3 ms·

SD-card capable with Opus support, that's all I ever want frankly, and this has it. Will certainly be interested to see what price this launches at.

daeros 3y ago
for me it was sd cards and mp3 and flac support, any insight into why you prefer opus?
- manmal 3y ago
  Opus is Vorbis‘ successor. Vorbis should no longer be used for encoding, except if you need to stay backwards compatible. Eg if you needed to shrink a FLAC collection I‘d use Opus.
- jszymborski 3y ago
  I rip/buy all my music using FLAC, and then put what I want for e.g. flights on my phone in Opus since you can get muuuch smaller files w/o degrading quality. The general consensus on MP3s is that 320kbps VBR is universally transparent quality, whereas that number is about 120kbps VBR for Opus. Honestly, depending on the music and how good an ear you've got, Opus at 96kbps is pretty great.
  - arp242 3y ago
    With a decent encoder (and most are decent these days) VBR at V0 should be transparent too, and is much smaller than a fixed ratio of 320kbs. I'm not entirely sure how it compares to Opus, but it's a better target than 320kbps fixed rate.
  - LeoPanthera 3y ago
    You can’t have “320k VBR” for MP3, because 320k is the maximum available bitrate. You can either have 320K CBR, or VBR at some lower average bitrate. As long as you’re using LAME, MP3 is transparent far below 320k. There’s never a need to go that high. For archival purposes, use FLAC, not MP3.
    - jszymborski 3y ago
      Good to know. I see "just use 320K" as the mantra in a lot of forums, but I also see people claiming they can hear the difference between Opus @ 128K and 192K, which I promise you I do not. Frankly, 96K and 64K are pretty great to my ears.
bentley 3y ago
> Will certainly be interested to see what price this launches at. $249. https://chaos.social/@jacqueline/111586778394138531 https://chaos.social/@jacqueline/111586778394138531
- jszymborski 3y ago
  Jinkies! I understand that it's an indie project and don't doubt that's just the price point it needs to be, but that's sadly a bit too rich for my blood.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  Aimed at hipsters then
- rasz 3y ago
  heavily under $50 BOM
yaomtc 3y ago
Some older portable media players are supported by Rockbox, which supports Opus. Unclear if there's any supported devices currently in production. As for SD cards, I know SanDisk devices on that list supported microSD cards. https://www.rockbox.org/ https://www.rockbox.org/
- hakfoo 3y ago
  I was expecting to see them say "it runs Rockbox." I put it on my Sandisk E200 back in the day; 2Gb and then I stuck in another 2Gb card. It was so responsive, and the scroll-wheel UI was so convenient. The wheel seized up (still usable, but had to turn it like a safecracker instead of with your thumb), so I gifted it to a co-worker's son. What I always wanted to see was something with an "old Blackberry" style side-mounted scroll-wheel, for eyes-off operation.
  - crotchfire 3y ago
    I want to know where to source that blackberry jog-wheel. I can't seem to find any PCB-mounted jogwheels that both (a) rotate in a plane parallel to the board and (b) are meant to be operated by touching the edge of the wheel (rather than its face, like the dial on the Sansa Fuze) and (c) don't cause the depth of the device along the axis perpendicular to the PCB to become huge (i.e. like a knob-style encoder without the knob).
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  The downside is that most older players can decode MP3 and AAC in hardware but Opus has to be done in the CPU, which causes a big hit on battery life.
  - andai 3y ago
    I had this experience when running RockBox on an iPod to play OGG files. The battery was much shorter. I can't remember how battery life compared for MP3/AAC (was RockBox able to use the hardware decoder?).
- dsr_ 3y ago

daeros 3y ago

for me it was sd cards and mp3 and flac support, any insight into why you prefer opus?

manmal 3y ago
Opus is Vorbis‘ successor. Vorbis should no longer be used for encoding, except if you need to stay backwards compatible. Eg if you needed to shrink a FLAC collection I‘d use Opus.
jszymborski 3y ago
I rip/buy all my music using FLAC, and then put what I want for e.g. flights on my phone in Opus since you can get muuuch smaller files w/o degrading quality. The general consensus on MP3s is that 320kbps VBR is universally transparent quality, whereas that number is about 120kbps VBR for Opus. Honestly, depending on the music and how good an ear you've got, Opus at 96kbps is pretty great.
- arp242 3y ago
  With a decent encoder (and most are decent these days) VBR at V0 should be transparent too, and is much smaller than a fixed ratio of 320kbs. I'm not entirely sure how it compares to Opus, but it's a better target than 320kbps fixed rate.
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  You can’t have “320k VBR” for MP3, because 320k is the maximum available bitrate. You can either have 320K CBR, or VBR at some lower average bitrate. As long as you’re using LAME, MP3 is transparent far below 320k. There’s never a need to go that high. For archival purposes, use FLAC, not MP3.
  - jszymborski 3y ago
    Good to know. I see "just use 320K" as the mantra in a lot of forums, but I also see people claiming they can hear the difference between Opus @ 128K and 192K, which I promise you I do not. Frankly, 96K and 64K are pretty great to my ears.

bentley 3y ago

> Will certainly be interested to see what price this launches at. $249. https://chaos.social/@jacqueline/111586778394138531 https://chaos.social/@jacqueline/111586778394138531

jszymborski 3y ago
Jinkies! I understand that it's an indie project and don't doubt that's just the price point it needs to be, but that's sadly a bit too rich for my blood.
ekianjo 3y ago
Aimed at hipsters then
rasz 3y ago
heavily under $50 BOM

yaomtc 3y ago

Some older portable media players are supported by Rockbox, which supports Opus. Unclear if there's any supported devices currently in production. As for SD cards, I know SanDisk devices on that list supported microSD cards. https://www.rockbox.org/ https://www.rockbox.org/

hakfoo 3y ago
I was expecting to see them say "it runs Rockbox." I put it on my Sandisk E200 back in the day; 2Gb and then I stuck in another 2Gb card. It was so responsive, and the scroll-wheel UI was so convenient. The wheel seized up (still usable, but had to turn it like a safecracker instead of with your thumb), so I gifted it to a co-worker's son. What I always wanted to see was something with an "old Blackberry" style side-mounted scroll-wheel, for eyes-off operation.
- crotchfire 3y ago
  I want to know where to source that blackberry jog-wheel. I can't seem to find any PCB-mounted jogwheels that both (a) rotate in a plane parallel to the board and (b) are meant to be operated by touching the edge of the wheel (rather than its face, like the dial on the Sansa Fuze) and (c) don't cause the depth of the device along the axis perpendicular to the PCB to become huge (i.e. like a knob-style encoder without the knob).
LeoPanthera 3y ago
The downside is that most older players can decode MP3 and AAC in hardware but Opus has to be done in the CPU, which causes a big hit on battery life.
- andai 3y ago
  I had this experience when running RockBox on an iPod to play OGG files. The battery was much shorter. I can't remember how battery life compared for MP3/AAC (was RockBox able to use the hardware decoder?).
dsr_ 3y ago