Maintaining a Digital Music Collection

map otm, listener fatigue is real

― sleeve, Friday, June 19, 2020 3:55 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

^^^^^^^

sometimes it makes me feel nauseous !

― budo jeru, Saturday, June 20, 2020 1:31 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Listener fatigue with headphones can be really punishing. You may want to look into EQ presets to mitigate it. It's made a world of difference for me.

Oratory1990 tests over-ear and in-ear headphones and posts EQ settings for each tested model to attenuate resonance issues at the affected frequencies. You can use the settings with a Foobar plugin, EQ settings in your player, or a stand-alone EQ app on your computer. Oratory1990 has some EQ freeware suggestions in their FAQ.

maelin and map otm. I don't care about A/B testing, psychoacoustic models or whatever - if it's sampled at 44kHz and I have the space to hold that lossless, I would rather feed that stream to a DAC and not think twice about whether the encode was done properly, or the version of the algorithm, or the validity of a general psychoacoustic model evaluated on whether "Tom's Diner" sounded right or not. Artist makes the music, artist and/or engineer makes a digital file which captures the version they wish to release, done. Maybe I can't hear a difference, but when I play it for my kids, or at low volume or on a cheap speaker, maybe something unwanted is gonna creep in. The stereo in my car plays mp3 files and I have noticed that deep bass like kick drums creates a sort of digital aliasing which sounds like a muted wind chime. That didn't show up in headphones.

Windows Media Player has been dying on me recently. It has the simplest job, so how can it be fucking up?

all windows utilities seem to have this problem, like the photo viewer, recently it takes 30 seconds to open a photo, even when nothing else is open

I still use the Zune desktop software to play digital music on my PC. Works great!

Windows Media Player has been dying on me recently. It has the simplest job, so how can it be fucking up?

Tools > Advanced > Restore Media Library

This deletes the internal index and rebuilds it.
Obviously if your local library is large this can take quite a while, but its definitely something to try out.

The program won't even open for me. But I've been using Groove Music and might download Itunes

ahh - sounds like you need to delete the WMP library via 'under the covers' methods.
suspect once you do that, it will then open.
google re deleting your WMP library - there is a lot of advise.
this should crack it.

just putting in my perennial, idiosyncratic but deeply held 'i can tell the difference' note here. not on everything, not even on 50% of stuff, not necessarily as an a/b thing but it absolutely makes listening to something more work for me and wears my ears out over time.

Yeah. I was happy with mp3's for a really long time even though they gave me a headache. I'd came to associate music with that kind of ear fatigue and didn't want to even bother listening to music much anymore. But I never realized how bad it was until my ipod broke a couple of summers ago and the only portable player I had was a discman from like 1989 that my cousin loaned me, a real chunky one that skips if you so much as breathe on it a little funny and kills a pair off AA batteries about every 10 minutes. I had forgotten how much I love CD's and that changed everything. I really do need "CD quality or better".

Just got a smartphone for the first time. I haven't even had a cell phone for the past 8 or 9 months. I picked one with a headphone jack thinking it could double as my portable music player. Have discovered that touch screens and music players don't mix. Now what?

what sort of issues are you having with the touch screen + media player combo?

Inadvertently switching the track being played every single time I try to play something, and inadvertently switching the player on and off. It happens when the phone is in my hands, in my pocket, when I'm scrolling through the library.

I thought that immediately closing out of the app and putting the phone to sleep would prevent this, and it doesn't.

The other day it took several attempts just to listen to a 90 second yummy fur song all the way through!

Mobile phone plus media player (Poweramp, highly recommended btw) has been the only way I listen to music for several years now and I have literally not once had any of the problems you describe.

if I put my iPhone in my pocket while listening to music it often skips to the next track or otherwise ruins the listening experience

I've said this before in the I HATE APPLE thread but I believe that's because the touchscreen becomes active whenever you change the volume or skip a track. Or if you've got 'raise to wake' that probably does it too. It's really poor. The lock button should actually fucking lock it.

Assuming deflator has an iPhone, Turn off the tap to wake and raise to wake features and you should be sorted

wow I have never had this happen ON IPHONE

I've been using my (Android) phone for portable listening for ten years now and have never experienced these sort of problems. As calstars suggests, surely tweaking the phone settings will resolve the issue.

My phone takes a 512GB SD card, which holds more than enough music at decent quality. Use a decent player (such as poweramp, as anagram recommends) and off you go.

