Sound quality / EQ

[skinnypuppy]

I just got the latest version of RB, and although it has crashed on me once, and the "queue" feature doesnt seem to be available, I still like it quite a bit. I have a few questions...

At first I thought the sound quality on iriver firmware was ten times better than RB, but then I went back to iriver firmware and noticed that it just sounded really pretty damn crappy. Which firmware do you think has better audio quality, iriver or RB?

Secondly, I suck quite a bit when it comes to making stuff sound good on equaliziers. Even though I never really used them, I liked having different EQ options in the original iriver firmware, is it possible to download pre-set EQ's for RB? Since you can save them, I'd imagine it would be possible to load someone elses EQ. I sorta have a good EQ set right now, but SOMETHING sounds wrong, but since I'm an idiot when it comes to EQs, I cant find the right option to lower so it doesnt make the odd echo-like sound thats occuring.

Any help would be much appreciated, thanks

ps, does anyone know if battery life is better or worse with RB? I notice the hard disk spins more with RB, which makes me think it takes up more battery life.

[bobwise]

I found this link at the rockbox site:
http://www.filelodge.com/files/hdd6/131420/eqs.zip
They may help you.
bob

[caramelsoul]

Battery life with RB is shorter. I cant comment on the EQ settings you use. I dont use EQ as i like to try and listen to what was recorded as close as possible. To me there is no point making the bass more prominent if it was not recirded to be heard thta way. Each t their own though...

[Lad]

I'm heavy EQ user. Since I remember I always had an equaliser in my audio setup. I have a great variety of music (from industrial metal to classical). I found myself constantly changing EQ setting to suit. Some CD's will sound flat without boost at low and high end, some rap needs to have lower end suppressed by quite a lot. I need to stress though that this is very subjective, depends on your ears, cans used, volume etc. Human hearing is most sensitive at 1-4kHz tones and with low volume lows and highs may sound supressed. Read somewhere at HeadFi that Grado's GS1000 cans have EQ 'built in' in design with a boost at low and high end visible on frequency response. I found RBox equalizer very good (woud appreciate split into more bands for even smoother response) and have several presets stored. If you interested I can PM it to you, but what sounds good for me thru my Alessandro's MS1 may not be good for your setup (and ultimately your ears). BTW I don't use crossfeed and don't like SRS sound.
Battery life is also dependent on which codec is used, Ogg Vorbis and some LAME VBR require a fair bit of computing from processor. More juice is needed.

Cheers,

Lad

[skinnypuppy]

thanks for the imput/links folks. Sure, PM me or email the EQ's, i'd gladly listen to them slurmman@yahoo.com

right now I;'m using the horrible earbuds iriver gives you with the product because my sennheiser 212pro's cord is broken. I've already bought a replacement cord though, so it should arrive soon.

The biggest problem I'm facing is winamp sounds MUCH MUCH MUCH better than both iriver firmware and RB. The problem inside that problem is the iriver firmware used to sound better than winamp, so this is kind of confusing me. I read somewhere that someone had this same problem, and couldnt get his iriver firmware to sound the same after installing RB.. but it doesnt make sense that firmware could somehow effect the hardware sound system. anyone have any problems with this?

[Febs]

When you say that Winamp sounds better RB, were you listening through the same set-up? For example, were you listening on the same speakers or headphones each time, through the same headphone output?

Battery life on the H100 series is better in RB than the original firmware. (The opposite is true of the H300 series.)

[skinnypuppy]

yea, same earbuds going from winamp to iriver/RB. I realize EQ's can be different, but I tried to make it so both were decently equal, and before it didn't really even matter which EQ was being used anyway.

[Llorean]

So, you weren't comparing un-EQed?

Because tests have shown that decoded output from Rockbox vs. Iriver are almost identical. Odds are if you were EQing, then you did something wrong with the EQ in Rockbox if you're getting drastically different sound quality. You should never test with ANY EQ at all.