recommend me an mp3 player?

http://www.engadget.com/2005/06/22/philips-gogear-sa178-digital-audio-player/

It's tiny, it's light, it has a radio, and it records voice (if you need to, say, interview someone).

Okay, so my nano's given up the ghost and I'm in the market for something shiny. I was thinking of the Archos 604? Seems to do everything I want ti to do, and more, for less than an ipod. Anyone know about these things? Feedback?

http://reviews.cnet.com/portable-video-players-pvps/archos-604-30gb/4505-6499_7-32027903.html?tag=return

I've got an older Archos (Gmini 402) and I wouldn't want anything else ever again - although I don't watch movies on it (screen of that model was a little small and the battery wouldn't last too long).

Luckily, it's also a lot smaller than this one I just found online:

http://i15.tinypic.com/8acnm1k.jpg

what is this Archos? can i sync that up with a Mac?

i need an mp3 player and i have no idea about this stuff, tell me what to do now!

i think i'm just gonig to this Nano situation. i mean how many songs could i possibly need to bring down the street to wokr everyday? i'm used to lugging around jewel cases and a discman so eh

Decent mid-range players right now??

I'm thinking about the Sony NWZ-A818. Drag and drop, compact, interface design looks nice. Seems like a good pick, but am I missing anything here? It's only 8Gb, so it ain't massive. I couldn't give a shit about video/photos etc. I just feel like I'm avoiding buying an Ipod. The larger ones look kinda clunky, and the idea of having to use iTunes puts me off, mostly cause my first and only previous mp3 player was a Sony, which used the godawful Sonic Stage software and has put me off anything similar.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/cmsdata/products/10472/Sony%20small.jpg

get a zen. works well with most software (i use windows).

sony software is hideous to use, even if their players look great.

the sony software originally used was something called Connect which, true, was utterly horrific. But they upgraded it to the Sonic software which I use now and I have no problems with.

I have the older model NW1000 or something, only 6 gig but suits me fine, and is a lurrvly purple colour.

dude, just buy an iPod. seriously :)

-- grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, January 10, 2006 8:12 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

still otm.

Yep, that was good advice. Thanks, Grimley!

WHICH ONE WILL PLAY MY .OGGs

^ seriously?

i just want to be able to plug it into computers that are not mine

Can't you do that with iPod if you set it to "manually manage"? It's not great but it works.

i have been told ipods can't do this but maybe i've been told wrong - i haven't looked into it
i still use my iriver 256kb from 4 yrs ago lol

also i want something i can put a decent mic in and record interviews with (so, preamp, right)

xpost
hm i don't know

what rrrobyn said. i want a hard drive that happens to play music. i will not buy another shitty stupid ipod.

older irivers are really good. and play multiple formats and are not stupid pains in the asses. i don't know about the new ones though?

archos be loved by the anti-ipod crowd

Yea, Archos sounds up your alley. The thing with the iPod is that you need a 3rd party tool to get music back OFF it, which is a PITA.

i still use an old iriver flash player too!
it is constant ridicule central but i love that it takes a reg AA battery. plus is small and rox. dunno abt newer ones..

I think I have my first gen 64 megabyte rio somewhere.... god that was turd

It had usb actually....

WHICH ONE WILL PLAY MY .OGGs

-- bell_labs, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 15:52 (59 minutes ago) Link

I used an old iriver until about 4 months ago and got this:

http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/iaudio/7/

it's great. plays oggs, simple usb storage device, audiophile approved.

i endorse the cowon iaudio 7. i bought one for my bf.

i'm quite happy with my ipod though :(

i basically want this but small

http://media.zzounds.com/media/feed/large/MARPMD660.jpg

my only complaint about the i7 is that the touch controls are a little too sensitive. but it has awesome options like being able to adjust volume balance for the left and right channels. any musicians that may have slight deafness in one ear would appreciate this feature.

actually this is my favourite pic of the maranzt b/c srsly that guy's hand is either huuuge or shopped
http://www.synthtopia.com/news/05_06/images/PMD660_Hand.JPG

i7 also has an audio in for recording, but i haven't used it yet so can't vouch for it.

oh wait also has built in mic. (just looked)

that sounds awesome. it works ok with macs?

I like Zoom H2 for recording. I should get my own.

http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/images/zoom-h2-accessories.jpg

4 channels dog

yeah i assume it works with macs. i use it with linux and it acts just like a usb thumbdrive so there's no special driver software you need for anything. just copy files to and from it like a regular drive no problem.

Is there any Mac-connective MP3 player that isn't an iPod? I have never had an iPod that didn't fuck up all over the goddamn place EVERY TIME I pressed 'play.'

ha i was just going over the product features and totally missed another crazy thing i've never used. you can schedule it to record radio at a specific time.

http://www.cowonglobal.com/product/product_i7_feature.php

from the i7 page:
OS
- Microsoft Windows 98/98se/ME/2000/XP (NT not supported)
- MAC OS 10.X (data transfer only)
- Linux kernel v2.2 or higher (data transfer only)

i don't know exactly what they mean by "data transfer only" but i assume if you're using it with linux it will work fine for mac.

I'm guessing that the iPod probably doesn't actually have worse failure rates than any other mp3 player. Abbott, some of the ones that you can "just drag files onto" should work.

The i7 has programs that let you encode video files for it's small screen and do things like make animated wallpaper, so I assume that's what the data transfer only means.

hm see, as long as it has a good preamp, i'm fine with buying an ext mic
xposts lala

i7 also has way better battery life than the ipod

im getting one, you guys convinced me!

and the idea of having to use iTunes puts me off

lots of media sw supports ipod, drag and drop even, i just have itunes.exe in case i need to do the 'restore' thing to my wife's ipod (i have a little zen). less features + more expensive does the ipod in. i7 seems cool.

