X5 sound quality results with RMAA, interesting facts

[maxus]

Hi

I am just another proud owner of a X5 for already a week :-)

Sound quality was a importand side for me when using mp3 players. You can look at my angry page about Samsung T5 sound quality. While testing samsung I discovered that RMAA (RightMark) is a very good software for these goals.

So the first thing I did with my X5 is tested it with RMAA. The results are here

Note: RMAA testing partly depends in such case on the quality of the Analog-digital converter used. Mine was minidisc deck and might be considered as an external ADC. I should add that in some lines where excellent rating was'nt given this might be due to not excellent quality of ADС :-)

So, the unit was given good rating, but I'd give it very good or higher and I'll explaing why. Two lines looks not so very good,
- Frequency response (Average)
- IMD + Noise (Intermodulation distortion). (Poor)

I did some researcha and should say than imho both appeared since the unit has a little gradual cut-off at the very low frequencies (look at the frequency response chart). I don't know why it so, but it looks like such cut-off is not audible at all. I tried to generate a wave (60 Hz) with 2 dB changing in amplitude and could not distinguish the difference while listening. As for IMD, RightMark uses two waves and measures how they affect each other. Since the first wave is from the very low frequencies RMMA sees that amplitude is not the same as when it was generated and decides that IMD characteristic is bad.

So if this all is true the main question is should we encourage Cowon to correct the issue just to make this unit excelent even while blind testing or at least explain why so strange cut-off. Personally I can say everyone that the sound quality is great, but I may be need to make a little speech similar to above every time I'm going to do this :-)

What you think? Any comments and suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,

Max