I'm intrigued by where this is all heading. There are smartwatches and Bluetooth earbuds with on-board storage, not a lot but enough to carry a sampling of music for a vacation. The next logical step is to hook them up to cellular and just stream to your hearts content, but that's an extra monthly charge.

Also, on cellular they are guaranteed to have shit battery life.

I've never had these issues listening to music on mobile phones, though I know experiences can vary. If the screen is off and the phone is on your pocket, it shouldn't be turning on or doing anything funky. You should also be able to adjust the volume without accidentally triggering anything.

in terms of Android players I've always had good experiences with blackplayer

in terms of Android players I've always had good experiences with blackplayer

are there problems with the google music app that shipped as standard, as my teenkid uses it and has no issues, so was wondering what are the benefits of using an add-on app.

Some players just offer a better ui or eq etc. There are lots of them out there. Some of the ones considered better come at a cost.

PlayerPro is also good, IIRC

i have to say that this seems an interesting option

https://www.etsy.com/listing/687507837/custom-built-and-professionally

$800 for a 2tb solid state drive with a weeklong battery means i could realistically carry more or less all of my digital music around with me.
lack of bluetooth is a hassle but a dongle should fix that, no?

that is pretty cool, I gotta admit. gonna stick with my 32GB Cowon for the FLAC player, though

I got sick of dealing with my phone as a music player and bought a Shanling MO. It can take a 1 TB micro card although I'm waiting for the price on those to come down. Currently using a 512 mb card and it holds almost all of my music. At that capacity some of the features stop working but it can still be used to play through its folder system. At that level it is extremely basic, it will play albums which is all I really want it for. I've had it for about a year and it still makes me happy that most of my music fits in the coin pocket in my pants. Folks with big fingers might have a hard time with it.

I meant 512 gb

I have an Android phone, actually (Moto G Stylus). It seemed like a good choice for a cheaper phone to play music on, it takes the 512GB SD card etc. Been using VLC player because I like the desktop version, but unimpressed with the mobile app. I'll give the recommended apps a try today and I am looking into screen unlock settings as suggested.
There are touch lock apps but I don't see myself going through that rigmarole every time I want to listen to music.
$800 is a little rich for me but i'd be interested in something like a fiio x1ii that has godd sound and a scroll wheel (and can be found for $50-100 on ebay, etc). Googling Shanling MO

well the $800 on that refurbished ipod is for the 2tb top of the line model... you can get a 1/2 terabyte SSD one for $380! They go as cheap as $140 for a 64 gig model. i found out about this place through an article where the writer talked about buying those low end ones and giving them away as "mixtape presents" which is not totally crazy!

I have a iPod classic with a good battery but a dying HD and I would really like to get 1 or 2 TB put in there

I despise using a touch screen device for music listening. Currently split my time between a Sony Walkman with a 512gb micro sd in it and a cheap FiiO with a 400gb micro sd in it

man I loved CoverFlow on iPods a lot, such a great browsing method

That transparent upgraded iPod with the 3000 mah battery is some hot sh1t!

You should also be able to adjust the volume without accidentally triggering anything.

Yes. Yes you should

Nope. Volume keys switch tracks when the screen is off.

I fucking hate this thing

lol

I mean I wasn't a fan of touch screens, mobile operating systems or mobile internet to begin with. Was fine with a phone that can only make calls and a standalone music player with scroll wheel. Maybe I ought to just revert back to that setup.

Aaand I keep putting it in airplane/do not disturb mode by touching my ear to the phone during calls. How on earth do ppl work these things??

There's something wrong w/your phone, dude

Don't rule out the possibility that my own bumbling incompetence/clumsiness is to blame.

I use a Moto G7 and intentionally have vol up/down switching tracks, after either is held for a second. Enabled in the "Moto" app.

Going to bump a thread that may interest you.

my 160GB final gen ipod classic, a workhorse since 2014, is suddenly doing the 'flash over and over again until the battery runs out' thing, as if unable to boot up. Whether plugged into wall power or USB. I hope I can save it but I already feel brokenhearted...

It's a sad day, but I don't miss mine as nearly as much as I thought I would. Essentially, I'm glad to be free of the ecosystem and the endless updating of metadata and messing around with playlists etc.

Oh I haven't been in the ecosystem for years, this iPod has Rockbox on it and everything is just folders and files. iPod classic with Rockbox is unbeatable.

Actually I don't think this unit has ever had anything but Rockbox on it lol

everything is just folders and files

^^ gets it

I have managed to get it to an off state while plugged into power. I’ll leave it like that for a few hours then try booting up again

God, the hours I spent trying to restore/recover iPods. Heady days.