How does M6 perform with very low bitrate MP3s? (Old radio programs)

PRW · 09-23-2008

Hi, I'm posting here because I'm very interested in purchasing an M6, looks like an incredible value for the price. I usually encode my own music in Ogg quality 6, but with the ability to do FLAC and Ape I probably would go lossless as far as music for the player. However, I also have an extensive collection of old (as in 1930s, '40s and '50s) radio programs which I like to play on my personal audio. These things, for space and circulation purposes, are sometimes encoded as low as 32 bps constant rate and many are not named with ID3 tags at all. I need to know, straight and up front, will the M6 handle these files? Thanks in advance for any help.

markun · 09-23-2008

Originally Posted by PRW

I usually encode my own music in Ogg quality 6, but with the ability to do FLAC and Ape I probably would go lossless as far as music for the player.

Can't answer your question, but I was wondering why you would consider re-ripping your stuff to a lossless format for your player? Assuming a FLAC encoded album will be around 300MB you could only store about 28 albums on an 8GB player and I think on this hardware it would pretty much be impossible to hear the difference between it and your Q6 Ogg files.

Not saying you shouldn't switch to FLAC/APE if you want, just wondered why. I usually hear of people doing it the other way around: if they use lossless on their PC they transcode to lossy for their portable players.

PRW · 09-23-2008

Originally Posted by markun

Can't answer your question, but I was wondering why you would consider re-ripping your stuff to a lossless format for your player? Assuming a FLAC encoded album will be around 300MB you could only store about 28 albums on an 8GB player and I think on this hardware it would pretty much be impossible to hear the difference between it and your Q6 Ogg files.

Not saying you shouldn't switch to FLAC/APE if you want, just wondered why. I usually hear of people doing it the other way around: if they use lossless on their PC they transcode to lossy for their portable players.

I would probably give it the ear test. If I couldn't hear any difference, I'd stick with Ogg.

mbarry · 09-23-2008

The M6 is probably going to be one of the players with the best sound quality you will hear. iPods, Creativs, iRivers all cannot compare. Lossless really depends on the headphones you are going to use. If you have the $500 Shures, go ahead and put the files in FLAC. If you are using normal everyday headphones, convert to WMA.

JkPwNsTeR · 09-24-2008

I honestly can't tell the difference between my 320kbps mp3's and the flac's that came with my miniPlayer.