MP3 Player Advice

Not sure if this should go in Hi - Fi ( probably best not to go there! )

I am thinking of succumbing to an MP3 player and whilst the IPOD is an ergonomic marvel has anyone experience of other makes that better it for sound quality.

Have found various makes on the net I have never heard of so any advice gratefully received.

 

I found the huge difference is in the ear-phones you use. The best I tried are Etymotics (?) ER-6i and the sound is vastly, vastly better. But they are fragile, not good if you suffer from wax , and tangle into a knot every time put away - apart from that the sound is superb. I'm on my second (warranty) pair but mostly use one of my Sennheisers for convenience, either the PX100 on-ear or the clip-in OMX-90 with the nattiest external volume control - these latter are my favourites while the Etymotics (if fitted correctly) are amazing if sound quality is priority. Oh, and the E. do a great job of blocking external sound too.

Tony

 

Your big choice is hard drive vs flash memory..

a decision that IMO is made by whether you need something robust for exercise, movement etc, or something for more stable environments.

I use px100's. THey are very cheap on Amazon by the way, about 1/2 of retail RRP
from there

 

I love the look and feel of the iPod, but I reckon my old, ugly Creative Zen betters it for sound quality. Modern Zens look much better than the brick I've got and a friend who's got one tells me it sounds great.

I'd second Bottleneck's point about headphones. I use Sennheisser PX200's - they sound fantastic and pack down small.

While we're dallying on The Dark Side of fi which is not hi, does anyone know of a harddisk-based player that supports FLAC?

 

cowon make decent hdd based flac players and i believe rockbox do firmware hackgrades that allow certain players to play flac (including some gen i-spods)
i have a 4gig samsung for excersise and an archos gmini500 for general use - the gmini is great in that it offers usb host functions that let you up/download to/fom it without it being connected to a pc - i.e. plug your camera, flash based mp3 or whatever into it and you can up/down load directly. i took it to thailand and dumped all my pics on to it when the xd card was full. no need to go near an internet cafe. it'll also play movies too which was useful on the flight when the ife broke. headphones - i use shure e2c's whcih sound great, don;t tangle if you wrap them right and are compft. i also have a pair of sony's which i bought in an emergency - they are ok but nothing amazing - a bit boom and tizz so i use them in the gym which suits me...

 

Not sure off hand which plays FLAC from the start, but you could put Rockbox os on it. I've done it so I can play FLAC on my iPod. it dual boots to so it doesn't completely remove the apple software. Also means managing the files is a case of drag and drop, no more crappy iTunes.

 

I've tried several players (iriver and creative zen) but have "come back" to an ipod classic- with px100 headphones it sounds superb - even better with my Beyer 990s. When listening outside / running / work etc I really can't fault the sound quality with Apple lossless but recently I've encoded with mp3 and I'm hard pushed to notice much difference. Also it holds a pile of photos / videos and "podcasts" if you want. I originally was interested in audio only but after playing about with itunes a bit (I like itunes btw despite many PC guys warning me off it for reasons of quality / appleness etc..) It's the smaller 80G model yet so far I've got about 5000 songs, 20 movies, a few radio 4 podcasts and piles of photos on it, with lots of free space. The "new" interface is intuitive and pleasant to use - can't recommend highly enough. PC Pro also give it the thumbs up, for what that's worth!
Sound quality is also good when connected to the Hi-fi, great for parties etc as opposed to serious listening.

 

Thanks for putting me onto the question of earphones, its helped me in my Xmas shopping thinking:

http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/epcomp.aspx

gives the range of these noise-blocking things - for travel (and motorbiking? - but not walking)

any views on which model?? And then where to buy?

As suggested,

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sennheiser-PX-100-PX100-Headphones/dp/B00009QH7P

is really good price!

and these looked fun:

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B000KLUJ2I/ref=cm_cr_pr_redirect