View Full Version : Cowon j3 battery life with lossless files?
Ink Ninja
08-12-2010, 06:26
Hey! Can anyone shed any light on the exected battery life of the J3 when listning to apples lossless files (m4a) as there would be way more processing for the j3? The ipod does not last long enough and needs daily charges!! Am interesed as this could pursuade me to buy a j3!!!
Thanks.:jamming:
Hey! Can anyone shed any light on the exected battery life of the J3 when listning to apples lossless files (m4a) as there would be way more processing for the j3? The ipod does not last long enough and needs daily charges!! Am interesed as this could pursuade me to buy a j3!!!
Thanks.:jamming:
it will most-likely not change it much at all, apple doesnt have less battery cuz it plays apple lossless, it just has less battery, an ipod playing apple lossless has the same battery life as an ipod playing mp3s
wait, J3 supports m4a?
Ink Ninja
08-12-2010, 08:03
yeah it supports M4a through a firmware update! the reason i asked this was because i charged my ipod over night just after converting my aac files to m4a and after a short while of lisening to the M4a files on the ipod i noticed a huge drop in remaining batt life due to the larger amount of data that has to be processed as the files have a significantley higher kbps sometimes as much as 1000+
yeah it supports M4a through a firmware update! the reason i asked this was because i charged my ipod over night just after converting my aac files to m4a and after a short while of lisening to the M4a files on the ipod i noticed a huge drop in remaining batt life due to the larger amount of data that has to be processed as the files have a significantley higher kbps sometimes as much as 1000+
oh, well than, id say just music with screen off you might get 20-30 hours...
Ink Ninja
08-12-2010, 08:18
Yeah thats the best i can think of too! that and any unnessercery wifi, bluetooth options still on! cheers mate!
1. Lossless audio actually do use more battery then no n lossless, don't know the exact numbers, but it is noticeable, there's even a slight difference between lets say 128 kbps mp3s and 320 kbps.
2. You do know that converting from a lossy format (for example mp3,aac) to a lossless one (FLAC,WAV, Apple lossless) will only incrase file size and not quality. The quality is the same but file size goes up alot.
Ink Ninja
08-12-2010, 08:57
I can tell the differnce between the two! especialy when fed thru a d.a.c thru the laptop its a lot smoother sound!
JunglePimp
08-12-2010, 11:20
From what I can recall, S9 gives around 4-5 hours with FLAC. So you can expect something pretty similar from the J3.
(I can't validate the stats in any way since it was conveyed to me by a peer).
I use my J3 exclusively for .flac. I can report 25+ hrs of playback.
Ink Ninja - CD > .wav > .flac is the only encoding you should ever do. If you need different formats (ie for crapple products) decode the .flac and re-encode the .wav.
When you use a lossy format, the information is gone. There is no getting it back. Anything you do to the file afterwards is being created and is not original.
Think of it like a key lime pie. You can scoop out a bunch of the lime filling and cover it up with meringue. From the size of the pie, it appears to be whole. However, the meringue is simply covering up the holes that were eaten in the lime. As soon as you analyze the contents of the pie, it will become evident that there is some lime missing. You can never get that lime back.
Damaged_Dan
08-12-2010, 16:01
I use my J3 exclusively for .flac. I can report 25+ hrs of playback.
Ink Ninja - CD > .wav > .flac is the only encoding you should ever do. If you need different formats (ie for crapple products) decode the .flac and re-encode the .wav.
Same here.
Ink Ninja
08-12-2010, 19:22
thanks for all your replys guys! it has all been of help! (crapple) does make me laugh!!
TheDarkSide
08-12-2010, 21:24
it will most-likely not change it much at all, apple doesnt have less battery cuz it plays apple lossless, it just has less battery, an ipod playing apple lossless has the same battery life as an ipod playing mp3s
wait, J3 supports m4a?
Not true. Playing AAC or mp3 the iPod's all have pretty good battery life. When lossless is used on them the battery life drops - same as with a Cowon, Sony, Samsung, or Sansa DAP. How much it drops I'm unsure, but it's discussed in the Head-Fi and iLounge forums for the iPod's.
thatchampaul
08-14-2010, 10:02
I only use FLAC on my J3. I use it to play playlists or randomly from favourites. As such the display is usually off. So far the battery last minimum 40 hours when. If I use the display, that drops to around 25 hours.
Way better than anything Apple[yes]
Ink Ninja
08-17-2010, 17:05
Thanks for your input peeps! appreciate it! might have to milk the moolah cow!
Probably placebo.
:DHave to disagree mate,i've put the same album twice on my j3 one being 320kb mp3 and the other flac and the flac copy has a fuller sound than the mp3,for me the placebo effect comes in when you try and compare 24 bit flac and 16 bit flac.
Danfried
08-19-2010, 22:01
:DHave to disagree mate,i've put the same album twice on my j3 one being 320kb mp3 and the other flac and the flac copy has a fuller sound than the mp3,for me the placebo effect comes in when you try and compare 24 bit flac and 16 bit flac.
