i actually have a choice now, a real one

See, most self-admitted audiophiles like me have a problem: we like to be drowned by music whenever we feel like it, wherever we feel like it. This means my music needs to follow me around, hence the need for a portable audio player.

The concept of music on-the-go is by no means a new one -- Sony and its infamous Walkman audio tape player paved the way for generation of steadily evolving micro gadgets that give you what you need. In our era, digital portable audio players (I never owned a Sony Walkman; I have owned numerous digital audio players, though) are dime-a-dozen – you picks one and you enjoys it. One brand has set itself up as a cut above the rest – the iPod.

The iPod was, and probably still remains in the minds of most people, the Michael Jordan of portable digital audio players. Steve Jobs’ ticket to the big time, his legacy to this world, was a definitive culture of tech-inspired citizens, all sporting telltale white earbuds on each side of their heads.

For an audiophile like me, the pressure to get one was considerable. I used to be content with 1 to 2 gigabyte models from an ubiquitous local gadget store whose name I refuse to mention (I am not a regular patron there – I only get stuff from them when I am in desperate need). But that was if you chose to not mind the lata(tin can) sound, resulting from reprogrammed sound firmware (oooh, those Filipinos are so good at re-programming) and even crappier earphones. But what could I do? I wasn’t going to spend that much for a portable gadget. Ano ako, hilo?

NOT.

I got my 60GB monster iPod video (it was a monster at that time) 2 years ago. I got one for the bebe too, at the constant pushing of Ailene. As a budding musician (ilang years na ba akong “budding”?), owning a portable player which could contain 60GB of songs (1 song=5MB; 1GB=1000MB therefore 2000 songs; 60GB was like… you get the idea) was mind blowing. But after a year of using it, you kinda start noticing the stuff that says, "oh well, so an iPod is not perfect." No customizable equalizer on the gadget itself – and I love my equalizers, so that was a bummer. Sound normalization from file to file was crappy – low bitrate files are very much noticeable when listening in shuffle mode. And yes, you needed the iTunes to do anything with it. But so what? It was the only one that was of quality out there. Better an iPod than nothing at all. Pogi points were still, undeniably, pogi points.

Enter (stage right) my good friend Ida. She invited me to Route196 at Katipunan, well-known music venue for people who like their music just that way – good or better. Phillips was putting out a new line of products in the market, a portable digital audio player. As I listened through the discussion of what the product was and what its features were – I was saying to myself, “Who are they kidding? The iPod was still the big dog in the neighborhood.” The features were, at that point in time I thought, a reach. Good sound engineering, full sound enhancement – if they could pull it off, maybe then it would be a good product. And yes, still a big MAYBE, at that point. But I wasn’t going to pass up the chance to try a new gadget, so what the heck, I gave the GoGear 4GB Spark a spin over the weekend, and gave my iPod a rest.

Ok, so yeah, it sounds good.

No actually, who are we kidding? It sounded great! Does it sound , dare we say, better than the iPod? Let’s get to that later.

It was a “no frills” gadget, small for a 4GB device (smaller than an iPod mini). Plug it to your USB port, drag and drop music, spin it up.

I put special attention to the tracks I put in. At first try, my iPod-drowned ears did notice a difference in sound quality, but I wanted to be sure. Maybe, Phillips’ pre-loaded tracks were digitally engineered, so yeah, let me try my own tracks. I put in a mix of RnB (to test for bass quality), jazz, and rock files. I also put in files with different bitrates, so that I could test how the device normalized the sound from track to track.

Over the weekend, I used all the "alone time" I had to test out the Spark. I was actually surprised at the sound quality. Those people at Phillips are actually daring you (the consumer) to test out your portable audio device and compare the sound with theirs. This I actually did, and I was surprised with the results.

First the FullSound feature, which was Phillips way of saying “Well, we put back into the file what MP3 and WMA compression takes away”, was undeniably better than raw MP3 sound. Even when equalized (through my now-offended iPod), FullSound still fared better at giving you the widest range of sound possible. There were a number of equalizer settings too. One caveat, though, you can’t use the FullSound feature with equalizer. It makes sense, I guess. FullSound is meant to recapture how the music was mixed down from the studio and how it was originally equalized. No sense spoiling that with other equalizer settings, eh?

While I liked the FullSound feature, I also tried the other EQ settings – and viola! – absolutely fell in love with the Jazz EQ setting. The trebles were mild (as they should be) but I was taken by the bass sound. Not the usual treble-ly bass mix from other Jazz presets, it was a full oomph! sound – very, very defined. It also wasn’t the invasive (read: gives you a headache) bass sound that pseudo-cool rich kids have playing from their Kenwood car audio systems, it was phat enough to make you bob your head, but suave enough to get you aroused by a true upright contrabass jazz sound.

For the hardcore in you, you can tweak the 5-band graphic EQ to your liking (don’t have this in your pod) – again, this is if you’re a total wiener and don’t trust me – just drown on the Jazz preset, dammit.

The sound normalization from track to track was amazing. Again, I am speaking as an unrepentant downloader – the main problem here is that the music I download comes in different bitrates and various formats. Usually, on the iPod, I notice a huge volume and tone difference from 128kbps mp3s to the ones at 196kbps – the tone jump from 96kbps, even in mp3PRO format to 256kbps is just horrendous. Not so with the Spark, I am happy to report. I don’t know if they consciously did something about this, but the volume and tone difference from 96kbps mp3PRO to 256kbps raw mp3 is pretty much negligible. There goes one of my other problems.

On the downside, the earphones that came with my 4GB Spark, although not totally crappy, I found them lacking for my purposes. Sorry, Phillips guys, for total satisfaction, you may need to put in a better pair of earphones here. In-ear models would be ideal. For my purposes, I used my own – a pair of Pioneer SE-CL21 in-ear monitors. They did just fine (fiiiiine). I’m not that rich, so I can’t afford them Sennheiser CX300s. But darnit, I think the GoGear line would sound heavenly with those.

Did I tell you it was drag and drop? Yes, no software interfaces in between. Isn’t that just great? And yes there is a sound recorder (4GB is a lot of space for that), an FM radio (but why?), and a JPEG image displayer.

So, you feel I’m totally sold on the GoGear? So maybe I am. For me, if it sounds better, it just made itself practically more viable. And yes, if it costs cheaper, that’s a bonus (I guess, hehe). Seriously though, if it sounds better AND costs cheaper, why is that not a better argument?

I, admittedly, set a very high standard for my portable music needs. I like my music to be detailed but not noisy, the bass should be persuasive but not invasive, the trebles bright but not scratchy. For all these, I actually like the sound of my GoGear Spark. Now if you are a certified audiophile, don’t take my word for it. Go to the GoGear street launch on June 6 at Bonifacio High Street. Bring your current portable audio player for comparison. Give the GoGear a spin, and hear it for yourself. Don’t take my word for it – that would just be stupid, right?

Now, as for the question, “Does it sound better than your iPod?” – my answer to that is, for the first time, I actually feel now that I have a choice in the matter of choosing my portable audio player. Now, something actually stepped up as good competition, and it might just give the people at Apple a good run.