"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Serge Auckland" wrote
in message

I would bet money that the VAST majority of iPods, Sansa
Clips etc are playing at whatever is the default bit rate
for the device concerned.

None of them have a default bit rate. What they do is solely determined by
the music files they play,which are totally at the discretion of the user.
I believe that every device you specifically mentioned suports both lossy
and lossless files.

Of course the players will play anything, but the rippers/music managers
used to get the music into the device in the first place have a default
format, of bit rate and type. For example, iTunes has 128k AAC as the
default if you don't change it yourself. Of the others, 128kMP3 is pretty
typical.


The people I regularly come
into contact with have generally no idea what "bit-rate"
means, or the difference between MP3, MP2, AAC, lossless
data reduction or WAV.

No argument from me about that!

As far as most people are
concerned, they use the device as it comes out of the box
and NEVER reconfigure any of the settings.

There are no settings to configure.

Please see above. The player usually comes with a CD of ripping/management
software or referes the user to the appropriate web site.

Yes, those of us here and on similar fora may find this
hard to believe, but in my discussions with many
music-literate people at our local radio station, only a
couple out of the staff of around 50 had any idea what I
was talking about. None of the others had any idea what
bit rates were, why it made a difference, and how to
change their ripping setting so that they didn't play
low-rate MP3s to air.

How the technological training of radio station staff has fallen!

I'm not sure that it's changed a lot amongst on-air presenters, it was never
that great. What has changed is that Stations once employed several
Engineering staff that made sure what went to air was technically sound. In
the last 20 years, that's pretty much gone, and a group of stations may
share one "Engineer" who's main job is to solder plugs back on headphones.

I've no reason to doubt that a portable player can
perform equally to a fixed player provided the audio
files are to a decent standard.

As a rule these portable players are capable of sonic transparency, given
appropriate music files. Some have built-in frequency response variations
that can be removed, but the default is for specific variations to be in
place. Some may evidence frequency response variations when loaded with
common kinds of earphones and headphones. If you back out the default
response variations and load them with a resistive load, they are as a
rule very good.

Agreed. It's a sad fact of modern life that music players come set by
default with all sorts of undesireable "improvements" that are far best
disabled. An iPod is then a very high quality source. I'm amused by those
who say an iPod can't be HiFi, then use a valve amplifier.......



Unfortunately, the Great
Public have no knowledge of or interest in maintaining
audio standards.

Agreed. However, the general run of settings they don't choose tend
toward higher average sound quality than they have ever enjoyed in the
past.

Agreed again.

Season's greetings to you and yours.

S.