The Tera-Player FAQ featuring your original questions:
Presumably the Tera-Player will require updating at some point in the future, will this be achievable by the user, or will the player need to be returned for any upgrading?
I think you are referring to a software upgrade.
First: no worries, the software is extensively tested to work, LOL :)
If there would be a software upgrade available in the future, the Tera-Player's software can be upgraded. In this case the unit would have to be returned to me for doing the upgrade. The reason is that right now, the Tera-Player is still the world's only pocket size player capable of reading 24/192 wav-files while having substantial playtime. This is realized by an all assembly programming on the ARM Cortex processor.
As it took me years to develop the software, I feel better protecting it, else we may see chinese knockoffs within a couple of weeks.
How easy is it to upload lossless music files from a Mac to the micro SD cards? Is there an online guide explaining how to convert Apple lossless files to the WAV format?
It is very easy. I am using the free XLD software and I just drop the contents (i.e. selected artists or albums) from my iTunes® music library to the XLD icon. Then the XLD software will convert all incoming files to wav while copying to your SDHC card at the same time, automatically preserving the original folder structure for easy navigation.
You can also use micro SDHC cards with the appropriate micro-SD card adapter.
Would the Tera-Player benefit from being used with a headphone amp?
The Tera-Player is designed to work excellent without an additional amplifier, also at very loud volume levels. If you already have a headphone amplifier, you will try it anyway, however I doubt that you will get a better result compared to the stand-alone Tera-Player.
Can you tell me please, how do you think your new Tera-Player would stack up against the Attraction DAC in sound quality ?
Your question is significant.
The Tera-Player is developed on the Koss Porta-Pro headphones. Of course I have made it as good as humanly possible, however there are physical laws that make a difference:
For example:
A small Li-Ion accumulator (as employed in the Tera-Player) is great for driving a set of headphones, but it is not comparable to a Optima Red-Top battery (used for the Altmann Attraction DAC).
The extremely rugged aluminum case of the Tera-Player is great for outdoor use, but it is not a solid spruce-board as you will find at the base of the Attraction DAC.
As a matter of fact, the Tera-Player will outperform many DACs which are meant for home use, however it will not outperform the world's very best DACs for home use (i.e. Altmann Attraction DAC).
It does in no way render the Attraction DAC useless, these are 2 different products. The Tera-Player is unrivalled for mobile use, while the Attraction DAC is perfected for domestic Hifi and recording/mastering studio use.
You cannot carry an Optima battery while going for a walk, it is just not practical ...
I'm thinking of using the Tera player as a very high quality source in my car as well. Feeding a good quality AUX input that is. Should do well there I suspect.
Yeah, I'm using it in my car too :)
It is very practical, because I can navigate through music without taking my eyes from the road !
Any tips on SD cards, like best place to buy, care and handling, etc ?
The Tera-Player currently has been tested to work with SDHC cards with 4/8/16 or 32 GB as well as SDXC cards with 64GB.
No SD cards (even if they are 4GB). All SDXC cards have to be formatted to FAT-32 before they can be used with the Tera-Player.
We hope that the Tera-Player will be able to use SDXC cards up to 2 Terabytes, and will try higher capacity cards, as they become available.
You can get SDHC cards at any electronics store or amazon.com. I have been using SDHC cards from Sandisk and extrememory. You don't need any special speed rating, even the lowest speed class will be fast enough for 24/192kHz playback on the Tera-Player.
In a nutshell, I have always purchaced the SDHC and SDXC cards with the lowest price and they work fine.
I have just ordered a pair of Koss Porta-Pro's and am intrigued to see whether this pair of inexpensive cans are as good as you maintain. Incidentally, what is the Koss modification that you carried out? What does the modification do and is it easy to undertake?
I found out that the Koss had the biggest potential compared to all the headphones I tried, however after months of listening, I felt there was a small flaw, but that could be rectified with the modification.
I suggest you first use the Koss as it comes for some time in order to get a feel for it. It sounds very good and natural right from the start.
The only thing I did to the Koss, was to drill 17x 4mm holes into the grille, as shown in the pic. The effect is just that now the internal speaker has a more unobstructed way to your ears. This improves the higher frequency response and resolves an issue that otherwise would muddle the lower mids with the bass a little bit.
With the holes in the grille, the Koss Porta-Pro is perfect and should be considered the reference for all other headphone manufacturers.
I'm curious if your Tera player supports gapless playback.
The Tera-Player does not have absolute gapless playback, however, the gap between consecutive tracks is so short that it is difficult to detect at all, in other words, it goes unnoticed as it is shorter than a tenth of a second.
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