Hi-Res Digital Players
- Thread starter DeeInKY
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Nice!
DeeInKY
Well-Known Member
I'd hate to say that knowing COBOL dates a person...I saw were some people were saying online that the FiiOs have a bit of a clunky interface. I've had a pretty good look at it and it kinda reminds me of my itty bitty Sandisk MP3 player. I come from the land of COBOL and command line programming so no interface is too clunky for me.
Then again, I remember the days before the Internet became popular, when I connected to Compuserve with my 1200 baud modem and also navigated it via the command line. To really date a person though, saying you've played Super Star Wars on punch cards would take the cake.
For high-res players, there is a Sony portable I like, as it also plays DSD files, but it probably costs 3-4X as much as the FiiO. Nothankyou!
DeeInKY
Well-Known Member
Yep, I was a COBOL programmer for 25 years. There are still jobs available if you know it and I'd probably take one if offered. Workin' the IT service desk now. One of my early online computer classes was on a Trash-80 Model 100 with an acoustic coupler. Snazzy.I'd hate to say that knowing COBOL dates a person...
I remember those TRS-80s! My cousin used to work at a Radio Shack back in the 70s, and I remember watching them try to use that acoustic coupler to download some data. Weren't those something like 150 baud? I remember the first Winchester hard drive they offered for the TRS-80. 10 megabytes. $1,995. I could build four of my current computers with that much money...with a solid state drive!
DeeInKY
Well-Known Member
They actually were a blistering 300 baud. Seems odd that my phone now has more computing power than the entire computer room did when I started here. In 1984 we had 7 DEC systems powered by J-11 processors, 8 washtub drives, two HP 3000 Series III, 6 washtubs for those, 3 reel-to-reel drives, and 2 Texas Instruments printing consoles - lots of fun!
Looks like next week I'll have to start downloading the hi-res files from HD Tracks. My FiiO and the SD card are coming in separate shipments, so I have to wait for it all to land here. HD Tracks has some deal where they give a discount on your first purchase when you create an account. That could be worth looking into.
Looks like next week I'll have to start downloading the hi-res files from HD Tracks. My FiiO and the SD card are coming in separate shipments, so I have to wait for it all to land here. HD Tracks has some deal where they give a discount on your first purchase when you create an account. That could be worth looking into.
Murray
Well-Known Member
I remember taking a computer course at university back in 1981, and we used a DEC PDP 1110 to learn how to program in BASIC. If I remember correctly, that machine had a 20 MB hard drive with removable platters, and a 9 inch floppy drive. We all sat at printing consoles with a big box of fanfold paper underneath. When the computer overheated, an alarm went off, and we all had to vacate the room while the instructor opened the windows.
The second half of the semester we learned FORTRAN on a Xerox Sigma 9. That computer sat in a glassed-in room, which was constantly manned by an operator who had to wear a winter jacket, as the room was kept that cold. The terminal room was located across the hall, and at least here we had CRT monitors (monochrome green). We had one large printer, and I remember waiting in a long line for my job to print.
My first computer at home was a Tandy 1000, with both 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 floppy drives, and a 16 color monitor! I later added a 30 MB (!) hard drive. It ran DOS 3.2. I can't remember what it cost anymore, but it was basically an insane amount of money for what was a glorified calculator.
DeeInKY
Well-Known Member
The hi-res players are a little tricky. Got the FiiO set up and the SD card formatted in it but Windows is refusing to cooperate. Downloaded a couple driver updates but these are telling me to disable driver signature verification in Windows. That bothers me, so at the moment I'm playing hi-res files on Win 7 and/or 8.1 with VLC media player (a freebie that we use at work for voice mail). That's working well. Thinking about using an SD card reader to transfer the files to the card and load back in the player that way. The Win 8 computer wasn't doing much so it just got promoted to music server.
You could probably disable it long enough to install the driver.
I have a similar dilemma here--I have an older analog to digital converter but the most recent OS they have a driver for is Vista. I was playing around with running XP in a virtual machine and using it only to record the audio, but never had much luck. (I never had time to fully "connect" the USB in the virtual machine.) As a result, I'm looking at some of the TASCAM recorders for what I need. I have an upcoming couple of projects I need it for (doing needle drops of a few tracks, some digital transfers from reel or cassette, etc.).
Were you looking for a way to load the player using software on Windows? I typically do it the same way you mention--I use a reader to copy files on the computer directly to an SD card (or for the cars, 64GB Sandisk USB thumb drives, which gives me up to 8-10k songs per drive).
The only problem is, the Pioneer head unit in the Civic jumbles up the order of the files, no matter if they're alphabetical or not (or I should say, alphanumerically sorted). I believe it is listing them in the order in which they appear in the file allocation table. I found a little utility that corrects this order; it's a small inconvenience but IMHO, much needed. My older JVC head unit sorts alphanumerically (and predictably). Odd.
