very nice guy. He does really nice user reviews, very honest.

[Beorn]

Ok, the headphones are huge in comparison to the DAP.. got some comments from my colleagues here. The player has a function to enhance the volume.. guess that really comes in useful for this head-set..

Hmm, kinda a noob at this thing, but I seem to gather from all the reading that 40ohms is kinda low for this type of headset? From what I used to remember during classes, you generally need more power to drive higher impedances.. hence the portable amp requirement, but so far, what I have right now sounds good.

But then, I'm used to only low end senn mx-500 for my normal gym use..

[Beorn]

Hmm, see if I can get the upload bit to work.. Took this pic from my blackberry..

Bloody headphones are huge!

[The DarkSide]

Yup, they ARE huge!!!! My Sony XB700's are, sadly, even BIGGER. This isn't my picture, but you'll get the idea:

[dfkt]

Beorn, does the Alneo have verified gapless for all codecs, including MP3?

Does it have pan/balance?

[Beorn]

Whoa, those head phones are huge!! ... Hmm, wonder if I can find them off the shelve somewhere for a try..

As for formats, I believe it comes up short against the Korean/Chinese based players. I've lifted this off the site..

MP3（8kbps～320kbps、8kHz～48kHz、VBR）/WMA（8kbps～320kbps、8kHz～48kHz、VBR）/WMA-DRM10/WAV（16bit、リニアPCM）

I've almost everything in Mp3, with only a few flac files, but for me, the thing that bugged me the most with the Toshiba was the gaps. It really was a killer for me, so much so that when I lost my gigabeat, I went looking for alternatives, even an ipod.. And i waited till the cowon was released before I bought this even.. (hoping that cowon would do gapless)..

The sound settings are quite extensive. You can even custom your settings (there are some tuning functions and store them as presets) to suit the headphones that you have on. I only have 1 good head set though, but I'll give it a whirl anyways vs my mx-500's.

It also has a studio setting that you can turn on to dispense with all the need for any tweaking and use what they think is the best (re: my default).

So, gapless support for mp3's. Pan (if what you meant was fast-forward and rewind?).. Don't think there is balance as I didn't come across that function yet.

Pros - Gapless playback. Nice sounding DAP. Can drive quite a few bigger headsets (higher impedance) without a portable amp (has enhanced volume that you can turn on or off, studio setting has it on).. I've tried a few headphones before deciding on the ATH-A900's.. Will see if I can get my hands on a Sony test piece after work. Cheaper than a nano.

Cons - Looks cheap with that white ugly looking protective cover (everyone else has cooler looking DAP's). As with any none ipod DAP, it takes a while to get accessories. Video support is there, but I think next to useless with the screen res and size. Battery life isn't fantastic and is considered a weak point. 8 Gig of storage (Not a problem for me)..

I might hazard to say that it isn't an everyman player, but is specific to those that have a list of must have's.

- Good/Superlative Sound (relative)
- Gapless
- No sonicstage (Stupid Sony still peddles them in Japan, whereas in the rest of the world it's gone!) or any other crap interface software
- Some ability to drive higher impedance phones (as compared to your standard el-cheapo ear-buds)

[dfkt]

Originally Posted by Beorn

So, gapless support for mp3's. Pan (if what you meant was fast-forward and rewind?).. Don't think there is balance as I didn't come across that function yet.

Thanks for the reply. I meant left/right panning of the sound. Too bad it doesn't do that, same as most other players nowadays (except Cowon and Rockbox).

Ah well, I've had my eye on the Alneo series for some time, but without pan/balance it's useless to my "imbalanced" ears.

[Beorn]

Sorry to hear that.. just curious, what player do you think suits you the best? I guess other than my holy grail of getting a gapless player with relatively good sound, I've not thought/considered anything else..

[dfkt]

I care about good sound quality (which for me, besides a proper amp/dac section, includes a good EQ or sound enhancements like Cowon's BBE), pan/balance, file/folder browsing, MSC transfer mode, MP3/FLAC/Vorbis support, embedded album art, gapless playback, Last.FM scrobbling. Oh, and a standard mini-USB plug, nothing proprietary. A real line-out wouldn't hurt either.

I detest ID3 browsing, the MTP protocol, playlists, "syncing", proprietary codecs like WMA, and all that nonsense.

So far both Rockbox (on my Cowon X5 and Sansa Clip) and the Cowon D2 and S9 satisfied my needs partially, but the "perfect" player of course just doesn't exist...

Headamp might release their new Pico Slim amplifier soon, which might include a pan/balance control... that one would open a whole new world of audio players to me.

I still can't get over how stupid almost all MP3 player manufacturers are nowadays, ditching that most basic of all features, that most portable players up to ~2003 had - and of course all home Hi-Fi amps have it as well.

[Beorn]

Heh. I've long given up on looking for the best.. But just did the list on what means the most to me...

Hmm, Ditching the most basic of all features?... and that would be? Do you mean pan/balance?

[dfkt]

Yeah, pan/balance is the most basic feature after a volume control, in my opinion.

[Beorn]

Heh, never really used that at all even on any playback device I've owned for some reason.. always thought it was a bit of a waste..

Hmm, headphone out 20mW + 20mW (16ohm, JEITA/DC)..

.. Hmm, i wonder how they test out speaker outputs ...

[Beorn]

Hey.. I've just checked.. The profiles for setting up phones allow you to set left/right balances as well too!

Not the most ideal but at least you can store 2 profiles for 2 headsets of choice..

[The DarkSide]

Originally Posted by Beorn

Hey.. I've just checked.. The profiles for setting up phones allow you to set left/right balances as well too!

Not the most ideal but at least you can store 2 profiles for 2 headsets of choice..

That's pan/balance. The exact same thing dfkt was referring to.