Flash based mp3 players are for housewives and little girls

and old ladies

and sometimes me

i'm pretty into the idea of the H2 zoom
tho btw
Please note: The Zoom H2 will not mount as a USB Drive on MAC OS X 10.5.0 Leopard unless you update to H2 Firmware version 1.2 or higher.

i ordered the 8gb i7 :D

awww yeah, i still use my old irivers too! H10 with 20gb (rockbox added of course), and ifp-799 with 1gb and fm radio!

i am considering getting something new though, because i care less about ogg than i did 5 years ago (my entire music collection that i ripped to ogg got deleted and i haven't been bothered to redo it, i might just go lame vbr...), although i do care about FLAC because some stuff i've only got in FLAC format. also, i want to be able to play my completely legal divx files so i gotta figure that out. without transcoding them, too, i'd like to add. any tips? my friend HATED his archos, it broke days after getting it, then the replacement broke days later or something.

i have heard good tihngs abt the sansa view players, though... and what was that other one i wanted for a while? big in china, unknown here... mizun or something?

meizu!

$50 new:

http://www.giiks.com/images/ifa/sandisk-sansa-clip-01.jpg

(only 1GB, 2GB and 4GB versions though)

i have only great things to say about the sansa. plug it in, drag and drop.

The Cowon iAudio 7 looks great, but it's very expensive.

cheaper than an ipod though!

Ah, I thought iPods had got cheaper than they actually still are. I don't think the iAudio is cheaper, at least not on amazon.co.uk, but the prices for 8GB versions are roughly comparable now that I look a little closer. I think I was initially aghast at the over-£200 prices for the 16GB iAudios I was seeing.

> because some stuff i've only got in FLAC format

does not compute. you do realise you can convert flacs to anything else, don't you, and because it's lossless then it'll be as good as ripping it to mp3 or whatever directly?

newer versions of oggenc can even read flacs as input and copy all the tags across to the new file.

my 20G iaudio m5 played ogg and flacs nicely. but the battery died within 15 months. now using a 1G atmt xseven with a 2G micro sd card. is tiny, plays oggs but takes forever to start up (because, i think, the 2G card is very slow). there also seems to be a 500 file limit. and it's discontinued afaict.

(oh, they've updated it. now plays videos as well and is a third the price. but mp3 and wma only
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ATMT-V-PLAY-MP4-PLAYER-EXPANDABLE/dp/B000PPJMCM/ref=pd_sbs_ce_img_5
)

i guess sandisk might have some updates for its flash players later this year:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/06/sandisk_43_nanometer_nand_flash

i have been told ipods can't do this but maybe i've been told wrong - i haven't looked into it

jon's right - just set to manually manage in itunes.

my 80BG ipod was $227 on sale. i love it. hoping it lasts as long as its predecessor, a 3rd gen 20GB which gave 4 years of faultless service.

so far i <3 my iaudio, sounds better than any ipod (and yes plays my .OGGs)

Dude, graphic eq "does not sound better"

Although you might get more volume out of them, which does sound better

I use a Sandisk Sansa e250. Bought it refurbed for $65.

Does the job. no itunes needed.

my drag & drop sony NWZ-A818 sounds fantastic. especially with my atrio headphones.

I bet you guys couldn't tell the difference in a blind test!

Bet I couldn't either!

well i never had an ipod where i could adjust the eq settings. i dont know if the newer ones have these. i did have an ipod that i couldn't use with my old mac because i couldn't get the newest itunes without upgrading my OS, which meant my computer didn't even recognize the ipod. that is so ridiculous. this just plugs in and shows up as a usb device and i don't even have to bother with itunes bullshit, just drag the files in. this is what an mp3 player should be IMO, not some fancy white little bitch.

i've got a peeve about the newer ipods. they've got this kind of screensaver album art collage goin on, right? cool! but there's no way to actually LISTEN to one of these albums you're seeing the artwork of, short of exiting whatever screen you're on and digging down through all your mp3s. i've got loads of albums and singles whose covers i barely recognize; most of the time i don't even know what album is prancing around on the screensaver thingie but i'm often like "whoa what's that? i want to listen to that!" but there's no way to tell!

okay that graf was atrocious. but new, confusing technology requires new, confusing paragraphs.

btw is there any way of turning OFF the half-screen thing, and have menu options stretch all the way across the screen?

I am so mad at Apple right now - I want a small flash mp3 player and will probably get the 4GB nano (do not want a shuffle because they have no screen, wtf?), but it seems obscene to charge a third of the price of the entire product for the 2-year warranty. It's making me try to calculate how mad at myself I'll be if it breaks in a year and a half - mad enough to justify the $40 warranty?

Alternately, anyone know of one that's cheaper and Mac compatible to the extent of being able to play whatever format itunes changes your music to? Unfortunately all my music is there.

Maria I've recommended the Sansa Clip many times on this thread but I don't know what format you mean when you say "whatever format itunes changes your music to". If you search for Sansa Clip, the Sandisk website will give you all the specifications.

maria, the cowon iaudio that i just got was about $50 cheaper than the comparable nano (the 8 gb). the 4 gb one is about $115? i think it only has a 1 year warranty. the screen is much smaller than the nano's, so if you want to use it mainly for watching videos the ipod may be better.

itunes only plays mp3s, which im sure works with any player. just make sure it is compatible with your OS.

itunes only plays mp3s

Uh?

itunes plays quite a bit more than just mp3s!

like what?! i mean you can play .ogg and .wma using plug-ins

I actually had an earlier, smaller model of the Sansa player before my PC died and I got a Mac, it synced through Windows Media Player (there's a version for Mac, but it only plays .wma!). Regular Windows Media Player can play mp3s from CDs, but not ones from my itunes library, so I had to re-import the CDs into a different location to update the player. It seems that everything in itunes gets imported and automatically converted to "protected AAC," I guess that's the problematic format?

My worry about the cowon iaudio is that it says "data transfer only," and I do not know what it means, so if it caused problems I wouldn't know why. I will have to look more into this.

Itunes plays pretty much anything. Or, at least, will convert pretty much anything to an mp3.

well i never had an ipod where i could adjust the eq settings. i dont know if the newer ones have these.

All of them can.

i did have an ipod that i couldn't use with my old mac because i couldn't get the newest itunes without upgrading my OS,

http://thepiratebay.org/

i want it

though the zooms are cheaper and h4 has xlr inputs

i know these are not mp3 players
i need to make a bunch of sound-related purchases (but i won't post like pics of amps here or anything)

kingfish, how's that sansa holding up? I'm seeing refurbs for under $30 like http://www.buy.com/prod/sandisk-sansa-e250-2gb-mp3-player-fm-tuner-fm-on-the-fly-recording/q/loc/111/205562657.html

I was looking for something with a card slot and a fm tuner. is the microphone any good?

