Another silly/amusing "high end" MP3 player: Colorfly

[dfkt]

Off-topic posts moved here: http://anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57154

[CrowdAds]

[The DarkSide]

If I was interested in this I don't see why I can't love the Cowon X7!!!

[The Larch]

Headfonia has a review. Take the review with a grain of salt, the guy is a hifiman lover.

[dfkt]

"A grain of salt" is too subtle to be regular trolling. That Headfonia nutjob is just insane.

Then again, the Colorfly at least uses proper modern high quality parts, it's not some dumpster diving experiment like the Hifimen/persons.

[The Larch]

He does take some nice photos.

[james444]

German Audio magazine has a short review here: 3MB PDF

Yet it too doesn't inspire much confidence: they picture a pristine FR-graph of the iPod Touch (!) at 32Ω, while stating in the subsequent paragraph that the Colorfly has bass rolloff below 100Hz with 32Ω phones.

[dfkt]

Wait, what? They show a linear frequency response graph (iPod or Colorfly? No idea.), which of course is fine - anything they write makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Wow, that "review" is even more pathetic than CNET reviewing an MP3 player... or Headfonia.

Needless to say that 24/192 is complete nonsense - I dare anyone to ABX even some 24/96 tracks I properly downsampled to 16/44.1.

[james444]

^ Yep, if you zoom in on that frequency response graph you can read the title: "Apple_IpodTouch4G_f". Pathetic indeed.

[esanthosh]

Faultless laser engraved logo, but slow response and "Play error" with WAV files . His photos are always nice though.

I can't hear any difference between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC. 24/192? Pass.

I did buy a iPod Touch 3G recently just out of curiosity. Nice Wi-fi, great touch interface, lot of apps, but my ears are happier with Sansas and S9 more - "flat FR" not withstanding.

[EddieE]

There is a pretty interesting thread on headfi which posits that there should be no difference between 16bit and 24bit FLAC anyway. It makes perfect sense as well that, scientifically and logically, it is a fallacy.

I've actually found that through a computer rig and good heapdhones I can hear a difference in the treble definitely between high quality (LAME 320 or VBF) MP3 and FLAC, but I really cannot tell any difference between 320 and LAME VBR. The treble is slightly duller on the MP3s than FLAC. It's an extremely subtle difference.

I can past a blind test (not very scientifically done with my friend going between files with my back turned) pretty much every time.

Is it a difference in quality? It's a difference is all I can say, I certainly don't enjoy the mp3s any less than the FLAC and doubt if you played me just one and said "FLAC or MP3?" I would know. But play me one and then the other of the same track and I can get it right.

[skip252]

There's a better way to test. It won't inconvenience your friends either. Get a copy of foobar2000 and the ABX comparator component. Then perform some ABX testing. It takes away all the guessing.

Most people that say can reliably hear the difference between even a well encoded - v2.mp3 and FLAC are fooling themselves. At that high a bitrate any decent encoder should be transparent. It's a good way to find out what's transparent for you. That may be a higher or lower bitrate than what you think but at least you'll know for sure.

[The DarkSide]

I'm not deaf, but I can't tell the difference over 192kbps - with ANYTHING!!! Well, WMA sounds like shit anyways, but LAME VBR and AAC are fine for my tastes.

[dfkt]

Originally Posted by EddieE

There is a pretty interesting thread on headfi which posits that there should be no difference between 16bit and 24bit FLAC anyway. It makes perfect sense as well that, scientifically and logically, it is a fallacy.

That's absolutely right. SACD and DVD-A are a 100% scam, and so are consumer grade products that promote "HD" audio. 24/96 is important for professional audio editing, but completely irrelevant for a home listening setup. Care to link me to that Head-Fi thread?

I've posted something similar here, just a few days ago, in response to some drive-by troll: http://anythingbutipod.com/forum/sho...43&postcount=9

[EddieE]

Sure, very lazy of me not to! Here it is.

Skip, I have Foobar2k and did download that before but can't work out how to use it. How do you access it?

[dfkt]

Load the same track as FLAC and MP3 (or whatever) into Foobar, highlight both, right-click them, utilities > ABX.

[skip252]

If you have the latest 1.1.1 installed either full or portably look in the Preferences menu. Under Components+> Install... Just navigate to where you have the unzipped ABX component. fooby2k should take care of the rest. dfkt's instructions are how you actually use it.

One of the things I had a bit of trouble with at first was the GUI of the Comparator. You're testing tunes that are so close it's easy to be unsure of the results. So I used two different songs until I was able to get 100%. Actually took me three tries. After that the rest is easy.

[EddieE]

Well that was an eye opener. I was completely wrong I can't tell the difference at all. All I can conclude is on some very subtle level my friend was giving me a hint and neither of us realised it. We have known each other for some 14 years or so now so probably read each other pretty well. It's the only explanation that makes any sense.

[dfkt]

Three cheers for you, taking the test.

BTW, this (horrible) example was the only time so far that I could positively ABX a FLAC vs. a LAME -v0: http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...7&postcount=14

[inthemist]

i have a lot of 24/96becuase my freind is a producer .there way to big for me i realy cant tell the difference between it and 192 mp3

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by inthemist

i have a lot of 24/96becuase my freind is a producer .there way to big for me i realy cant tell the difference between it and 192 mp3

I've seen those 24/96 albums online....1GB for one album sometimes....that's just silly IMO.

If I have a FLAC, then I convert to V2 or V0.... that's good enough for me on a portable player.