I have a similar dilemma here--I have an older analog to digital converter but the most recent OS they have a driver for is Vista. I was playing around with running XP in a virtual machine and using it only to record the audio, but never had much luck. (I never had time to fully "connect" the USB in the virtual machine.) As a result, I'm looking at some of the TASCAM recorders for what I need. I have an upcoming couple of projects I need it for (doing needle drops of a few tracks, some digital transfers from reel or cassette, etc.).
Were you looking for a way to load the player using software on Windows? I typically do it the same way you mention--I use a reader to copy files on the computer directly to an SD card (or for the cars, 64GB Sandisk USB thumb drives, which gives me up to 8-10k songs per drive).
The only problem is, the Pioneer head unit in the Civic jumbles up the order of the files, no matter if they're alphabetical or not (or I should say, alphanumerically sorted). I believe it is listing them in the order in which they appear in the file allocation table. I found a little utility that corrects this order; it's a small inconvenience but IMHO, much needed. My older JVC head unit sorts alphanumerically (and predictably). Odd.
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DeeInKY
Well-Known Member
I still have an XP computer sitting around that I never got around to junking. Might be able to put it to use here. Also tried a Mac running OS X 10.7.5. It puked. Locked up in fact.
Had a coupon for 15%off for HDTracks, so I bought WCAOD, Going Places, and What Now My Love. They even sound good on the cheap computer speakers.
Worked New Year's Day so that should help pay for some of this.
Guess it's off to Squall-Mart (where you always hear screaming kids) tomorrow to get an SD card reader.
Had a coupon for 15%off for HDTracks, so I bought WCAOD, Going Places, and What Now My Love. They even sound good on the cheap computer speakers.
Worked New Year's Day so that should help pay for some of this.
Guess it's off to Squall-Mart (where you always hear screaming kids) tomorrow to get an SD card reader.
I need to watch for coupons, so I can pick up some of those myself. I probably have a bit of a tax refund coming so, once I get a couple other things squared away, I'll be able to start downloading.
Randy and Bernie Grundman did excellent work on the restoration and mastering. If anything, the hi-res versions will even expose some of the tiny things that degraded over the years. Can't fault hi-res for that, of course--it is just a closer representation of the original.
For the FiiO thingy, some of those geeky computer audio forums might have some info, but some of the members out there are a little bit on the "basement dweller" side of weird.
Randy and Bernie Grundman did excellent work on the restoration and mastering. If anything, the hi-res versions will even expose some of the tiny things that degraded over the years. Can't fault hi-res for that, of course--it is just a closer representation of the original.
For the FiiO thingy, some of those geeky computer audio forums might have some info, but some of the members out there are a little bit on the "basement dweller" side of weird.
DeeInKY
Well-Known Member
Boy, do I feel like a dummy. Got Windows and the SD cards all copacetic but the FiiO was refusing to recognize the SD card. I had a 128 (and downloaded formatting software to get Win 7/8 to play nice with it) that works with the computer but not with the FiiO. OK, let's try a 32. Same thing. Let's format on the FiiO and load the card with Win 7. Same thing. Watched a couple YouTube videos and it turns out I have the SD card in the device wrong. Well duh. After I get back to the device and try to put it together correctly I may be able to get it to work. 
Boy, that's the truth. I had some 2-year-old hopping on some blocks counting in Spanish; now she's halfway through her junior year in HS and is looking at colleges this coming summer. Time has flown by.
Boy, do I feel like a dummy. Got Windows and the SD cards all copacetic but the FiiO was refusing to recognize the SD card. I had a 128 (and downloaded formatting software to get Win 7/8 to play nice with it) that works with the computer but not with the FiiO. OK, let's try a 32. Same thing. Let's format on the FiiO and load the card with Win 7. Same thing. Watched a couple YouTube videos and it turns out I have the SD card in the device wrong. Well duh. After I get back to the device and try to put it together correctly I may be able to get it to work.
The only issue I've had is that FAT32 will technically only support up to a certain size of memory card. So while Windows might complain that my 64GB Sandisk Cruzer is "corrupt," it works fine. I forget what I formatted it with, but it made a FAT-based file system that can handle the larger capacity cards.
I'm surprised it let you put the card into the FiiO the wrong way.
I'd love to get a new high-res portable but I'm currently refurbishing a pair of speakers (and stupidly looking at another pair I don't really need, but are too good of a deal to pass up), and shopping for a tubed preamp. Those are the last two upgrades for my main system that I need.
Tell me about it. Today I found a launcher for my phone that was designed to use very large icons. The scary part is that I almost downloaded it!Stupid tiny card. Stupid tiny instructions - gettin' to where I need the large print version.
I can't do fine work anymore without using some sort of magnifier. You should see me mount a cartridge on the turntable! I use not one, but two USB microscopes, and my strongest reading glasses, with a magnifier nearby. Same if I'm soldering some circuits, or trying to work a camera.
Glad you got that sorted. I probably won't get a player for a while since I am working on other upgrades (tube preamp, speaker refurbishing, etc.), but I'm considering some Oppo PM-2 or PM-3 headphones, and will just run those directly from my Oppo BDP-105. And maybe by then, I'll finally have these high-res files downloaded and ready to go.
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