I am happy with my 2GB Zen Stone. It works. I am easily pleased.

Ooops. I do not mean to imply it has an FM tuner or card slot. I was speaking in a more general way.

<3 <3 <3

http://www.cowonglobal.com/images/main/S9_main.jpg

<3 <3 <3

Best looking (both externally and the video on screen) and sounding (and that's even before I tried any of the 36 equalizer settings + 4 user-defineable ones) mp3 player I've ever experienced. Watched 4 full length divx movies on it, listened to twenty albums, battery is still like 2/3 full. (up to 55 hours if you only listen to music, 12 if you only watch movies)

It looks spiff! How big is it?

Call me old fashioned but I just can't get into touchscreens. My 120gb two-buttons-and-a-"zunepad" Zune is my favorite thing on the planet

Smaller than I expected, just a little bit bigger than and about half as thin as my cell phone, a normal size sony-ericsson. :-)

idle research about a month ago pointed toward either the samsung p3, the cowon or a lower-end sony walkman. expensive choice would be either x-series walkman or maybe that creative egg thing if it gets a full release

S9's first accessory ordered: anti-fingerprint screen protector thing, since this attracts fingerprints like crazy.

so my (rather expensive) creative zen bought in 2006 is about to give up the ghost. i need a replacement. what's the best thing? i was thinking an itouch, but then i'm not very current with these things. are iphones still ridiculously expensive? what's the average GB on an iphone and is it worth it or do i just stick to a regular mp3 player? any decent non-apple contenders out there?

still like the creative zen tbh, but gf has an itouch and it's great too- wasn't expensive but i think it's only 16gb so do the research if you need more.

the market is glutted - you'll need to provide us with more criteria in order to narrow the field

just in general though this site is pretty reliable for tech stuff ime

http://www.trustedreviews.com/

just get a Sansa Clip for like £15 and be done with it - they weigh nothing, hold a lot of music and sound great

dog latin, did you have the 60gb vision m?
i have this it's been great, could do with something similar, but haven't found anything yet that'll do the same job, movies/ external hard drive etc.

30gb vision m. i was very happy with it but a lack of available accessories on the market meant i kept forgetting to seek out a protective case, hence why it keeps going into rebuild mode and the screen's gone funny.

what do you mean by external hd?

i found that with the zen, while it was fairly reliable, it would often malfunction if i tried to fill it to capacity.

i like the idea of being able to go online etc with the itouch.

ipod touches go up to 64GB and going online, playing games, using apps is very nice. also no moving parts so you probably won't lose data by dropping it (however you might break the screen).

in the extras, there's a removable disc option for storage and usb host option.

Mine still works fine (just jinxed it, it'll brake in 3 mins), is a little scratched, but not enough to ruin watching stuff on it.
I've just looked on Amazon when I actually bought it, 3 years ago this week and I've used it pretty much every day.
£200 quid at the time, well worth the money I'd say.

This is kinda to do with this thread. I've been looking for something a bit like a iPad, but not really. This is my wishlist:

Gotta play videos (x264 and avi)
7-10 inch screen
Surf web
Wi-fi (not bothered with 3G)
Ideally HDMI output, but I can live without it.

Any ideas? Everything I've seen seems either overspecced or tiny - I guess I'm slap in the middle.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab covers all yr requirements - I've not used one myself, but it's getting decent reviews (with a few caveats). Might be worth trying one instore?

I saw the tab and it looks kinda cool and yeh, ticks all the boxes. I was hoping for something a tad cheaper (£500 is a lot of cash in anyone's book) but I'll prob. end up with something like that. Or I might just spend £40 on a new laptop battery and lug my monster about.

Best option by miles is to wait a few weeks and buy a Tab for £350. No way can Samsung maintain that ridiculous price point.

hello does anyone have a recommendation for an mp3 player that:

- has at least 30 gig storage
- has bluetooth
- plays all files inc m4as
- is not an apple product

(is not for me, is for a friend)

Last requirement rules out most of them, but I guess there's the Samsung Player 5 fitted with a 32gb microSD card. An Android device, their competitor to the iPod touch though it hasn't been updated for awhile. Plays AAC - does that = M4A?

Any MP3 player recommendations? Relatively cheap (for a bus commute).

Anyone?

SanDisk Clip Zip motherfucker.

I have a Clip Jam for the gym and its fairly quiet. Is the Clip Zip an ok volume?

they all have the same volume setup, you need the brexit option for full volume!

Follow the steps to increase the volume output of your Sansa player:

Clip Jam
1. Reset the Sansa player to factory settings: Settings > System Settings > Restore
2. Set the region as Rest of World.
3. Change volume setting to High: Settings > System Settings > Volume > High

using an mp3 player for music, instead of your phone, is a stroke of genius. for so many reasons. i thought it was my own little secret.

w/ SD card capacities now you can get like 32gb or 64gb in a fairly small form factor I'd think. But what's the real advantage of not using your phone? Just size?

conserves space on your phone for apps/photoes etc; cleaner/more direct interface for playing music; saves some battery; allows you to have portable music in a very small, lightweight device without having to lug phone around (esp nice if you're a runner/walker); mp3 players often play louder...

Thanks Calzino!

I'd rather recommend the sansa clip+ - it's been discontinued but you can find it refurbished and used on amazon. Better sound, design and interface than the newer models IMO.

x-posts ...

I have to confess that part of my preference for having a separate phone/MP3 player is kind of cultural/age-related: I just see them as separate things. But as rip mentioned, there are other reasons: saving battery and size are part of it. I do have a tendency to wreck personal stereos (but not phones), too.

In my head, I was kind of thinking of buying a Sony Walkman MP3 player but they do seem expensive now.

Any specific recommendations? (Looking online, a lot of players seem to get bad reviews).

