• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Best MP3 Player?

M

Mexicorn

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 11, 2002
Messages
285
<edit>

well, I think i'm gonna end up chickening out on a HD mp3 player and probably end up taking scottatwittenberg's advice and using a cd-style player. Now what i've mainly been looking at is the iRiver slimx series. I don't know what it is, but those remotes just seem so damn snazzy hehe. Though i'm not sure how much difference there is between the iMP-350, iMP-400, and the iMP-550 (other than about a ~50 price range difference between the three). Personally, with not much of a difference between prices, i've been leaning towards the 550 just for the slick black design and more functional remote. Anyone have any experience with any of these players, or no any pros/cons to getting one over the other? Also, I know that most of the time these players come with pretty flimsy headphones. I have a pair of $30 Audiophase md-04 headphones (don't even know if that company still exists) that i've been using for a few years now without many problems. Would upgrading to, let's say, some Sennheiser HD-497's would be worth it?


<edit>
 
I have the second generation iPod, and not many problems with it. Many people would say the price (but I got a deal), or the battery. I have no problems with the battery lasting eight hours, but a friend that has a third generation 40gb has noticed significant drops in his batteries. Also, if you completely drain and recharge your battery every day, you will be paying another $45 every year and a half. Other minor problems inclue: no true line out, nice looking but easily scratched (when not in it's case), and no playlists on the go (the third generations can with the newest firmware).

Another friend of mine had a 20gb Archos that died after warranty, so he replaced it with a 20gb Rio Karma. The Rio's hard drive died within 3 months and is now in the process of RMA
 
i read at mp3.com that the new ipods have a true (circuit clean) line out, and a much improved battery life.

i was going to buy one, but I need it for my car, and unsure if there might be something better out there..........
 
Originally posted by darw_n
i read at mp3.com that the new ipods have a true (circuit clean) line out, and a much improved battery life.

i was going to buy one, but I need it for my car, and unsure if there might be something better out there..........
Click to expand...

The third generation does have a true line-out, but only from it's dock. And as I said, my friend with the third generation is getting worse battery life.

There is an accessory made by Sik that provides a line out for the third gen, and another similar that also has a car power adapter.

The larger, yet cheaper, Neuros has the ability to stream audio over the radio built in to it. It also has many other features, including removeable backpacks transforming it into a flash player.
 
I'm gonna make a plug for the Nomad Jukebox 3......yes, it's bigger than most other HD based mp3 players (standard PCDP sized) but it's dirt cheap, built like a tank, has better soundquality than I've heard come out of portable devices, and it's loaded with features....

-optical and analog inputs for direct recording to WAV/MP3
-built in mic preamp
-DUAL line-outs
-IR remote reciever
-dual removable batteries (22hours off of a full charge, never any problems)
-built like a tank (never had to RMA it, dropped it many times, still works perfectly)
-easily upgradable HD with any HD you find (standard laptop size)
-USB and IEEE1394

The only drawback I've seen is that it's not recognized by windows as a removable drive, you need the bundled software to run it, wich, like most of creative's software, is crap. BUT there is a third party alternative wich rocks the socks off of the bundled software, called notmad explorer (http://www.redchairsoftware.com/notmad/).....VERY worth the $25.

I've seen factory refurbished ones go on ebay for around $170.....
 
Nomad Zen 2.0 Love here :)

Sturdy, a bit of a brick, but really good audio quality, and I get about 10-13hrs of playback time out of it (it's over a year old now).


Cheers,

Mr. Pain
 
Glad to see a good review for the zen, though i'm stil very afraid of what may happen if I get a Zen Xtra. Seems most reviews i've seen have been split into two categoris. Those that just got it and love it, and those who's warranty just expired and have a giant serires of problems with it (especially involving an easily broken headphone jack). Does anyone have one of these newer zen Xtras?
 
dont get the archos jukebox, i bout one then it suddenly died the day my warranty ran out. coincidence? i dont know. I got an ipod now and i love it, was worth every penny of the $270 i paid for it.
 
iRiver is always a possibility. A little cheaper than the iPod, and a lot more features to boot.
 
the iRiver does look nice yes, but its prictag is almost identical to the 20gb iPod. Unfortunately i'm not sure if I wanna be plunking down more than 300 bucks for this, so it's a bit out of my pricerange. If I were to go with iPod then the 15 gig would probably be my choice. Bah, there's too much crap in the mp3 market these days.
 
the new ipod mini is really nice if you dont need to carry more than 1000 songs at a time. its really tiny and comes in colors :D
 
i'm in the stone age w/ my muvo2. love the little thing. weighs as much as a pack of gum. 256 meg so I carry 4-ish albums or album's worth of songs.

