What is the best sounding portable mp3 player?

[spaceman]

Here's another reason to stick with the ipod

http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=1232



Ben

putting a peecock feather in a donkey's arse doesn't make it a moulin rouge dancer

[Voidoid Surrealist]

putting a peecock feather in donkey's arse doesn't make him a moulin rouge dancer

Yes it does!

[spaceman]

..an open goal

[BitFlipper]

I'm interested in that new 1GIG flash player from Iriver.. 60 hours of playback with one charge

and I never put more than 1gig of music on a player anyway so I don't need the stupendious amount of storage

Do you know it's model # or where I can find out more info about this one? I looked at their website but didn't find one that had 50hrs, just 40hrs max battery life.

If it is this new it might support Napster To Go.

EDIT: Ok, I think I found it, it is the iFP-999. Strange thing though that on their website they list it as 40 hours battery life, not 50 as in some online stores. But it doesn't mention subscription services so I'm not sure about Napster To Go support. Maybe with a firmware upgrade, but man, it's pricy at $300!

BitFlipper

[InfiNeat]

I'v had an iRiver IHP 140 for about 8 months and I love it. This model is dicontinued but they have a new color one. The main reason for iRiver is that it can use Ogg Vorbis which is better than MP3. That's the format I use to rip my CDs. It can also record wave files, which was my other reason to buy it. The protective pouch is really nice too and the build quality is top.

For the flash ones, my girlfriend has one from IOPS. Design-wise, it's really a notch above everything else I've seen (including iPod and the iRiver flash ones, IMO). They can use Ogg Vorbis, too. I don't know if they're available outside of Asia, though. I had never seen them in Canada.

[BitFlipper]

I'v had an iRiver IHP 140 for about 8 months and I love it. This model is dicontinued but they have a new color one. The main reason for iRiver is that it can use Ogg Vorbis which is better than MP3. That's the format I use to rip my CDs. It can also record wave files, which was my other reason to buy it. The protective pouch is really nice too and the build quality is top.

For the flash ones, my girlfriend has one from IOPS. Design-wise, it's really a notch above everything else I've seen (including iPod and the iRiver flash ones, IMO). They can use Ogg Vorbis, too. I don't know if they're available outside of Asia, though. I had never seen them in Canada.

I don't particularly care too much for ogg support, especially since that's not the format that any online (pay, at least) stores support, but I do understand some people need that. At least that gives me some more leeway in picking a player.

BitFlipper

[JamminFool]

i have the iRiver iHP-120.

i really like it. 20 GB. lots of good features. fm radio too. shows up as an external harddrive on windows for file drag n drop.

last week, the hard-drive failed. just stopped after 6 months. i called iRiver, the guy told me to send it in (under warranty) and they would ship me a new one. he told me that they were back-ordered, though, and it might take up to 6 weeks.

i sent it in on a thursday, kind of bummed, and started to immediately miss it, since i got hooked on using it to move downloads from my internet machine to my DAW.

the next monday, i checked UPS tracking to make sure they had gotten it (they had, on friday). the next day, i found a new one on my doorstep.

WOW. that's pretty fast and totally unexpected. no receipts, no BS. they just made it easy and dealt with it.

as far as how it sounds compared to iPod, i don't know, since i wouldn't buy anything from a company that specializes in image marketing.

[spaceman]

I'm interested in that new 1GIG flash player from Iriver.. 60 hours of playback with one charge

and I never put more than 1gig of music on a player anyway so I don't need the stupendious amount of storage

Do you know it's model # or where I can find out more info about this one? I looked at their website but didn't find one that had 50hrs, just 40hrs max battery life.

If it is this new it might support Napster To Go.

EDIT: Ok, I think I found it, it is the iFP-999. Strange thing though that on their website they list it as 40 hours battery life, not 50 as in some online stores. But it doesn't mention subscription services so I'm not sure about Napster To Go support. Maybe with a firmware upgrade, but man, it's pricy at $300!

BitFlipper

it's at http://www.iriver.com/eu/index.asp

click on "flash players", it's the H10 one
haven't found it for sale anywhere.. I wonder if it actually exists (and if it does it's probably expensive)

just ordered a zen micro anyway

[griels]

I recommend the Wasp T12 Speechtool

[foosnark]

I poked around in some stores and decided I really hated the Zen Micro's touchpad, where the iPod's is much more usable. But at this point I'm planning on a Rio Carbon anyway

[The Chase]

A lot of people have dissed Creative, But I really liked mine (before it broke)

Creative does suck, but I bought my nomad for a reason. I guessed it would probably break in 2 years (it lasted 3). However, The Creative model (which at the time was larger than most discmen) had a really loud, powerful headphone amp. A lot of portable MP3 players will throw in a lot of technical tricks to try and boost sound quality, but really nothing beats having a lot of amp behind the power. My old nomad was the only portable music player I have ever heard that didn't sound like it had a cheap .2 watt headphone amp in it. It sounded more like the sound was coming out of a peice of home equipment.

Just something to consider. Look at the amps in these things

[whiteboycomputernoise]

ipods are pretty good. I have one and they're pretty simple to use. The UI touchpad thingy is very sensitive, very ergonomic. The reason i got the ipod even though i'm anti mac is because it supports apples lossless codec, which at the time i bought it there were no cheap alternatives available which supported lossless encoding. That way i can have the mathematical equivalent of the original cd sound quality at half the space. Other than that, i would have opted for something less political.

but i must admit, after seeing how much the american pc ego has grown from this site, i feel like buying a G5 just so i can escape every once in a while to the mac world's set of egoes for a beautiful and refreshing change of pace.

[whiteboycomputernoise]

I'v had an iRiver IHP 140 for about 8 months and I love it. This model is dicontinued but they have a new color one. The main reason for iRiver is that it can use Ogg Vorbis which is better than MP3. That's the format I use to rip my CDs. It can also record wave files, which was my other reason to buy it. The protective pouch is really nice too and the build quality is top.

For the flash ones, my girlfriend has one from IOPS. Design-wise, it's really a notch above everything else I've seen (including iPod and the iRiver flash ones, IMO). They can use Ogg Vorbis, too. I don't know if they're available outside of Asia, though. I had never seen them in Canada.

why is ogg vorbis "better than mp3?" Does it sound better? Isn't it still an mp3? How does it sound comparably to mp4?

[Lawnmower Of The Damned]

Ogg is open source. MP3 is owned by Frauhoffer Labs (Or some other spelling). Icorperating Ogg compatibility into a product is free, where-as MP3s require paying liscencing fees.

Otherwise Ogg is similar in size, similar in basic idea (Though different enough to avoid copyright infringment) and I belive is slightly more processor intensive to play than MP3s. Not much difference other than that.

As for the headphone amp piece, that is completely true. Portable players tend to focus on amps that conserve battery power more than high audio quality. Your best bet is to pick up a battery operated headphone amp and some high-end headphones.

The individual player itself isn't too important, though there are some exceptions. I believe the IPod has had some known issues about it's treble being a bit rolled off. Without a graphic EQ to adjust you are pretty much screwed.

The Nomads have a much more flat frequency response than IPods, in additioin to having a four fixed-band EQ. With a good external amp and some hi-fi headphones you'll be in very good shape.

[idobs]

I have a Rio Cali and it's HORRIBLE as far as audio quality. I even bought new headphones (Sony mid-priced), and it STILL is really bad.

I can even hear a lot of decompression clicks and pops that I don't hear on other devices. (especially high bitrate, it has trouble with).


-Ido