The Sony Walkman model I bought about 6 years ago was way too quiet. I googled it and noticed loads of other people complaining about the same thing. I don't know if they sorted out the volume issue yet but they are still way too pricey for what you get imo. I used to browse anythingbutipod.com for reviews but the site has been dormant since 2013. But I will always be grateful to them for introducing me to the nice and cheap Sansa range which I'm into 4 life.

Sansa 4 sure. Easy, inexpensive, light as a feather

lol are we really buying sandisks now? shit's bleak

i'm still on my last gen iPod... fearing having to enter the future once it stops working

anyone try those bizarrely cheap $2 mp3 SD players from eBay?

My main MP3 player is an ibasso dx90 but Sandisks are great for the gym, jogging, throwing in a bag, etc. xp

There seems to have been an explosion in relatively high end MP3 players recently - Oppo, Fiio, Astell & Kern, Hidizs, Lotoo, Colorfly, new Cowons, etc.

Idk if any of them are worth $500+

200gb micro sd cards are less than 100 dollars now so players that use micro sd are the way to go for sure. The sansa clip zip and clip + are both great but both discontinued and not cheap secondhand, and the current Sansa clips are by all accounts not as good.

Fiio makes a little 50 dollar micro sd based player, the M3, and it has very good sound, but the way it displays folders is buggy.

If you can swing about 250 bucks the Walkman at that price level uses micro sd, has super long battery life, is almost as small as a Sansa, and has fantastic sound.

I'm wondering if the volume issue with the Sony range was just a Euro issue and not a thing on the US market, I seem to remember reading some comment saying as much.

But I'd be tempted to buy a micro slot expandable Sony with decent volume.

I still have an iAudio7 for connection to the external audio jack in the car. It is still fkn ace.

Thanks all.

Never heard of Fiio before. Anyone use one of these? http://www.ea-audio.co.uk/fiio_x1.html

i'm still on my last gen iPod... fearing having to enter the future once it stops working

same. still downloading podcasts and putting them on my ipod classic.

I still have an iAudio7 for connection to the external audio jack in the car. It is still fkn ace.

I have an iAudio as well, has lasted me years. The audio quality difference btwn it and my phone is night and day.

Xposts I have a fiio x5 I got used. I think the x1 is similar in sound, so it should sound great. It's only around 100 bucks too. Tuomas uses an X1 iirc. I mainly got the Walkman for the longer battery life (fiio X1 and x5 full charge can be used up in one long day of listening ime, Walkman takes days to exhaust).

good deal (today only) on this fiio headphone amp http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1023110-REG/fiio_kunlun_e18_portable_usb.html

Went for the Fiio X1. Having some issues ... possibly due to being the kind of idiot that struggles to download firmware.

I have the X1 and I'm quite happy with it... What sort of issues have you had?

Do mp3 players ever have anything like bass boost/dsgx?

Yup, both cheap Sansas and iPods have eq

ffs my Sansa Clip+ broke, no sound on right channel... it's a common mechanical issue, I'm not sure I'm handy enough to fix it though... my second Clip+ with this issue...

anyway, prices on second hand Clip+'s are insane!

recommend me another cheap player that syncs without using software like iTunes, has folder view (I can see files by folder instead of artist etc.) and supports flac?

tried the clip jam already, not a fan - don't like the buttons and interface is clumsy/slow compared to Clip+

The fiio M3 is something like 50 bucks, you can run a 200gb micro sd in it, management is regular folder no special software needed. Dimensions are roughly the size of a pack of trident. Sound is up to Sansa + level IMO. Display is ugly and UI is clunky but usable. Phenomenal battery life something like 21 hours. Its big weakness is a quirk of the way it sequences files - when you go into a folder it displays the files in the order in which they were written to the disk, not file name order. You have to periodically zap your micro sd card with a utility like DriveSort (if you're on Windows) so that write order matches file name order. I can't seem to find a matching utility for
Mac except one that you have to use Terminal to run and I don't understand Terminal.

Supports flac, I meant to mention.

I was sold until you described the files quirk, that sounds really like a fatal pain in the arse to me. But otherwise I would almost be tempted to try one.

i would've gotten a fiio ages ago except i keep hearing that the ui is super flaky. i have a music library of over 30,000 songs (yes i need them all with me in my pocket, shut up, no i can't just subscribe to spotify because spotify doesn't have the live/studio mix of "guess i'm falling in love" or foefur's earth, wind, and fire megamix). a flaky ui just won't cut it with me. :(

I have a fiio x5 and the UI is rock solid as long as I'm navigating by folder not by database. Database navigation is not satisfactory. But that's ok for the way I listen.

i'm definitely a database-driven listener- spent too long on the ipod to know how to organize my tunes into folders. :(

anyway, prices on second hand Clip+'s are insane!

lol, I bought a used Clip+ on ebay for $14 a couple weeks ago, but I got lucky because the buyer was a naïf who billed it as a "Sandisc Sansa portable Player" without specifying the model name. oddly it came preloaded with 3+ gigabytes of voice recordings because its previous owner had apparently carried it around in his breast pocket during his doctor's appointments and attorney-client meetings.

prices do tend to be pretty steep, but you don't have to dig too hard to find something decent in the $30-$40 range (like this one).

the major limitation of the Clip+ is that its database can only hold roughly 8000 tracks — if you have much more than that, you'll have no choice but to navigate by folder. I'm not sure if installing Rockbox will remove this limitation.

(er, the seller was a naïf)

Sony nwz a17 handles database well. Also has long battery life. When you switch the micro sd card to a different one, it does take it awhile to rebuild the new database. So if you're someone who likes to hop around between cards like they were CDs, that's a shortcoming. Also: not cheap (250 to 300 bucks)

I'm not sure if installing Rockbox will remove this limitation.

It does.

good to know!

I might be tempted to try one next then. I haven't used Rockbox before but it looks like a simple enough process to install the firmware.

Sony nwz a17 handles database well. Also has long battery life. When you switch the micro sd card to a different one, it does take it awhile to rebuild the new database. So if you're someone who likes to hop around between cards like they were CDs, that's a shortcoming. Also: not cheap (250 to 300 bucks)

― his eye is on despair-o (Jon not Jon)

yeah for the price of those things i could get, you know, a cell phone. even if sony does have a good dac, the overwhelming impression i get from sony's stuff is "sharper image".