The removable storage thing 0wnz hardcore, though. Freakin great. Cheaper than everything else mentioned so far by a lot. Great for exercise music (what I use it mostly for).
 
I have the samsung napters 20gb thinggy, i forgot the model number, but i really dont like it due to the fact you have to add all your music to it through napster, yes you can import all your pirated mp3's into napster and then put them on their, but its fucking anoying..
 
well.. i am going to reccomend burning your mp3s to cd and getting a sony mp3 cd player... it will cost you $60, the batteries can supposedly last something like 60 hours with straight playback...
sure you have to carry around cds, but each cd can easily last you 6 hours +... i drove from ohio to florida straight.. and only needed to change cds once.. and i rarely heard the same song twice..

so it is just a thought... less parts to break, you can get batteries for it anywhere... and it is way cheaper.
 
some more Zen love here :). greatest sound and built like a brick :D

personally im waiting on the Zen Media Center to replace my Zen. video, images, and music all for the price of the ipod :cool:.


and word of advice. stay away from archos unless you like RMA numbers and being put on hold.
 
i have a zen xtra 40gb here. i love it too:D . its pretty big compared to my friends ipod. but his is a 10gb and he payed $300 for it and mine is a 40gb and i payed $250 for it and it can support more file types and the battery last longer and the battery can be replaced on the zen
 
ummmm....really not sure how much that review site helps. All the reviews go along the lines of "but this player is great, but so is this one! ooo, and this one's awesome too!" Not much actual "reviewing" going on from what i can tell. Just my opinion though.
 
Mexicorn, than why don't you call the 800 number there and ask? Headphone.com is known for having kickass customer service... get some headphones and an mp3 player, ask them for advice on a combo... trust me, if you talk to them in person, you can figure more stuff out. :)
 
Well I'd say iRiver iHP series units. They're small (like the iPod) and have top notch sound quality (like the Zen). Kind of the best of both worlds, along with a radio tuner, and inputs, outputs and recording capabilities.

They're awesome little machines.

edit: oh yeah, they have awesome battery life
 
IMO the rio karma is a really good one for its size, and flexibility with file format. After hearing ogg files I am saddened that my in dash cd player only plays mp3's.
 
I have the RCA LYRA 2840. It's the cheapest player for it's HD size. Plays mp3, mp3pro, & wma. 40GB for $249.00 is not bad. I'm testing this unit because sometimes the mp3's will just stop playing after a while. Maybe it's the way I encode my mp3's. :confused:

Anyway check it out by clicking here
 
Originally posted by Mexicorn
<edit>

well, I think i'm gonna end up chickening out on a HD mp3 player and probably end up taking scottatwittenberg's advice and using a cd-style player. Now what i've mainly been looking at is the iRiver slimx series. I don't know what it is, but those remotes just seem so damn snazzy hehe. Though i'm not sure how much difference there is between the iMP-350, iMP-400, and the iMP-550 (other than about a ~50 price range difference between the three). Personally, with not much of a difference between prices, i've been leaning towards the 550 just for the slick black design and more functional remote. Anyone have any experience with any of these players, or no any pros/cons to getting one over the other? Also, I know that most of the time these players come with pretty flimsy headphones. I have a pair of $30 Audiophase md-04 headphones (don't even know if that company still exists) that i've been using for a few years now without many problems. Would upgrading to, let's say, some Sennheiser HD-497's would be worth it?


<edit>
Click to expand...



I got my iRiver SlimX-350 today.

So far I love it. The sound quality is outstanding, the FM tuner is the best I've ever used on a portable devise and it appears to be very well built. I can shake like a tamborine while playing MP3's and it won't skip.

I wasn't sure about the differences between the 350, 400 and 550 either when I started looking, but here's what I was able to find out:

The 400 and 550 come with cassette-style car adapters and the 350 does not. (But you can pick up an adapter for $15 and plug it into the headphone or line-out jack on the 350 if you want to use it for that.)

The 400 & 550 have the new style of remote but the only difference between it and the old style used on the 350 is the location of the play and stop buttons. Everything else, including the menu and navigation controls, are identical.

The 350 & 400 have identical specification sheets. The 550 does have a more powerful amp (0.76V vs. 0.57V for the 350/400). I'm not sure if this is a real benefit or if it's like the custom Marshall amps in Spinal Tap that go up to 11. The 350 had plenty of power with the stock headphones, but it wasn't uncomfortably loud at full volume. But when I changed to a pair of Koss "The Plug" headphones that changed. With the Koss' the 350 has all of the volume I could want-and then some.

