Best MP3 Player for Sound Quality? +2gb

ahh thats why hes perhaps ditching it on flebay ;)

I think me rather then looking at the ipone it looks hassle cos u gotta be forced to convert any of my mp3/flac to apple flac/formats is too much.

Perhaps its better to have a seperate music player and phone:)

Just feel that lazyness to have all my gadjets packed into one unit.... ready to loose or be stolen no doubt!
 
Aren't sandisk sansa's supposed to have the best SQ ? at least that's what people say on the audiophile forums.
 
Hmm aint heard about those yet perhaps looking at the wrong post I know a lot of peeps on headfiers forums are on about the Kenwoods and Sonys but they have ups/downs regarding the Cowons yet many have them.
 
i had a D2 and a sony 816. the sony is by far the better player, though the lack of power may be a problem for inefficient earphones. the d2 is a very neutral player which works very well. the sony is warmer, but it majors on seperation and sounstaging, outdoing the d2:)
 
The Sony 818 is by far the best mp3 player on the market. Cowen D2 is nice but not in same league sound quaility and build quality wise. It also "upscales" low bitrate mp3s so they sound a lot better like creative did with x-fi - even 128bit sounds fine!!!

And sonys are drag n drop now!!!!!!!
 
i wouldnt go that far! that upscaling thing is trash as well - cant polish a turd. besides, using badly compressed music really defeats the object of going for SQ lol
 
james.miller said:
i wouldnt go that far! that upscaling thing is trash as well - cant polish a turd. besides, using badly compressed music really defeats the object of going for SQ lol
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It works - Its not a huge leap but better with than without... its not trash - Only thing thats trash on the sony is the studio effects! But everything else is superbly done... EQ is out of this world - you can change the sound so that it sounds like a totally different make of player.
 
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james.miller said:
the 816 is a 4gb nwz-a81. you cant tell me the player ive got can perform miracles when it doesnt lol.



yes you can but it does seriously limit the volume when you do.
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WOW You must be deaf! even with eq bands set to bottom minus - at 22/30 the volume is defening! The sony has a very powerful amp - much louder than my US firmware Zen Vision M
 
ive just brought a sony nw-a808 8gb from tesco(i work there) and it retails for £129.99 but for some strange reason it came through the till at £80 !
just filled it up with some music and the sound is awsome,i had a 20gb creative zen touch and that was nice but this sony wipe's the floor with the sound quality.....and it's a video player as well.
 
Just to throw a new option in, have you considered a Zune 4 (they do 8 and 80 as well) which you'd need to pick up imported.

It supports WMA Lossless though I find WMA pro good enough for CD-Rips and the usual mp3 formats and has an FM radio.

I bought an 80GB Zune about 3 months ago for about £150 incl. delivery and I still can't fault the thing. Bloody superb in every respect.
 
Vegetarian said:
WOW You must be deaf! even with eq bands set to bottom minus - at 22/30 the volume is defening!
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yes. the problem is when you turn the bass up, i cant even remember what its called right now, it limits it down to as much as volume 18 which im sorry, but it isnt enough enough unless you have a sensitive pair of cans or earphones. if you cant hear the artifacts caused by the agressive volume limiting around that volume level even before you hear the volume limiting itself then you must be deaf;)

The sony has a very powerful amp - much louder than my US firmware Zen Vision M
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thats worrying. the nwz-a series are quoted at something like 8mw per channel. it certainly isnt a lot, and itss not enough to provide a clean line-level signal to drive an amplifier, not even at volume 30 with the equaliser defeated. from memory, the vision m can do it fine? put it this way, its a far way off the power levels of the cowan D2
 
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schizo220168 said:
ive just brought a sony nw-a808 8gb from tesco(i work there) and it retails for £129.99 but for some strange reason it came through the till at £80 !
just filled it up with some music and the sound is awsome,i had a 20gb creative zen touch and that was nice but this sony wipe's the floor with the sound quality.....and it's a video player as well.
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Headphones are what gives great sound of course it will be better if the default headphones are better which they are
I bet any money you like that my £27 sansa clip sounds better than any sony with sony headphones why ? because I have some decent 3rd party headphones simple.
 
im very impressed with the headphone's that came with it,they give a good range of sound's and the bass is superb.
of course it will sound better with some better headphone's but im going to stick with the one's that came with the unit as they suit my need's for a good crisp sound.
 
Great and it's the headphones everyone seems to be forgetting here you cant have someone saying well this sounds better than my old zen if they are using default headphones on both.
 
well thats nothing to worry about, because the 81x sonys sound better with the sony ex85 earphones than the vision M, D2 and anything else ive heard with the slighty superior sony ex90's. so while people in the thread are talking about which players sound better, rest assurd the people with a lot of experiance will have compared the players with the same earphones.

C64 said:
Headphones are what gives great sound of course it will be better if the default headphones are better which they are
I bet any money you like that my £27 sansa clip sounds better than any sony with sony headphones why ? because I have some decent 3rd party headphones simple.
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unless your spending £70-80 at least, dont bet on it.
 
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