For me this awz is a more than fine iPod classic replacement. Whose capacity can get larger every time sandisk manages to cram another 100gb onto their micro sd cards. I can't bear smartphones as music players, there has to be a physical pause, volume, skip interface I can find when the thing's in my jacket pocket.

Meant to say nwz lol

I noticed on ebay some sellers have the fiio M3 bundled with some headphone amp attached, is that because it has low volume issues?

hmm i am probably the wrong person to ask. I guess maybe, compared to my NWZ, fiio X5 and my ipod classic. This has probably been covered in the long M3 thread on head-fi if you have the time to root through that.

I can't bear smartphones as music players, there has to be a physical pause, volume, skip interface I can find when the thing's in my jacket pocket.

so otm

Thanks for info on the fiio Jon, perhaps I'll give it a go

Regarding Sansa pricing, think they're a fair bit more expensive in Europe than US, judging from amazon offers

Do they not make them anymore? I'm on my 3rd or 4th I think.

Sansa Clip+ is, unfortunately, discontinued

Oh no!!!!!!!!!!

Why, Lord? Why?

Maybe an issue with the factory or delivery of some of the parts... It's the best player I ever had :'(

I feel your pain. I should take better care of the one I've got. Cherish it.

Totally...
Always weird when a company follows a product up with an inferior version... Maybe they just got lucky with the Clip+

Not luck, the clip zip was also great.

I think I read that the devolution from clip + to its successors was because of some key component no longer being made by the sub suppliers

I still think for twenty odd quid's worth of expandable mp3 player the latest Sport/Jam models still represent value. My Clip + still works, but perversely I have relegated it for audiobooks only use. With my damaged hearing I'm not so sensitive to the drop offs in sound quality in the latest models tbh.

The sport/jam supposedly have much longer battery life

It doesn't seem any better or worse to me, but it's not like I go on trips to the southern hemisphere - but definitely no complaints about the battery life.

My clip +'s have always been pretty quick to run down.

got the Fiio X3 - silly button placement and interface ultimately makes it not the product for me

eventually I'll be getting a damn smartphone instead

not truly cheap, but there's a few clip+s to be had here if anyone's interested
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4GB-SANDISK-SANSA-CLIP-PLUS-MP3-PLAYER-with-BUILT-IN-FM-RADIO-MICRO-SD-SLOT-/222344593965

For those less concerned with fidelity than swimming laps or even jogging with secure earbuds, I've been pleasantly surprised with the Syryn (avg battery life, drag n drop file management, 8 GB, $60 w/ earbuds). Mine's been down to 30 ft without issue.

fiio M3 has had a firmware update-- files within a folder now play in proper alphanumerical order, thank god. Folders still display in the order in which they were written to the micro SD disc, though, instead of alpha (e.g. in the Pink Floyd folder Animals comes at the end because I just put it in there yesterday).

Oh, that's weird, my X1 has always shown the files in alphanumeric order. Is M3 from an older series?

The issue only exists on the M3, which was kind of fiio's attempt to make something Sansa Clip-esque (cheap, simple). It launched a couple of years ago. It's not a satisfactory Sansa replacement but it does have great sound quality and great battery life and this firmware update helps a lot.

pono

I think I was supposed to run some firmware for my X1 but couldn't figure how to do so.

Good sound, good battery life, not sure things were saving to where they were supposed to.

This is how you do it:

1) Go here and download the zip file.

2) Unzip the file into a folder.

3) Plug X1 to your computer and open its root directory. The root directory is the first folder that opens when you double click the X1 device symbol on your computer, the one where all your music folders/files are.

4) From the unzipped folder, copy the file called x1.fw to X1's root directory. Don't place it in any of the music folders, or it won't work.

5) Unplug the X1 from the computer, let it update its files (there's a message on the screen that says it's updating, wait for the message to disappear), and turn it off.

6) Hold down the "shortcuts" button on the X1 (the one on the upper left corner of the control wheel). While holding it down, press the power button until X1 turns on.

7) You get a message that says X1 is updating and a progress bar.

8) When the update is done, choose the system language, plug the X1 into your computer, open the root directory and delete the x1.fw file.

Voila!

Thanks - that's genuinely appreciated.

No prob!

I wished I'd bought a shitload of Sansa Clip+'s when they were going for £30 brand new in 2012. People are selling them on ebay for £130 now, they are going for even higher prices in auctions. I've got one in perfect condition but can't bring myself to sell it.

I've actually got 2 refurbished ones extra if anyone needs

I'd buy one of them off you

you pay postage I'll send it to you

U in the US?

I'm in Denmark. Can probably post it as a regular letter without insurance for 7 euros. With insurance it's more like 30 euros so that's not a great deal.

Send me an ilxmail!

done

Amazing to see that there's a whole cottage industry of people refurbishing iPod Classics with 480 GB SSD drives.

Anyone in the UK bought from Ea-audio recently? Ordered an MP3 player from their website on 13 August (for a birthday present on 12 September). Haven't received the MP3 player and emails are seemingly being ignored. I'm open to the idea that it might be a small operation and that they could have been on holiday (the website was closed for a bit) but I'm starting to get a bit shifty.

(Update: emails weren't being ignored ... they'd gone to Spam. That said, I still kinda wish I'd just ordered from Amazon or the like).

Are those JuiceBar portable speakers that you can pick up for £25-£30 in supermarkets any good?

???

I haven't had those specifically, but I've had other bluetooth speakers and they're fine... fairly loud, decent sound, good battery life. good as a portable in the kitchen or shower or out for a picnic or something.