Sound quality of the included headphones was disappointing for a $100 player, but the next pair of truely good headphones I find included with any Walkman or MP3 player will be the first. I don't want to be too harsh, I've heard a lot of earbud headphones that sounded worse than what comes with the SlimX 350. But this player responds really well to a good set of headphones. A set of HD-497's would be a very good investment.




BHD
 
You can pry my iPod out of my cold, dead hands. End of discussion. Granted, there are players that have more features, or more storage, or more bang-for-your-buck, but when it comes right down to it the iPod does everything I need and want it to do, it's fricken tiny, and the interface rocks. C'mon. No buttons. And it works so well!

It's gone skiing with me, played continously for 8 hours on the 600 mile drive from Bozeman, MT to home in Cheyenne, WY, and, goes jogging with me 3-4 times a week (which you certainly wouldn't want to do with a larger player...), goes with me about every day to provide tunes for my cd-player-less truck.. I could keep going for a while, if i really wanted, but I think I've gotten my point accross.
 
If you can't afford the hard drive players, get a smaller iRiver player, or one of the other brands recommended. I thought somewhere after your first post you added more money, I guess that was everyone else talking.

I'd still say if you can swing it for a hard drive player, the iRiver iHP series it the absolute best, it combines everything the iPod has that's good with a lot of the Zen's nicey nices. The only things it doesn't let you do is replace the battery and save your wallet from a raping. The iRiver does cost just as much as the iPod, but given it's a better player, its a much better buy.
 
Originally posted by JoJoFine
errr their tidbit on the Zen Xtra and Zen NX is wrong. the Xtra is much much more than "a Zen NX with a 60gig drive"
Click to expand...

Yeah, after reading their opinions on mp3 players I decided I'll trust them some on headphones, but they're clueless about mp3 players. I saw that link several days ago, its funny it showed up here.

They're one of the very few site that thinks the iPod sounds better than the Zen or iRiver, which if you ever listen to the three of them with the same high quality phones on the same track (high quality mp3 since they all read them), it's definitely the worst of the three.
 
ok screw it

I think i'm just gonna close my eyes and plunk down the change for the iRiver iHP-120. It seems it's pretty much the best player on the market right now, and cheaper than the iPOD on top. Plus the style & remote just do it for me for some reason hehe. I'd rather have a good player last me a few years, then get something cheaper and have it die right after the warranty. Thanks a lot for all your suggestions guys, I'll keep you posted on how my choice turns out!
 
Originally posted by Mexicorn
ok screw it

I think i'm just gonna close my eyes and plunk down the change for the iRiver iHP-120. It seems it's pretty much the best player on the market right now, and cheaper than the iPOD on top. Plus the style & remote just do it for me for some reason hehe. I'd rather have a good player last me a few years, then get something cheaper and have it die right after the warranty. Thanks a lot for all your suggestions guys, I'll keep you posted on how my choice turns out!
Click to expand...
I think you'll be happy. I love mine, and when the iPod users I know see it and hear it they often like it better than their own iPods (particularly in the sound quality department). They're sweet players.
 
Originally posted by hooting_monkey
I'm fond of my Rio Nitrus. It's by far the smallest hard drive based player out there.
Click to expand...

The Rio Nitrus isn't hard-drive based. Although the Cornice Storage Element is related to hard drives, the Cornice SE is NOT a drive.

"Though the SE shares some architectural kinship with hard drives — it features a spinning platter and a read/write head — the SE is not a drive." http://www.corniceco.com/products/

The Muvo^2 is also Cornice based and of similar size, and the iPod Mini is close also.

To the thread-poster - if you can deal with the size of the mp3-cd players, they are obviously the best choice. They are the cheapest and have unlimited and very cheap expansion capability. For a dime, you can have another 700MB. In cost effectiveness, mp3-cd players own.
 
For the price, I like Archos. I got their 15gb player back in 2002 for $150, and it's run like a champ ever since. It's not fancy, but it gets the job done.
 
As far as I'm concerned the Cornice drives are more or less modified hard drives. They still have the major components.
 
Ahhhhh some asshole stole my second gen i-pod...so pissed...so pissed:(
 
Originally posted by Mad_Pyro
The Muvo^2 is also Cornice based and of similar size, and the iPod Mini is close also.[/B]
Click to expand...

IIRC the Muvo2 and iPod Mini both use 4gb Hitachi MicroDrives, they are essentially hard drives that have been miniaturized and do have some of the durability problems of the larger HDD based players.
 
The Muvo2 does have a huge knock against it though, the lack of a menu-style playlist feature like the iPod Mini, etc. have, you just skip from track to track.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top