He was commenting on what Ink Ninja did -- transcoding from a lossy format to a lossless one. In that case, it makes no sense that the lossless encode would be any better than the lossy one. You need to rip from the source, not convert the lossy file.
I also don't trust anyone who claims they can tell the difference but hasn't tried a blind listening test... You may have already done this, but make a playlist with both mp3s and flacs of the same tracks -- encoded from the same original wavs/CD, and set to roughly the same volume -- and see if you can tell what type is playing from random shuffle without looking. The J3 is good for this because the track filetype isn't normally displayed until you touch the screen.
Mr. Black
08-19-2010, 22:47
Or better yet, download foobar and run an abx test, then post the results here :D...or don't posts the results here, they'll only show you the horrifying truth.
He was commenting on what Ink Ninja did -- transcoding from a lossy format to a lossless one. In that case, it makes no sense that the lossless encode would be any better than the lossy one. You need to rip from the source, not convert the lossy file.
I also don't trust anyone who claims they can tell the difference but hasn't tried a blind listening test... You may have already done this, but make a playlist with both mp3s and flacs of the same tracks -- encoded from the same original wavs/CD, and set to roughly the same volume -- and see if you can tell what type is playing from random shuffle without looking. The J3 is good for this because the track filetype isn't normally displayed until you touch the screen.
:D Oopps my mistake sorry tirim4,i guess we'll have to agree to disagree regarding the blind testing as its a discussion i've got into a few times in the past and we'll just end up going round in circles if you know what i mean.;)
Or better yet, download foobar and run an abx test, then post the results here :D...or don't posts the results here, they'll only show you the horrifying truth.
:)Not sure if thats aimed at me or not,if it is then i wont be bothering testing anything as its one of those arguments that goes on and on without anyone conceding defeat,i'll just let my ears decide and if they think it sounds better then i'm happy with that.
Ignore all of the above if the post wasn't aimed at me.:D
Ink Ninja
08-20-2010, 15:27
He was commenting on what Ink Ninja did -- transcoding from a lossy format to a lossless one. In that case, it makes no sense that the lossless encode would be any better than the lossy one. You need to rip from the source, not convert the lossy file.
I also don't trust anyone who claims they can tell the difference but hasn't tried a blind listening test... You may have already done this, but make a playlist with both mp3s and flacs of the same tracks -- encoded from the same original wavs/CD, and set to roughly the same volume -- and see if you can tell what type is playing from random shuffle without looking. The J3 is good for this because the track filetype isn't normally displayed until you touch the screen.
No your wrong! all my tunes are recorded from there source so they are ALL lossless!
No your wrong! all my tunes are recorded from there source so they are ALL lossless!
But you said you converted your tracks from aac to apple lossless? CD>aac>lossless format still will have the same quality as the aac file, aka lossy.
Ink Ninja
08-22-2010, 07:30
AHH! Misunderstanding here! sorry! I meant I deleted all my original AAC lossy files and recorded them all again to lossless from there source! a VERY lenghty process![wacko]
AHH! Misunderstanding here! sorry! I meant I deleted all my original AAC lossy files and recorded them all again to lossless from there source! a VERY lenghty process![wacko]
When I first got into pmp's, I used iTunes and ripped half of my collection (approx 1000 cd's) to mp3. I bought myself and my gf a Nano. After about 6 months, I was fed up with the Ipod and tired of iTunes. I built myself a compact pc strictly for ripping and archiving music and movies. Soon after I found the D2 and have lived a happy mp3-free life since. However, using EAC and mp3tag is considerably slower than iTunes so I have yet to make it back to the point I was at with my mp3 encoding. Still only about 1400 cd's to go...[wacko]
On top of that, I have about 2tb of live recordings in various lossless states that need organizing and proper tagging. I guess I can never complain that I have nothing to do...
acolyte289
08-29-2010, 20:48
it will most-likely not change it much at all, apple doesnt have less battery cuz it plays apple lossless, it just has less battery, an ipod playing apple lossless has the same battery life as an ipod playing mp3s
wait, J3 supports m4a?
If we are talking ipod classic, playing lossless will most definitely hurt the battery life compared to mp3 due to the larger file size causing more frequent spinning of the hard disk to read the next part of a song into a 16mb or 32mb space (the device's RAM, practically speaking, can't remember if it is literally so). Often a flac file for some genres especially can be two to four times the size of this "buffer space", so the hard disk can spin many times per song versus every 2-4 songs when using mp3.
Hence flash based players have a huge power savings advantage over hard disk players playing large files, and in general. So while lossless on ipod (classic) may cut battery life to less than half of what it was with mp3, on a flash based player the loss will be much smaller.
Think people already answered the battery life question but I wanted to clarify why. It is ironic but when playing lossless flash memory is a better choice for battery life but hard to fit much on a flash player compared to hard disk based player like the ipod classic. The other ipods use flash memory and have the same advantages.
The other main reason the J3 has such good battery life is because it has a slower processor than say an ipod touch, hence no wi-fi browsing and fancy games but really really good battery life.
vBulletin® v3.8.7, Copyright ©2000-2013, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.