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Old 10-25-2007, 03:42 PM   #12
mocelet
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mocelet began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 56
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Device: iLiad / Palm Vx / Nokia E65
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
What are you playing your downloaded music on? I have a pair of extremely good headphones (Bose "QuietComfort 2" noise cancelling headphones) and, using those on my iPod, I honestly can't tell the difference between 320kbit MP3 files and the CD original. I can if I use my superb HiFi system (which is why I buy CDs) but for "music on the go" there's nothing wrong with high bit-rate MP3s.
Are the QC2s really that good? I have heard that they introduce all sorts of effects into the sound due to the Noise Cancelling. I have a pair of Sennheiser PXC200 noise cancellers, and while they are great on a plane or in a noisy room, in a quiet room they make a horrible mess of the sound.

I now use a pair of Shure E4 canalphones with the foam tips and they block out as much background noise as the PXC200s (or the QC2s) but without the electronics between me and the music so it sounds great in a quiet room too.

As for a player I still have a Rio Karma. Lovely device from the folks at Denon & Marantz (who know a little bit about audio). MP3, OGG and Flac supported natively, 5 band parametric EQ, 55mW per channel for high impedence headphones, and a real on the go playlist editor that lets you load, edit and save playlists on the device. Only 20GB though, and the hard disks tend to fail, and replacements are getting rare. That said people are fitting CF cards to them now, so a 32GB CF card will be a nice upgrade once I can afford one...
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