Support and General Use > Audio Playback, Database and Playlists

Rockbox Audio Quality versus Original Firmware (RMAA comparison)

<< < (3/10) > >>

omendelovitz:
I agree, but I don't think Sennheiser has a veil.  In that case, let's suffice to say that RB sounds more like a concert hall or stadium in terms of soundstage width, and AOS sounds more like being on stage at a rock concert or small club.  Like I said earlier, the difference in sound is comparable to ABX'ing a creative Zen Vision M (line out) to the AOS (line out).  i.e. RB presents the soundstage the same as Creative does in the Zen Vision M.

'nuff said ;)

Febs:

--- Quote from: omendevolitz ---Like I said earlier, the difference in sound is comparable to ABX'ing a creative Zen Vision M (line out) to the AOS (line out).
--- End quote ---
omen, I would agree with you if your comparison had involved an ABX test.  I think that it would be *very* interesting to do an ABX test.


--- Quote from: breez ---Have you tried the stereo crosstalk test in RMAA and found any differences between firmwares?
--- End quote ---
I had RMMA run all of the available tests.  Give me a minute and I will post the saved RMAA files here.

Edit:  Here they are:

iriver headphone out, Rockbox
ipod, headphone out, Apple fw, mp3
iPod headphone out, Apple fw
iPod headphone out, Rockbox, mp3
iPod headphone out, Rockbox
iPod line out, Rockbox

You should be able to open these files in RMAA and view all of the results.

saratoga:

--- Quote from: omendelovitz on August 27, 2006, 10:35:05 AM ---Yeah, Febs I am.  I should Qualify last night's statement though.  Truthfully, using a VERY transparent Amp and High End Cans, I played my reference tunes through both RB and AOS, one after another (admittedly, with a pause = reboot time).  My new conclusions are:  RB makes iPod sound more like ZVM - wider soundstage (and almost by extension, better imaging - to much to explain and I'd probably mess it up, so I won't go there); otherwise, the two sound the same.  A proper analog for this scenario would be Grado sound vs. Sennheiser sound.  

Hope that helps.

--- End quote ---

Try an ABX test.  The stereo seperation between the two is virtually identical, so you shouldn't be hearing anything at all.  My guess is the delay between listening to the two samples and the placebo is effecting you.


--- Quote from: aegis ---I'm no engineer but these graphs look pretty the same and the tiny differences can be just statistically irrelevant so I would ask: how much are frequency response and dynamics just a question of hardware - quality of filters, circuits etc?

--- End quote ---

Its basically all hardware, at least for lossless tests.  You'll only see a difference if something is very wrong (like we did on the X5 a while back when it was accidently put in 22.05k sample rate instead of 44.1k).  Thats why the Rockbox and Apple firmwares perform the same for the WAV test.

The lossy tests are effected by the decoder.


--- Quote from: omendelovitz --- What other measures of sound output would one consider in assessing SQ?

--- End quote ---

Noise floor will tell you how bad the hiss on the system will be.  Frequency response will tell you how much EQ you'll need.  THD and IMD will tell you how much distortion there in the system.  Crosstalk tells you how well stereo works.  No one of them alone is more important then the rest, it just depends on what you need to know.

Also, be careful with the frequency response plot.  That is valid ONLY for something with the same load impedance as the test setup.  For a sound card, the impedance will be VERY high, while typical headphones are very low.  So if you want to test frequency response as you'll hear it, you should test with your specific headphones in parallel with the sound card (doing this on the ipod gives surprisingly different results with

omendelovitz:
If anyone is in the Toronto, Canada area and has a 5G ipod they want to loan me and/or come test with me, I'd be glad to ABX.  As it stands right now, I don't have that kind of equipment.  I'd love to try this option as well.

saratoga:

--- Quote from: omendelovitz on August 27, 2006, 02:00:02 PM ---If anyone is in the Toronto, Canada area and has a 5G ipod they want to loan me and/or come test with me, I'd be glad to ABX.  As it stands right now, I don't have that kind of equipment.  I'd love to try this option as well.

--- End quote ---

If you don't have an Ipod, how did you manage to do the previous test?

Edit:  Do you mean you want two ipods to do an ABX test?  Thats not needed, or even a good idea.  Just record the output of the firmwares using your sound card.  Then load them up in any wave editor and make sure to clip the wavs so they start and end on exactly the same point in the song.  FInally, load into any ABX program (foobar w/ ABX plugin, winabx, HR/ABC, etc).  Since the output appears to be identical, you should get essentially identical recordings.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page