Uh, what kind of proof are you looking for? Should I put a mic up to my earbuds and post the recording?
The Inc's low-quality DAC is pretty common knowledge as far as I'm aware, to the point that I've seen a number of discussions that take it for granted. (Incidentally, the consensus seems to be that the Galaxy S1 series has the highest-quality DACs in Android phones right now, but the stock drivers are garbage; apparently people have had good results by rooting and installing custom drivers.)
No, but some links to some common threads about this would be nice. I've been researching the Dinc long before I bought one, and I never saw anything about poor audio fidelity via the headphone jack. Your post in this thread is the first I've heard of it.
Like I said, this isn't a huge issue, especially if it's not something you (or the OP) haven't already noticed. I work as a recording engineer, and I've done my (informal) tests on the Inc with relatively decent low-impedance earbuds (Etymotic ER-6is), and the noise and downsampling are really obvious to my ear. I'm sure that with higher-impedance earbuds, lower-bitrate files, and an untrained ear*, it's not a problem, and I said exactly as much.
I have done my share of amateur sound production as well. I have used Sonar along with MOTU interfaces, to record bands and even my own music. I am in fact pretty picky about sound quality. And like I said in the previous thread, I have a perfectly good iPod fifth generation 80GB at my house, and using the same mp3's I can't tell a difference in sound. If I thought that the iPod sounded even a little better, I'd be using it instead of the Dinc. And I'm not comparing them using earbuds. I have tried it plugged into my car stereo, my home theater system, my studio monitors, my keyboard amplifier, my church's P/A system, etc. I didn't do all of that for the purpose of comparing them, but I have done it none the less, and if there had been a major difference I would've noticed it.
Sorry if I offended you, I guess?
* Not meant in a negative way, just to point out that this sort of thing might not be as noticeable if you're not the type of person who spends a lot of time specifically listening for this sort of thing.
I'm not offended. I just disagree with you.
And I am fairly qualified to make an asessment of this nature.
My main concern is that the OP will get a false idea from your post that the Dinc is somehow inferior as an MP3 player, and in my daily use of it in that capacity has shown me that it is an excellent MP3 player, and I am comparing it to the allmighty iPod, which is the gold-standard of mp3 players. It's no slouch. It's as good as anything else on the market. If you have to use a Spectral analyzer to tell the difference between the Dinc and a Nexus1 let's say, that is a technical difference, not a percievable difference, so it doesn't matter, and it certainly is no reason to not use the Dinc as your main Mp3 player. That is like saying, the Camaro has 350 horsepower, but the Mustang has 350.001. That Camaro is a piece of crap, I'm going with the Mustang. Only a machine could even discern such a small difference, no human could ever tell the difference. And I think most people who complain about the Dinc's sound, do so only after reading somewhere that it's inferior, so they are not listening objectively.
The waveform that he posted here shows the Dinc tracking nicely with the source mp3 file. The only place it degrades is above and beyond it's rated frequency response anyway. Then he goes on to say it just sounds different anyway, but he can't explain it. He says it almost sounds like there is some compression on the lower frequencies. But if that were true, the comparison would've shown it. And it didn't. His "somewhat scientific look" pretty much said (aside from the slight delay) the Dinc's DAC's are pretty much dead-on accurate.
He goes on to say this "Will it ever integrate into my live rig as a sample player? Probably not."
But I doubt he would use an iPod for such an application either. I would imagine he would use something like this.
Denon DN-F650R | Sweetwater.com
Or here is what I used to use.
TASCAM MD-CD1mkIII | Sweetwater.com
No MP3 player is going to be perfect. But he didn't compare the Dinc to any other players, only to the source file. I wonder how it would've compared to the iPod if he'd done the same test on the iPod.
with earbuds, i still find myself having to turn it almost all the way up... and no, my hearing is not gone.