B&O models are more expensive but sound very good, I bought an A1 and love it

I think there's quite a few quality bluetooth speakers on the market and personally I'd wait until I could afford a good one (I had the UE Mini Boom before, and while it was impressive for its price, that level of sound quality does not bring me much joy)

I had a couple of these bluetooth speakers and they were great for what I needed, tho as expected for this price the build quality faultered and they only lasted a year or so:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/JINRUI-Waterproof-Shockproof-Hands-Free-Speakerphone/dp/B01G8AOTA2

I recently sprung for a Fugoo Style speaker, which sounds better and looks nicer, tho whether it's £90 better I'm not sure:
http://www.fugoo.com/fugoo-style-silver/

looking for something with:

1. good audio quality
2. long battery life/playing time
3. the ability to hold SD cards

anyone using anything that qualifies (that I can actually still buy)? I've been using my phone for this purpose for the last couple years, but it wipes out my playlists whenever there's a software update, and lately it won't even let me reimport them afterwards. it's just not built for dealing with this much media.

the 16 gb (expandable up to 128) sansa clip sport + is going for under £30 on e-bay atm. yeah it isn't as good as the 2010's clip + they did, but I haven't seen anything better in that price range (or even pricier) yet.

what software are you using on your phone? i haven't had that problem on mine. i've occasionally looked but most standalone portable audio players these days start running into software issues with more than about 10,000 songs or so

I'm using BlackPlayer on my Android phone.

tbh though the audio quality is what really bugs me. I have this wonderful old Cowon player that still works as well as it did when I bought it 5 or 6 years ago, and it sounds amazing - the only issue is that I cracked the screen pretty bad and it only has 32gb of space. but I still love how it sounds and want that for the rest of my audio. (Cowon is still kicking and has higher-capacity players but they're well out of my budget)

vv happy with my cowon plenue d player, great audio quality and jeteffect 5 + bbe, does high res and has an sd card slot up to 128 gb

god they're so expensive but look so fucking good. I might end up biting the bullet.

simon: i get what you're saying about the sound quality, i have that issue too. how portable does your portable solution need to be? because what i do is i use my phone and cheap headphones for situations where i'm walking, driving, etc., and i carry in my bag a laptop that i use with my dragonfly DAC and my good headphones for when i'm out somewhere, on the train, etc. i find that to be a cheaper solution than the high-end purpose-built players!

it would need to be fairly portable, yeah. I run and gym a fair bit and would enjoy it more w/ nice audio because I am a fancy bastard

Sony NWZ Walkman is the only player I've owned that meets your requirements. The current Sansas are fine for sound quality and battery life but brain dead when it comes to navigating your files, like shockingly so.

FiiO stuff sounds great but none of it has long enough battery life.

Walkman has excellent battery life, I'm currently running a 400GB micro sd in mine, and great sound. And very compact. It has a proprietary USB connector though, and is as someone pointed out is very sharper image looking. IDGAF.

if you think the Sansa operating system is hard work and are looking for a low budget option, definitely avoid the Ruizu one, jesus wept it makes you hate music and yourself.

Walkman has excellent battery life, I'm currently running a 400GB micro sd in mine, and great sound. And very compact. It has a proprietary USB connector though, and is as someone pointed out is very sharper image looking. IDGAF.

This sounds ideal, esp as someone who doesn't care about aesthetics. The proprietary cable is annoying, but then again the Cowon has one of those too and it still works just fine for file transfers after all this time,

my cowon plenue d has a regular micro USB cable that I also use for my motorola cell phone and my asus tablet

"my asus tablet"

damn, every thread seems to have hemorrhoids content in my warped mind.

haha! not just you -- i read "anus tablet" too and loled
did not think about 'roids though

i start to panic every time i think about my existing mp3 players no longer existing

"FiiO stuff sounds great but none of it has long enough battery life."

I'm pleased with my FiiO and the battery life is perfectly fine.

Well, not long enough for me. I like to go a couple days without having to charge.

found an ipod shuffle at work from a stash they'd used at promo items years ago, v pysched

I'll second the Walkman. I got one at the end of last year and love it. Am currently using a 256MB card.

yeah, I'm trying to score an a45. Seems like the best price/quality/feature balance and the battery life seems to be among the best, too.

I'd have splurged on a Plenue D if it supported bigger SD cards

back when I used to be a Walkman fan at some point models from the mid 00's became too quiet for me. But I think this was just an issue in the EU zone at the time because of some blah blah h+s standards.

yeah that def seems to be an EU-specific issue

when you initialize that cowon it asks EU or US so you get to choose if you want to go beyond deafening levels.

now I'm considering the Fiio M3K - v cheap, can handle basically unlimited SD storage, strong battery life, well-reviewed. Anyone ever had a Fiio thing?

looks very good for a cheap option, but you probably wouldn't make many A45 owners jealous.

would the size of the original iPod be about the biggest y'all would want your audio players to be?
my thinking is with enough surface area, you could embed solar panels in the chassis so that it would never need to be charged (provided you're not using it more than 2hrs a day)

i had one of the previous budget Fiio ones - the M3 - and it sounds great and has great battery life but the same problems with sorting folder and file sequences as the newer Sansas. Also a bit glitchy. Have not read reviews on the M3K. If it will reliably show me my files and folders in alphanumerical order I'm interested.

What’s the advantage of folders navigation anno 2019? I mean unless you have a very small library I can’t imagine how much you have to memorize to find stuff.

because I don't have to spend weeks tagging all my files in order to be able to browse albums and artists easily? I don't do playlists so folder browsing is much better for me.

i posted this upthread 11 years ago. still using it:
https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/cmsdata/products/10472/Sony%20small.jpg

the sansas keep going in a direction that is less useful for me - the new Sport Go and Sport Plus have dropped ogg support. the Sports onwards aren't rockbox-able... (my Zip keeps going, thankfully, but there will come a time)

that Fiio looks useful though.

yeah i think I'll try a Fiio at some point, it looks to be next good cheap one.

the build quality of the FiiO M3k looks really good for a cheapie. I'm guessing if you are used to the slight roughness of the sansa o/s then this one won't piss you off too much. well anyway i've ordered one.

pulled the trigger on a slightly discounted A45 on ebay, also picked up a 400gb SD card (which apparently/supposedly they'll work with just fine)

I lost out on a mint condition A-45 on e-bay auction just by a quid! I was really gutted because it looks very nice and the o/s looks great. But I went for the cheap option to cushion the disappointment, with a 64 gb card.

> I'm using BlackPlayer on my Android phone.

