Windows Phone Thoughts: Listenin' to the Music!--PocketMusic 3.0 Reviewed

Sound Quality
There have been lots of articles, news groups and discussion forums regarding the relative quality of the various recording formats (mp3 vs. wma vs. ogg, etc.). Since I’m by no means an expert in this area, all I will say is that I find PocketMusic to be as good as, and in some cases much better than, most of the other music players when it comes to reproduction of the originally recorded material. The other general note of consensus is that if you’re looking for faithful reproduction of the original, a higher sampling rate is always better. But, you need to trade this off against the amount of disk space you want to use up.

Suffice it to say that PocketMusic 3 had no difficulty dealing with any of the formats I was able to produce (mp3, wma, ogg) and any of the sampling rates. I have to admit though, that I couldn’t really tell the difference in music quality between many of them. I’ll leave that up to your personal preferences.

What I will talk about is the equalizer, since this is one of the earliest features of PocketMusic which, at first, separated it from the rest of the pack. Originally when I reviewed PocketMusic, I mentioned that the equalizer really wasn’t doing what I expected a multi-band equalizer to do – enhance or reduce sounds produced within the band selected. I also noted that at some point, the equalizer would appear to get confused and everything started sounding like it was coming from the inside of a large tin can. The equalizer is a 10-band affair and Pocket Mind provides a significant number of presets, which provide simulate various listening environments (large hall, night club, headphones, etc.)


Figure 6: PocketMusic 3’s 10-band equalizer.

Generally, the equalizer works OK, and it’s much better than it has been in previous versions of PocketMusic. When you adjust the lower range sliders, bass notes get stronger and the same thing happens at the upper range. However, I guess I’ve been spoiled by working with analog, active equalizer boards in my earlier recording studio days. PocketMusic’s equalizer still doesn’t work the way I would expect it to on all bands. To give it fair due, I haven’t found any player with an equalizer that works properly (to my ear). The point of a multi-band equalizer is that it should only affect sounds within the frequency range of the band being adjusted – not other notes in other bands. With PocketMusic’s equalizer, I found that especially in the mid-range bands, other frequencies were being altered that should have been left alone. Thus, trying to adjust for known situations (like needing to tweak the upper range a bit for clearer voices) meant having to play with all the sliders and interpret the interactions. And yes, I did manage to get the ‘playing in a tin can’ effect again, and since there is no ‘reset’ button to put the equalizer back to 0 (flat) on all bands, I had to turn off the equalizer to clear it.

On the positive side, the presets work pretty well, and generally simulate the effects they describe. (I’d like a bit more reverb in the Large Hall setting, though). Maybe my headphones aren’t sensitive enough, but there were a number of presets I couldn’t hear any noticeable difference.


Figure 7: There’s quite a range of presets available for the equalizer.

The other change in sound included in this version is the ability for PocketMusic to eliminate blank sound at the beginning and end of tracks and to create a cross-fade effect between subsequent songs. Now, you can make your music sound like you have your own personal DJ creating the set. I have to admit it was a bit unnerving the first time I heard it between tracks (since I’m used to the old days of records and tapes), and having the music fade out when I tap the close button still catches me every now and then.


Figure 8: Telling PocketMusic to crossfade and eliminate gaps.