Citroen Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 I now mainly use my SMARTPHONE for any mobile music listening. I use it on walks, I even use it in the car (when I don't have the radio or a cassette playing). Its convenient, and far more pleasurable than no soundz, while walking the dog, commuting in traffic etc FLAC files but most is probably lost on the conversion to analogue sound waves on its way to the earphone, and then tenfold more from the earphone buds to my brain! My first mobile device was an AIWA Walkman that a relative bought back from the far east for me. This was followed by various Walkmen including LP wise, I bought an Audio Technica Soundburger (the one in my Avatar). Many portable CD players followed. My first DAP was an iRiver H120GB, then various ipods, culminating in my current iPLod Classic 160GB. But all I ever use these days is the Smartphone. Its oh so convenient, light weight, portable and always with me, unlimited storage via removable SD cards, has a headphone socket as well as USB. So no Cowon, +/- portable DAC via Grado RS1's for me! Soundwise, it may not be the best but its only for music on the go after all. So I've practically ditched all the other gear and now have one device for making calls, taking the quick snapshot, and for listening to music. So what's your portable music history? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gortnipper Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 My first portable was an 8-track boom box in 1976. Soon after, i moved to a cassette one. Like you, I had an Aiwa that I butchered a set of headphones into my mc helmet and hotwired a car charger into the electrics. Progressed to a Discman, and then gave up portables for the phat car tunes, until I started working on PDAs and Smartphones on 1999. Been on smartphones since then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 Excellent. How 'smart' were the phones in 1999? Audio, storage size wise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 Mainly analogue. Little portable radios with single earpieces. An array of portable cassette players from the bulky Sony TCS-300 to Walkmans regular and Pro. Then to various Mini-Disc players - Sharp, Sony. Nowadays I don't do any portable listening except the rare occasion when I'm gripped by nostalgia and I'll put fresh batteries in one of the Walkmen Pros, dig out the little Stax SR001s and drop in a cassette or two. Tried phones (including the Samsung Galaxy S with Wolfson DAC) and found I preferred silence to the awfulness they produced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanleyB Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 Newbie;191211 wrote: Excellent. How 'smart' were the phones in 1999? Audio, storage size wise. In those days phones were bought to make phone calls. As hard as it seems today it's absolutely true. The idea of playing music or taking pictures with a phone was still to be dreamt up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
three bob note Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 Two or three sony walkmans (still got a bright yellow weatherproof one around somewhere), then a CD player that devoured batteries and skipped every time you looked at it and didn't last long at all, then a brilliant little minidisc with discs packed with vinyl recordings (which I kept right through the era of the mp3 player, and I still kinda of regret selling), and now a galaxy s3 loaded with flac albums that I use with crappy earbuds on the train and plug into a little dot amp and set of q701s at work. Nowadays more than half my listening time is portable it would make sense to grab one of the new high res players and a decent set of IEMs, but I just can't bring myself to spend that kind of money on headfi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reverend Johnny Heathen Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 Newbie;191211 wrote: How 'smart' were the phones in 1999? Audio, storage size wise. I'd hate to think what I was carrying back then... A Nokia at best. First phone I used that could store/play music (on a max 2gb card) was the early Palm range running windows media centre...I've still got a soft-spot for the 750v and have one loaded with mp3s (!?) in a drawer somewhere. Portable music, before that I figured, was a well used PA and a couple of trashed guitars packed in the back of an old van... :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 I have an iPod Classic (yes, the one model with the hard drive and the old click wheel) in my glove box. It's connected to the back of my JVC car stereo and supplies high quality sounds in my car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dom Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Early '80s - crap Sanyo walkperson. Mid '90s - tired s/h Sony Discman in the car. In-between those and onwards - the music in my brain. Once I heard good audio systems pushing serious notes through the air I just couldn't bear to confine them to headphones. Still can't. DD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocl444 Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 1964 - Kriesler Gaytime. now there's a name for you! it cost 14Pounds when the average wage was 60Pounds/week. batteries were 5shillings. 2000's - tried some ipods, then an iriver. now i enjoy the sounds of birds etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Michael Wong;191212 wrote: ...Tried phones (including the Samsung Galaxy S with Wolfson DAC) and found I preferred silence to the awfulness they produced. I understand that sometimes silence really is golden. But I can happily listen to great music that sounds like crap. Much preferable to crap music that sounds great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gortnipper Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Newbie;191211 wrote: Excellent. How 'smart' were the phones in 1999? Audio, storage size wise. I had an Ipaq that had a sleeve for CF cards. Not that big in 99, 256 & 512mb? when I was working on Windows Phone 1.0 the HW engineering samples we had were 128mb! Not much more than an album or three @96k! