N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Hi there,

I was wondering if anyone could fill me in on some details about the N900's music player :). Mainly, I'm wondering about the following:

1. Does it play FLAC?
2. Does it read ReplayGain tags for MP3/FLAC/WMA/OGG?
3. Does it have a decent EQ? I'd love to know the type (semiparametric, parametric, graphic) and how many bands of EQ there are...
4. Does it display embedded as well as separate (i.e. stored in a JPG file in the same folder as the music) album art?

Thanks in advance :)

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

1. No, but someone might write a plugin at a later date.
2. I doubt it.
3. No eq.
4. Don't know.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

OK, thanks for the info, guess I'll be sticking with my Cowon iAudio7 for music playback for the time being :)

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Yes, if you install Ogg-Support.

I don't think so.

No, there is no equalizer.

It displays embedded album art in MP3 files. It does not display JPGs in the same folder as album art. But. MediaBox, which is currently being under development for the N900 will do both.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Yea the n900 won't come close to matching a Cowon device for music, not even dedicated music phones do. I suppose its the price we all pay for having a 'do all' device. ;)

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Also, there's a album art downloader for the N900 called something like Google-album-art-downloader.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

The EQ issue is kind of lame (really lame if no fix). My Dash is growing old in the tooth, but allows EQ support though Coreplayer and actually sounds very good (in spite of the USB audio adapter) and also allows pre-amp function. Surely the new chipset allows better support than my Tmo Dash.

Can media apps support an EQ, or is that part of the hardware not developed to support EQ?

I use 13ohm UE's so have a good point for audio quality reference- the Dash really does sound better than expected for audio. Ironically, it sounds WAY better than my Archos 5, which is not hard to do. A5 is great for video but sucky for audio quality.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

There is a workaround.. using Mp3gain on you tracks on the n900 http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Bashing the N900 media player app for not having an EQ is like bashing a Honda Civic for not having Lambo doors.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

I don't want to modify my files, other than tagging them. ReplayGain is definitely the way to go...

Actually, it's more like bashing a Honda Civic without doors for not having any doors... every MP3 player I've ever owned had at least a simple 5-band graphic EQ.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Depends on the audio circuit on the N900 and how it is presenting the frequency spectrum in correlation to gain. How is having an EQ function superfluous? That statement assumes every track is perfect to a user's liking.

MP3gain could compensate if the audio output dB is weak (though not by much until the audio is saturated).

Simple question is does the chipset support EQ so a media app can use it?

5 band EQs are common on most MP3 players. At a minimum, there is treble, bass and boost. Surely the N900 chipset has the function.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

You must buy nothing but expensive or top of the line mp3 players then.

The average user of an integrated device like this isn't going to be expecting - or ever even using - an EQ to begin with. Feel free to try to create your own if you wish.

No, I don't know if anything would allow it. I think you might be best looking into gstreamer. I believe there might be a plugin for it that will allow EQ. You'd still have to at least build a GUI for it though.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Not expensive or top-of-the-line - just not crap.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

If your music needs an EQ to be listenable, it's not worth listening to anyway.
</ELITISM>

Replay Gain would have been cool, though. I wonder if that could be hacked in through the MFAW(sp?) backend.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

True, but I don't always get to pick what I listen to - if they're songs I have to listen to in order to learn them for my coverband, I'll often use EQ and VST plugins in Winamp in order to make them more tolerable :D

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Anyone interested in creating their own EQ would probably want to start from this: http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/dat...equalizer.html

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Heck, my $80 Dingoo game system has a hardware based 10 band EQ and that is about fourth on its media priorities.

My son's $60 no name brand has a 5 band. So does my Zen, Archos 5, Gmini 402, and Tmo Dash.

Seems common for even cheap devices.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Does the N900's chipset support hardware EQ? Big and bad difference both in quality and system resources if software based. Most chipsets since the integration of MP3 decoding also have hardware EQ.