> tbh though the audio quality is what really bugs me.

yeah, someone pointed out that an old phone would work fine. nice sd card in there, replacable battery, proper headphone socket.

i installed BlackPlayer and like the 'unplayed' smart playlist thing that it does but it appears to lack a sleep timer, which is a must-have. so i just use vlc. there's some noise, mostly only audible between tracks but if you move the phone and it switches from landscape to portrait then you get a gap, which is less than ideal (i guess i could lock the phone to portrait)

blackplayer pro (or whatever it's called) has a sleep timer

My A45 arrived and I've started to load it up. I can definitely notice a sonic upgrade - dynamic range especially is way better, even with my fairly shitty earbuds. Loading the SD card and getting the database figured out has been smooth, though I wish there was an option to combine "artists" that are actually duplicates with different capitalization. but that's an easy enough fix on the PC end. Thanks for the guidance y'all

the 999-track limit on playlists is, believe it or not, an irritant for me because I like to make gigantic mood-based playlists with 1600+ tracks but I'll manage, somehow

...this ended up not mattering because the playlist functionality is so sluggish that it ends up not being worth it to even use. (also, even if it wasn't sluggish, it doesn't let you make playlists that include both SD card and regular storage tracks, which would have been an irritant down the line.)

I have never been able to figure out how to do playlists on the A45 at all.

you have to:

1. download and install Music Maker (I tried doing this in other programs and it didn't work at all)
2. create an empty playlist in Music Maker and "transfer it" to the A45
3. in the A45, you can add tracks to the playlist individually my hitting the ellipses icon next to a track and selecting "add to playlist." this takes about 10-15 seconds of loading per track.

there's probably a way to do this in Music Maker but it loads the SD card contents so sluggishly it hardly seems worth the effort.

that FiiO M3k I bought is such a glitchy piece of shit it was putting me off listening to music. Winning an e-bay auction for a 2nd hand a-45 with some slight superficial damage to case was a very good move. just having physical control buttons and a reasonable sound quality with adjustable graphic eq is worth the extra cost for starters. I'd say anyone looking for cheap options don't touch that FiiO that at 60 quid is absolute overpriced shit. ffs the scroll bar is stuff of nightmares.

If the new midrange Google Pixel phone has a headphone jack, that.

If not, probably an A45 and find a snazzy hard case that fits it + my IEMs. (I drove over my IEMs with a car once but the metal case they were in didn't flinch. It wouldn't fit the A45 though.)

thx for the review calzino - good to know!

enjoying my A45 despite the lamentable playlisting issues. the battery life really is impressive

just now having my first real issue with the A45, which is that the shitty, flimsy proprietary cable that came with it has, to my total lack of surprise, ceased to work after only a couple months of use. so that's fun

Shanling M0 was mentioned a while back on another thread and is definitely worth a mention here. Standard cable! Nothing too fancy, very tiny.

Had a bit of fun getting back into looking at headphones and things (Tin T2's and other cheapish stuff Reddit and head-fi freak out over). All prompted by discovering my phone doesn't play well with SD cards. Oh well, now its battery lasts a bit longer.

i like the very basic look of it and the titanium case looks very sturdy. When my A45 dies a death i'll keep the MO in mind.

annnd I ended up breaking my a45 in a very stupid way so I'ma probably try the shanling m0 next cause it seems to have the best balance of features (supports 512gb storage!) and a lovely price point which I need cause apparently I can't be trusted not to break stuff

....and I am v much enjoying my Shanling in almost all respects, but: is there some kind of hack to just add a few tracks/files at a time, or do I need to perform a full rescan every time? cause with the volume of stuff I already have on there this takes about an hour or so and can't be interrupted, which is a pain in the ass.

no getting around that, I've checked!

booooo

too bad cause other than that and the ennh battery life, it's basically a perfect little machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NykWxk2UgAA

almost bumped the youtuber thread cuz i find this guy "dankpods", i noticed this week, generally hilarious. This thread especially should appreciate.

I'd picked up a Fiio M3K earlier this year and I agree with other posters that although it sounds good and has a very solid build, the UI isn't great. Sort by genre is useless as it doesn't subsort by artist, only by song. WTF?

I also had to drop a 32GB card in it to update the firmware (it wouldn't update with my 64GB card) but was able to swap the cards after.

the UI was awful, sometimes even the wind seemed to have a surer control over it than my finger.

I did have one small victory when I realized that I could trigger play/pause by tapping the middle of the scroll bar, which alleviates much of the need to use the awkward side button.

Also noticed how the ordering of artists has suddenly become alphabetical after I loaded the last batch of albums. Up until now, it's always been kind-of-alphabetical. So erratic.

Anyone using a high end DAP? If so, what's your motivation for doing so?

I'm drawn to the idea but the convenience and my phone and Bluetooth earbuds (Senn MTW2) makes it hard to justify. I do have a nice pair of Thinksound On2's which sound very nice but, wires, you know...

What's good nowadays? I had a Shanling Mofi that I loved, but it stopped working a little after a year.

Now I have a Hidizs ap80 which has stopped working after a few months.

I'd like something small with a lot of storage. The two devices above used a microcard thingy with a 500gb card.

Amazon have about 1000 no-name mp3 players, it seems. don't have any recommendations though. my clip zip is approaching end of life and the new models drop ogg support so I'm curious too. (the mofi does look nice, but i saw your comment)

I've got a 10 year old sansa clip that still works, they don't make cheap mp3 players like they used to.

I still really like my FiiO X1 - has lasted well - though I'm certain there were people up thread who didn't.

Strangely, having just looked at what they sell these days, their latest player makes a virtue of using a chip that isn't made any more.

I wished I'd bought a score of sansa clip+ mp3 players 10 years ago and put them in storage. They sell for a few hundred now if they are still boxed.

the Cowon Plenue D3 looks a very nice small one, but not at all cheap unfortunately.

jesus, looking at some reviews and some people are rich enough to spend 2 grand on a Astell & Kern Kann Alpha high res mp3 player... that's madness.

I'm on my second Zune 1st gen 30GB player. This one I've had for almost 7 years. I bought it used, but its still going strong.

