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Need help for choosing a (probably Rockbox-supported) player

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sargeborsch:
Yes, sometimes I run at max volume (sometimes when riding bicycle), but I have some headroom in most of the recordings (unless they have "unusually" high dynamic range) — I use ReplayGain normalization when encode music for portable device, and also reduce higher frequencies (EQ). My headphones are already pretty loud (Audio-technica ATH-M50), and I doubt there are any other headphones that are louder and at the same time have not worse sound quality (FR, distortion). And if the "quiet" tracks would require more dynamic compression to be heard in noisy conditions, this wouldn't be cool.

OK, if the numbers are meaningless, then how do I get an idea of how much "power" do they produce (relatively)? that is, which player can be louder when given the same recording.

>You'll basically never be able to get the noise floor low enough that quantization error matters, and if you did, we have noise shipping anyway

maybe you are right here.
if doing postprocessing and then encoding as WavPack hybrid, choosing 16 bit dithered vs 24 bit not dithered hurts compression efficiency a bit, but this is very tiny, maybe impossible to notice any difference by ears…

saratoga:

--- Quote from: sargeborsch on October 20, 2014, 02:55:54 PM ---Yes, sometimes I run at max volume (sometimes when riding bicycle), but I have some headroom in most of the recordings (unless they have "unusually" high dynamic range) — I use ReplayGain normalization when encode music for portable device, and also reduce higher frequencies (EQ). My headphones are already pretty loud (Audio-technica ATH-M50), and I doubt there are any other headphones that are louder and at the same time have not worse sound quality (FR, distortion). And if the "quiet" tracks would require more dynamic compression to be heard in noisy conditions, this wouldn't be cool.
--- End quote ---

You can actually go quite a lot louder than those headphones, or alternatively, use an external amp.  They're of moderate to low sensitivity, so the output voltage of a portable device may not drive them super loud. 


--- Quote from: sargeborsch on October 20, 2014, 02:55:54 PM ---OK, if the numbers are meaningless, then how do I get an idea of how much "power" do they produce (relatively)? that is, which player can be louder when given the same recording.

--- End quote ---

You'd compare the output impedance and full scale voltage and use that with the published sensitivity of your headphones to compute the SPL.  However, manufacturers rarely give this information out, so often it must be measured. 

Fortunately there is little difference in volume between most portable devices, with almost everything putting out about 0.4-0.7 Vrms. 


--- Quote from: sargeborsch on October 20, 2014, 02:55:54 PM ---if doing postprocessing and then encoding as WavPack hybrid, choosing 16 bit dithered vs 24 bit not dithered hurts compression efficiency a bit, but this is very tiny, maybe impossible to notice any difference by ears…

--- End quote ---

16 bit dithered compresses worse than 24 bit?   What are these files you're encoding?  Are they actually 24 bit?

sargeborsch:
>16 bit dithered compresses worse than 24 bit?   What are these files you're encoding?  Are they actually 24 bit?

Yes, they are (technically) even true 32 bit floating point, because they are output from several non-trivial DSPs (crossfeed, EQ, ReplayGain compensation), so even if the source is 16 bit, after processing it's not and cannot be losslessly stored as 16 bit.
If I wouldn't need to do this, then most of my music can be encoded as 16 bit without any drawbacks, because it's already 16 bit and thus no additional quantization/dithering would be needed.

About headphones. Maybe they are not the most sensitive, but they already can reveal various noises/hum in unchancy devices, such as laptops' on-board sound cards. (Or this is a different characteristic?) And, anyway, I don't want to change them. Carrying an external amp is too inconvenient, too. I hoped that it's not that hard to find a player which can deliver at least the same loudness as Cowon V5. But if it is hard, I'd better keep all components as they are… they do the job, just not very conveniently.

saratoga:

--- Quote from: sargeborsch on October 20, 2014, 04:28:23 PM --->16 bit dithered compresses worse than 24 bit?   What are these files you're encoding?  Are they actually 24 bit?

Yes, they are (technically) even true 32 bit floating point, because they are output from several non-trivial DSPs (crossfeed, EQ, ReplayGain compensation), so even if the source is 16 bit, after processing it's not and cannot be losslessly stored as 16 bit.

--- End quote ---

I suspected you were doing something like that if the 24 bit files compressed better.  If you're just taking 16 bit audio and upconverting it, I wouldn't do that.  For things like EQ/Replaygain/crossfeed you can just use rockbox anyway.

sargeborsch:
Well, my current player is not supported. That's why I'm asking for recommendations. :)

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