I do not see it on the 3430 specs. Am I missing it?

Update: Yes, the 3430 has hardware EQ. Just need a media app to use it.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Do you have any more info about that? What type of EQ? Only applicable to certain audio formats, or all?

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

The crappy S60 music player has EQ functions, and can save several presets. I use it for different audio output devices. My BT headphones sound nothing like my BT speaker or the car stereo adapter, so it makes it possible to tune playback a little to my ear.

And I don't think any of the mp3 player's EQs work on any hardware. The way mp3 compression works is to split the signal into different bands and perform compression on individual bands. This makes EQ somewhat easy to implement, as I understand it (but I'm not a programmer, so what do I know about easy?).

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

I can not find the EQ spec, but here is the specs:
http://focus.ti.com/general/docs/wtb...emplateId=6123

Other devices that use the chipset (Pandora included) have EQ's.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

I agree it is lame that there is not even a simple EQ, I have already done a post on this , but then seem to be the only who cared.
the XXXXX media device can surely support a EQ.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

While I understand the idea and importance of EQ, I don't think most people use them o.O. I never had the time to figure out the optimal settings on them even when I had dedicated mp3 devices with them and just gave up on bothering with it. But as long as it's not to hard to implement (e.g. it doesn't require additional hardware) I don't see why an expensive device like the n900 shouldn't have it.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Each device has different speaker characteristics. So with EQ you can fine tune your device to sound its best. My N800 could use a “bass boost”.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Hmmm, I mostly use the EQ for getting crappy headphones to sound good when I don't have my in-ears with me :)

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

I would argue the opposite. Everyone I know uses an EQ, at the very least Bass Boost. But it does depend on the initial playback quality of the device, many are flat so need a Bass Boost, some however (like my Linux box) output pretty good sound to headphones straight from ALSA with no EQ at all.

So until I have an N900 in my hands I will not know if it needs one or not. I know both my HTC Wizard sounded like crap even WITH an EQ and even my Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 while generally sounding pretty good, I could never get the balance quite right. Neither can I with the iPod WITH EQ, I had to settle for transcoding from FLAC, dropping the track 3dB or so and adding EQ, before encoding into ALAC. Its a hassle but as you have to recode into ALAC anyway its not so bad.

Speaking of encoding, is there any way to decode a FLAC, add EQ then encode it back into FLAC, from the command line? That would be a quick fix for me as I have a web page to transcode my music to WAV, MP3, AAC. Its handy as I can access my entire library anywhere and just download any tracks I want to add.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

You're ignoring the fact that average user profile of this platform will change as N900 reaches more users.

I like to benefit technological convergence where ever possible, that's why I don't own any PMP / camera / MID, but instead I just own a Nokia N82 to cater my mobile & digital needs as much as possible.

I'd surely expect to be able to do the same, or even more; since I'll have *better* HW+SW than N82 in my hand.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

A true all in one has at least a basic EQ function. If the sound quality is weak out of the box (with good ear buds), that would make an EQ omission very poor of Nokia.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Dedicated hardware which specializes in one or very few purposes usually tries to do well in those specific purposes whereas a general purpose or convergence device aims for many features.

During recording audio should be normalized so there is not a big difference when playing several tracks on same hardware. If audio engineers who mastered the work didn't do that, someone else has to do that, but usually its done already. If not, one gotta do that themselves e.g. when ripping. Much more efficient than having to do it whole time in stage after decoding before listening.

EQ for different output devices is a different story though.

Anyway, how about developing consensus on the features missed most deeply, then making a Brainstorm entry about each of these features on how to solve these missing features?

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Yeah, and at least a swiss army knife. No true Scotsman.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

I am pretty sure the LAST thing the studio should be doing is normalising. Normalising destroys the dynamic range and in fact its music which has been normalised that tends to need an EQ the most, to try to get some sort of dynamics out of it rather than a complete mess of every frequency at the same volume.