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reverend Johnny Heathen Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 You worked on the early windows phones, GN? Didn't even realise they were around so early on. I have a longstanding (and irrational) love affair with the Palms - there was just something so perfectly charming about them... Long live the stylus! :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r3x Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 early waterproof sony walkman sony wmd6c (still used) denon dp100 ipod nano various crappy phones culminating in a galaxy nexus (which sounds ok) and a new nexus 7, which i'm using right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernie1553552694 Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Having been in retail selling Apple mobile devices, I find not having a device my preferred option. Hassles abound. The only reason to wear a headset is to have a conversation. I started with a Hitachi Walkman, ended with a pro Sony WM3. Still have it on my desk. Got an old 3G nano too, but I've also got loads of 30 pin docks to plug it and my phone into. I still run an iPhone 3GS. I'm going to run it into the ground. Each iteration of iOS is another gear for the poor CPU to grind on. In fact I think this is it. 6.1.3. Maybe some incrementals of 6, but 7 will be gold. And a new phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ytsejam Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Michael Jones;191220 wrote: I have an iPod Classic (yes, the one model with the hard drive and the old click wheel) in my glove box. It's connected to the back of my JVC car stereo and supplies high quality sounds in my car. I have a 160 GB iPod Classic myself and use it for the same purpose - connected to my car stereo, or as a portable listening device to use on planes etc. I used to have one of these and had to take a stack of CDs to listen to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxgate Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Newbie;191188 wrote: Its convenient, and far more pleasurable than no soundz, while walking the dog, commuting So what's your portable music history? My portable music is provided by birds (I type to a chorus of tuis, bellbirds, waxeyes, magpies et al) and cicadas. These are wireless hi fidelity devices with no battery drain. When walking the dog I use wind and sea to make music; these are capable of impressive volume - as you trot along beside the mutt you are hit by a sonic wave (and occasionally by a salty one). These 'open platform' devices allow me to open up to the world rather than closing me off from it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gortnipper Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Hi-Fi heathen;191247 wrote: You worked on the early windows phones, GN? Didn't even realise they were around so early on. I have a longstanding (and irrational) love affair with the Palms - there was just something so perfectly charming about them... Long live the stylus! :rolleyes: WP1 came to market in '02 with Orange in the UK and then PPC phone with O2 network. I left in '04. We had three companies in our sights then: Palm, Nokia (Symbian) and Blackberry. Apple did more to kill the latter two than we did. It was an amusing day when Palm started running WP. That said, I hated most of the WP OS between WP1 and WP7, and was enticed by Apple and Android. But am back now... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevea1553552768 Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Original Sony Walkman Long period of nothing Sony mp3 player Samsung Smartphone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reverend Johnny Heathen Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 gortnipper;191257 wrote: ...It was an amusing day when Palm started running WP. I apologise that I've gone miles off topic here - but all the same, I have to ask you to explain that comment to me...? Recently tried the new Lumia for a few weeks and thought WP had finally gotten the edge on Apple. I doubt I'd be the only person to think the new Apple OS seems to ape the WP look somewhat... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gortnipper Posted November 6, 2013 Share Posted November 6, 2013 Hi-Fi heathen;191261 wrote: I apologise that I've gone miles off topic here - but all the same, I have to ask you to explain that comment to me...? Recently tried the new Lumia for a few weeks and thought WP had finally gotten the edge on Apple. I doubt I'd be the only person to think the new Apple OS seems to ape the WP look somewhat... http://news.cnet.com/Palm-does-Windows/2100-1041_3-5882674.html WP8 rocks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernie1553552694 Posted November 6, 2013 Share Posted November 6, 2013 Are you liking Metro Mr GN? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gortnipper Posted November 6, 2013 Share Posted November 6, 2013 Yes, I do. It is a far cry from where Windows was when I started using a PC with Win 3.1. Then, I was mostly using Mac OS6.2 I think, which was far better. I used both Macs and PCs up till about 1999, and then it was pure Windows. Win95 was revolutionary for its time, but I think the Metro GUIs come a long way to closing the gap with Macs. However, there is still the overall HW problem - Windows HW is too fractured an there is not enough work being done on making the SW/HW interface seamless. Much like Mac HW was after Jobs was ousted and all the clones almost killed Apple. Although Windows Phone does a better job than Surface or full Windows, IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernie1553552694 Posted November 6, 2013 Share Posted November 6, 2013 Yeah, I like a lot of their interface concepts, applicable even for iOS apps... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enzedone Posted November 6, 2013 Share Posted November 6, 2013 New to this personal music business. Setup: iPhone 5s 64gb FiiO E12 Fostex T50RP. Modded I am liking this very much as listening to music at night is a no go. And this setup sounds waaaaaaay better than my mod'd Marantz CD52. And I can read audioenz while listening to good music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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