S
shadowritten
Guest
Ladies and gentlemen of the digital music community, the time has come.
Today, I finally reached the very end of my tether with DAP makers who are too lazy to ensure their products play back audio formats gaplessly. I even found myself investigating the only player known to be able to provide the holy grail of playback: the Rio Karma. And I HATE how this thing looks, so you can imagine how desperate and thoroughly cheesed off I must now feel as regards this irritating issue!
So I say we consumers should take action. I propose that we send the email below to the support/customer service addresses of EVERY KNOWN DAP MANUFACTURER - so, not just the popular ones - and then keep hounding them until something is done about standardising gapless playback. Because, as much as I like Sony products, I'm getting pretty sick and tired of being tied to the only format (ATRAC) that actually gives we discerning listeners what we want.
Here, then, is the email. I urge you ALL to copy, paste and send at the earliest opportunity. And I thank you in advance for doing so. Those who are with me on this can post any responses from manufacturers in this thread:
Dear [insert name/manufacturer]
As a consumer who cares about the quality of the products I buy, I write to you to ask you why your otherwise excellent products fall short of being the best they can be. Certainly, your digital audio players have many admirable features, but they lack an essential one which has also been ignored by almost all of your competitors: the ability to play back audio files WITHOUT GAPS BETWEEN TRACKS WHICH ARE NOT PRESENT ON THE SOURCE CDs.
Now I imagine that, as an audio product manufacturer, you care about sound reproduction - and, too, about your customers' satifaction with your products. The general sound quality of your players seems to confirm this; yet your products are badly let down by not being able to play back CDs such as Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side Of The Moon', or any number of live or classical performances, without the insertion of artificial gaps between tracks - gaps that the artist did not intend to be there.
To date, only two manufacturers have succeeded in giving consumers what they deserve in terms of 'gapless playback'. Sony, through their ATRAC system, provide the listener with the opportunity to enjoy digital music on the move in exactly the way it reproduces from CDs. They were also able to release a firmware upgrade for their Vaio Pocket player to make MP3 playback gapless; proving that a special codec is not required to achieve this. Also, the now defunct Rio made a player called the 'Karma', which was able to play back ANY format gaplessly.
Surely, if a company that has not proved so successful in this market as yours can produce a product that is arguably superior to any of your products in respect of gapless playback, then I see no reason, technical or otherwise, why your firm cannot investigate and rectify this matter for the benefit of millions of listeners (and performers/artists) worldwide. Such an improvement, coupled with the high standards your products are already known for, might eventually lead to your gaining a none-too-insignificant proportion of the global digital audio player market share.
As a consumer who cares as much about this market as you do, I urge you please to take decisive action on this issue and end the misery that people like myself have had to endure since the dawn of the MP3 revolution. We all know it's possible to achieve perfectly gapless playback. We're puzzled why this hasn't been done. And we're all waiting for a company - yours, perhaps? - to show courage and foresight in delivering portable digital audio players that play back music as it was intended to be heard.
I sincerely hope you'll give serious consideration to this matter, and I very much look forward to hearing what steps your company intends to take.
Yours ...
Good luck everyone!
Today, I finally reached the very end of my tether with DAP makers who are too lazy to ensure their products play back audio formats gaplessly. I even found myself investigating the only player known to be able to provide the holy grail of playback: the Rio Karma. And I HATE how this thing looks, so you can imagine how desperate and thoroughly cheesed off I must now feel as regards this irritating issue!
So I say we consumers should take action. I propose that we send the email below to the support/customer service addresses of EVERY KNOWN DAP MANUFACTURER - so, not just the popular ones - and then keep hounding them until something is done about standardising gapless playback. Because, as much as I like Sony products, I'm getting pretty sick and tired of being tied to the only format (ATRAC) that actually gives we discerning listeners what we want.
Here, then, is the email. I urge you ALL to copy, paste and send at the earliest opportunity. And I thank you in advance for doing so. Those who are with me on this can post any responses from manufacturers in this thread:
Dear [insert name/manufacturer]
As a consumer who cares about the quality of the products I buy, I write to you to ask you why your otherwise excellent products fall short of being the best they can be. Certainly, your digital audio players have many admirable features, but they lack an essential one which has also been ignored by almost all of your competitors: the ability to play back audio files WITHOUT GAPS BETWEEN TRACKS WHICH ARE NOT PRESENT ON THE SOURCE CDs.
Now I imagine that, as an audio product manufacturer, you care about sound reproduction - and, too, about your customers' satifaction with your products. The general sound quality of your players seems to confirm this; yet your products are badly let down by not being able to play back CDs such as Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side Of The Moon', or any number of live or classical performances, without the insertion of artificial gaps between tracks - gaps that the artist did not intend to be there.
To date, only two manufacturers have succeeded in giving consumers what they deserve in terms of 'gapless playback'. Sony, through their ATRAC system, provide the listener with the opportunity to enjoy digital music on the move in exactly the way it reproduces from CDs. They were also able to release a firmware upgrade for their Vaio Pocket player to make MP3 playback gapless; proving that a special codec is not required to achieve this. Also, the now defunct Rio made a player called the 'Karma', which was able to play back ANY format gaplessly.
Surely, if a company that has not proved so successful in this market as yours can produce a product that is arguably superior to any of your products in respect of gapless playback, then I see no reason, technical or otherwise, why your firm cannot investigate and rectify this matter for the benefit of millions of listeners (and performers/artists) worldwide. Such an improvement, coupled with the high standards your products are already known for, might eventually lead to your gaining a none-too-insignificant proportion of the global digital audio player market share.
As a consumer who cares as much about this market as you do, I urge you please to take decisive action on this issue and end the misery that people like myself have had to endure since the dawn of the MP3 revolution. We all know it's possible to achieve perfectly gapless playback. We're puzzled why this hasn't been done. And we're all waiting for a company - yours, perhaps? - to show courage and foresight in delivering portable digital audio players that play back music as it was intended to be heard.
I sincerely hope you'll give serious consideration to this matter, and I very much look forward to hearing what steps your company intends to take.
Yours ...
Good luck everyone!