Still very happy with my cowon plenue D - plays hires flacs, great equalizer options, 180 Gb SD card as well, ridiculous battery life (have gone weeks of day long listening without having to charge). Newer generations have even better (twin?) DACs but shorter battery life.

180 = 128, sorry

i've been lusting after a standalone portable audio player for years but never bit the bullet on a cowon or w/e. i would really like something that is water- and sweat-resistant for runs but also sounds great w/ hi-res audio. i tried the $39 sandisk sportclip or whatever it's called and quickly lost it, lol. it was also a little too flimsy and lightweight. you wouldn't think so but a bit of counterweight at the end of a headphone cord is really useful. ipod touch? cowon? under $200 would be nice. don't care about more than 64gb. playlists and interfacing with itunes is a must. flac would be nice though i'm in the habit of transcoding to aiff for my iphone 6 that has somehow survived for 3 years.

Some discussion in the last couple of days over on the digital music thread.

I like the look of the Sony NW-A105 but I'm having a hard time getting my head round why I would need a separate device for playing music rather than using my phone as I do at the moment. What's the point of having two devices rather than one?

two batteries

phone/bluetooth pods for when I'm on the move or at work, player/better earphones for when it's quiet/late and I want to really focus on the music

If I had an android phone instead of an iPhone there’s a chance I’d just use my phone because you can stick a micro sd card in those. I need my activities to be based on a 1TB or 500gb micro sd which I can stick in whatever player I want.

I was one of the Walkman boosters on the other thread. Also the cheap fiio M3K because you can rockbox it now, and it’s got good battery life.

I have I think 6 of the sansa clip+ and 1 clip zip, god I loved them, but the battery life is pretty shot on all of them now.

Phone vs dedicated music device: I like to have a player that I can hook up to a speaker and leave the room with the speaker still playing and I still have my phone (I work in huge museum/warehouse spaces). I don't want to hear a phone ringing or messaging through the music that I'm playing, but I need to hear my phone if it rings. I have a work iphone that is my only phone and I have no interest in bluetooth stuff and all dongles I have tried have been glitchy. I don't like the incessant intrusion of the Phone Computer Thing into all aspects of my life. I dream of being able to have all my digital music on one device, and eventually 1 tb microcard things will be affordable.

I've got a 10 year old sansa clip that still works

i still use one of these regularly after 10+ years.

I paid less than 200 for my 1TB micro sd
Xpost

it blows my mind that 1tb can fit on something so small

at this point I'm mostly using my android phone (a Samgung Galaxy something) with a 400gb SD card. audio quality is finally comparable to my beloved 10-year-old old Cowon iAudio device with the now-badly-cracked screen. if I were richer I'd buy one of the higher-end Plenue models but this is a good solution for now.

but do these things handle 10s of thousands of files? my clip zip takes 5 minutes to rescan a few thousand files if i change anything. and i had another player that said it'd handle sd cards up to 16GB but there was a limit somewhere else so only 500ish tracks were ever available.

(even my pi jukebox takes a few minutes every time i turn it on. can't work out why it's reindexing, no reason it should)

I have 30k tracks (about 280gb or so, not lossless) on my android and it works perfectly well so far

These mammoth micro sd cards are really only feasible for folder based browsing rather than tag database browsing IME. I haven’t had any players that could index that volume of material. But it doesn’t matter for me because I’m all about navigate to album folder and play it

That's been my experience. Does the Walkman allow you to navigate via folder?

I was hoping that Hidizs ap80 would be covered by warranty since I've only had it two months. Technically it is, but that involves me paying to ship the player to China, lying about the value on customs paperwork and hoping that it doesn't get hung up in Chinese customs, hoping that Hidiz doesn't decide that the unit is malfunctioning because of my fault, then them fixing it and sending it back. I'm guessing it will cost around $30 to send something to China and it just seems like throwing good money after bad.

I'm on the fence about it, I hate being without my music for any length of time and I am compelled to say fuck it and get a walkman.

My Walkman experience was v v good, until I dropped it in a lake. I recommend you try to avoid doing that.

I use mediamonkey on my android and it detects + indexes the music on my SD card just fine, no need to browse by folder.

But yes Walkman can do folder navigation

my mother's had a Samsung mp3 player since the dawn of time, one of these with a slide out speaker. it's as chunky as all hell (sliding the speaker out is quite satisfying though)

https://cdn.pocket-lint.com/r/s/970x/assets/images/68981-gadgets-review-samsung-yp-k5-mp3-player-image1-iqbfmtno2l.jpg

and she was asking me to refresh the song collection on it recently, but I'm 100 miles away which makes that difficult. so i bought a new one, with more than 2gb of memory in it but it has interesting quirks:

off button just turns the screen off, keeps playing the songs. you have to pause it first.

it switches between artist, album and track name whilst playing, only it uses the filename for track name rather than the tag. and if that filename is too long it Scrolls slowly and doesn't display the other two bits of info.

you can list by artist or album but it truncates the name seemingly at random - Altered Imag, Augustus Pab (other names are much longer and display in full)

folder view displays directory names in full, which would be nicer but they aren't sorted.

(it's an agptec h9, nice purple colour, and was chosen mostly for the memory and the fact it plays oggs, which saves me having to transcode everything for her)

this thing is annoying.

i have seen *one* image show up when playing a track. the directory has a file in it called 'folder.jpg' so i copy all the 'cover.jpg' files that i've already added to 'folder.jpg' and... nothing. still only that one album showing an image.

and i wonder if it's expecting something other than a TITLE tag for the song name? ARTIST and ALBUM both seem ok.

renamed the working 'folder.jpg' and it stopped showing. renamed it back and it stopped working 8(

some others are now showing though. but the separate 'image viewer' fails to display about 50% of the covers - 'unsupported file format' - despite them all being seemingly identical (the image viewer helpfully doesn't show the directory name whilst viewing, only the filename which is always cover.jpg or folder.jpg)

a bit of investigating using two bowie covers, one of which showed and one whihc didn't suggested that the non-working version was interlaced and the working one wasn't. converting the image to bmp and back to jpg got rid of that so that's something to do today... (i've been collecting images for the raspberry pi jukebox so this won't be too much work)

oo chonky. i can smell the pixels