4-5GB music player

Energize · 13 Jul 2006 at 02:17

I'm looking for a portable audio player somewhere around 5Gb preferably one with a hard drive because I can't stand flash memorys dire transfer rates, It must be able to play ogg, mp3 and a lossless format, it must have good sound quality and it must not be an insane price aka apple.

Im going to be listening with my Sennheiser CX300's.

Energize · 13 Jul 2006 at 19:01

Bump.

Caged · 13 Jul 2006 at 20:02

Cheap, high build quality, format support.

Pick two.

Energize · 13 Jul 2006 at 20:08

Cheap and format support.

benjo · 13 Jul 2006 at 20:11

iRiver H10?

james.miller · 13 Jul 2006 at 20:14

cant do ogg or lossless.

iaudio m5 maybe? its 20gb, but its only £159 and it plays MP3, OGG, WMA, ASF, FLAC and wav. And of coruse the iaudio's are almost unrivalled in sound quality

SexyGreyFox · 13 Jul 2006 at 21:56

Energize said:
I can't stand flash memorys dire transfer rates

Explain please.

Eliot · 13 Jul 2006 at 22:12

yes i also require a explaination tbh

Energize · 13 Jul 2006 at 22:40

When transferring data and music to them it takes longer.

james.miller · 13 Jul 2006 at 22:43

theres nothing slow about them, they're just as fast or faster than hdd-based players. the h10 'only' manages ~7-8mb/sec for example.

SexyGreyFox · 13 Jul 2006 at 22:46

Energize said:
When transferring data and music to them it takes longer.

I have an IPOD Mini, Archos XS200 and my daughters have Nano's.
The Nano's definitely transfer quicker which I would expect flash memory to do (no moving parts).
I'm still confused.

james.miller · 13 Jul 2006 at 22:49

dmpoole, can you get HDtach to recognise the mini or the nanos? it'd be interesting to see how fast they are

Energize · 13 Jul 2006 at 22:52

dmpoole said:
I'm still confused.

In pcs hdds transfer data at least double the speed of flash memory around 65MB/s or higher because NAND flash memory had a technical limitation meaning it can never even surpass usb 2.0 speeds, they don't last as long either in heavy write use, Id assume that in an mp3 player using a decent hdd it would be able to obtain higher transfer rates, I guess they use crap hdds.

SexyGreyFox · 13 Jul 2006 at 23:11

james.miller said:
dmpoole, can you get HDtach to recognise the mini or the nanos? it'd be interesting to see how fast they are

Downloaded, installed and the Mini is 15 MB/s.
I'll have to do the Nano tomorrow.

UPDATE -
both Nanos are in Morocco

Eliot · 13 Jul 2006 at 23:54

Energize said:
In pcs hdds transfer data at least double the speed of flash memory around 65MB/s or higher because NAND flash memory had a technical limitation meaning it can never even surpass usb 2.0 speeds, they don't last as long either in heavy write use, Id assume that in an mp3 player using a decent hdd it would be able to obtain higher transfer rates, I guess they use crap hdds.

well the hdd's in ipod are hardly 15000k raptors, so tbh, the differnece will be tiny,

Energize · 14 Jul 2006 at 00:16

Eliot said:
well the hdd's in ipod are hardly 15000k raptors, so tbh, the differnece will be tiny,

The drives in mp3 players may be crap but I'm not talking about 15k drives, even 7,200 and 5,400 rpm drives are double the speed of nand memory.

Vegetarian · 14 Jul 2006 at 00:31

iAudio X5 and Rockbox iPod are your only options really in the "bought new" market!

Energize · 14 Jul 2006 at 00:40

Will the m5 work with the cx300 headphones?

james.miller · 14 Jul 2006 at 08:44

Energize said:
The drives in mp3 players may be crap but I'm not talking about 15k drives, even 7,200 and 5,400 rpm drives are double the speed of nand memory.

how fast do you think hard drive based players are?

my pc's drive isnt double the speed of a h10, its seven times the speed.

Will the m5 work with the cx300 headphones?

yup, will work fine.

Vegetarian said:
iAudio X5 and Rockbox iPod are your only options really in the "bought new" market!

why the x5 over the m5 which is a lot cheaper? didnt think he needed video playback, or is there something else?

Vegetarian · 14 Jul 2006 at 11:04

james.miller said:
why the x5 over the m5 which is a lot cheaper? didnt think he needed video playback, or is there something else?

Because he can also put rockbox on it for gapless playback and more format suport! Its also a USB host so usefull on holidays downloading your holiday pics for extra storage!