Music, by its nature, should never have every track the same volume. Imagine orchestral music normalised, all those quiet bits suddenly are as loud as the loud bits, argh. Sadly there is no guideline either for what dynamic range to aim for on a track, so some just blast your head off with noise while others have punch and subtle undertones due to a wider range.

Ever notice how music on movies usually sounds so much better than the CD? That is because Dolby, etc have strict rules for dynamic range to avoid everything merging into noise and drowning out the dialogue and sound effects. You will also notice movies on TV often suck because they normalise their audio, SciFi channel being a culprit as they even do it on Dolby Digital soundtracks causing then to go loud,quiet.

Anyway I digress. Fact is, some hardware produces good sound at neutral settings, but often they do not. You are also forgetting that headphones make a difference and sometimes you have to tweak the audio to make it sound better on the bus as the engine drowns out the low frequencies. Not everyone can wear sound isolating underwater sounding earplugs, plus they are seriously dangerous to wear crossing the road.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Have you listened to any current albums lately? :D

I think the term is "compressed to f*ck"...

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

You're right, what I meant is that the max gain must not go over limit, so the max output one hears is the same.

Yes, noticed, its done to freak the hell out of your date :) something I don't want while driving a bike.

Different audio settings require different EQ however those very beautiful, quiet bits in your orchestral music music you cannot hear with the engine on the bus, and I don't want to hear people talking through my music. It makes me feel schizophrenic. So normalization would make sense there, but optional on the fly indeed.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

One of the things I miss the most from my old Palm TX is the sound quality I would get when plugging it into my car stereo. Normally, my car stereo sounds flat, especially when playing CDs, but thanks to the fact that my Palm's music player had a nice 5 band EQ (Aero player with free ogg codecs:P) the sound on my car sounded great! That is one of the things I have been looking forward to having again. I will be quite sad if there is no EQ available on the N900. :(

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

We can spin it, but a $600 plus device that has a media player should have at least treble and bass control. If the SDK was set up to where the raw / stream audio can be interfaced with and controlled with an app -cool.

If not.... well, that would make no sense- unless this is a beta OS or media is considered an afterthought.

Devs, does the SDK afford audio access besides volume or mute? Specifically- gain and frequency access.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Alex Atkin UK: You're confusing normalisation and compression. Compression is a destructive process which squashes the dynamic range, and you are right, it should not be done by the recording studio. There are some use cases where it is nice to be able to employ compression at the listener's end, for instance, when watching movies with a sleeping child in the next room, or in a noisy environment.

Normalisation is (usually) a non-destructive process which keeps the dynamic range. You scan the track to find either the loudest peak or the average loudness, then you set that point to match all of the other tracks on the album. The only time this can be destructive is if you push the peaks too far and cause "clipping", an artifact where the peak is just chopped off because it is too loud.

I don't think Nokia will make an EQ for us. I would like to see a third-party EQ made. Anyone want to put that in the Brainstorm for us?

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

There's already "Media player enhancements", which includes a request for an equalizer.

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Well, an EQ can be a separate app...

And Quim's latest comment on that Brainstorm is, "Proposal moved to the Sandbox. Please edit your initial proposal in order to concentrate on one feature. Feel free creating new proposals for additional features."

So we need to break EQ out into a separate Brainstorm. Playlist handling should be one too...

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

PulseAudio can handle the volume of individual applications although I'm not sure which version Maemo uses and whether that supports.

There is (experimental) support to use PulseAudio as equalizer:

http://gitorious.org/pulseaudio-equalizer
http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/SystemEqualizer

It is probably not tested well at Linux/ARM, and it requires a recent PulseAudio version since it requires Ubuntu >= 9.10

Re: N900 music player - FLAC, ReplayGain, EQ, embedded album art?
 

Would that not be more of a resource issue rather than a straight system function of the hardware? Wrong I hope?