best mp3 player for sound quality

kidkhaos

kidkhaos

kidkhaos

Associate
Joined
5 Jan 2004
Posts
1,635
i am goning to buy either super.fi 5Pro earphones or Shure E5C Sound Isolating Earphones but i am goner need a mp3 player that can output in a very good quality. Any ideas?


,thxs
 
Whilst some are slightly better than others, the biggest difference will be made by the format in which you rip your music. If sound quality is your thing, then I suppose you should go for a player that supports lossless compression. :)
 
Well i still recommend the latest 5g ipod. That will make your canalphones sound great. But if you really want them to sing, then use the lineout from the ipod with a SIK RAM DIN cable to a portable amp. I would take a look at www.evilfire.com, as his CMOY's are very highly regarded, and cost ~£30.

If you want some more help, head over the head-fi forum, and they will give you some good advice.

Ad

edit: encode your music using itunes @224kbps AAc too, as each song will fall below the buffer size of the ipod, so battery life will be much greater than at 320, or lossless, but the quality will still be pretty much indistinguishable from a lossless file.
It isn't really worth going lossless for a DAP as the impact on battery life will be severe. :D
 
Last edited:
5g from phones out = junk, don't do it. Plus they seem to be killing phones at the mo with dodgy DC offsets....not what you want when you have spent that much on phones.

5g line-out plus amp = excellent, but not that portable. Plus the 4g has a better line-out anyway.

For a proper portable solution you looking at either the Kenwood HD20GA7 or HD30GA9, you should be able to get one from either Japan or Germany (try ebay as you won't find them for sale here). It's the only DAP with a proper digital amp. If you want something a little easier to get hold of them the creative vision M is meant to have an excellent quality amp on it.

As a side note I have super.fi 5 Pros, totally amazing canalphones, you won't find canalphones with a better soundstage or as much 'fun' sounding so to speak (great bass). E5c's are probably truer to the original source, but it depends what you want.

Also this place is about £70 cheaper for super.fi 5 pros than anyone in the uk: http://www.handheldaudio.co.uk/pages/ue_home.asp?divitype=c&cat_id=179

It's where I got mine from, and had excellent service from them.
 
Some that spring to mind:

COWON iAudio X5
The new Samsung, forget the model
Iriver H10

The Ipod Video is an option, but personally id take one of the above, probably the COWON.
 
Cowon's a bit muddy tbh, Samsung YH-J70 is excellent, H10 is also good. Another player that has great sound quality is the Sony, but it has crappy software and less features than the others which is a bit of a downer. The creative Vision:M has pretty good sound quality as well, but the touchpads a bit odd imo. Wouldn't touch an iPod with a bargepole, they're alright but they're not groundbreaking and they look like you polish them with a steel brush after 24hours usage.
 
urmm the new kenwood for sure, it's got a bit of a cult following in japan. it's the first mp3 player with a decent digital amp built in. unfortunately it's not sold over here so you'd have to import it.

Tom.
 
The Kenwood's alright, but the fact that it only plays wma wav and mp3 makes having a built in amp a bit pointless. Having support for things like flac, ogg vorbis and monkey would have been better. Also the fact that it's about twice the price of anything else mentioned doesn't do it any favours.
 
Bigsy said:
5g from phones out = junk, don't do it. Plus they seem to be killing phones at the mo with dodgy DC offsets....not what you want when you have spent that much on phones....
Click to expand...

I heard that the 5g was much improved from the older iPods, the only one I heard was better but I prefer my Shuffle and Zen. Whay do you say its junk though. Not that I'd buy one but I'm curious.
 
Phnom_Penh said:
The Kenwood's alright, but the fact that it only plays wma wav and mp3 makes having a built in amp a bit pointless. Having support for things like flac, ogg vorbis and monkey would have been better. Also the fact that it's about twice the price of anything else mentioned doesn't do it any favours.
Click to expand...


I would have thought WAV and WMA would have you covered for lossless support and thus the amp would be of benefit?
 
Sparky191 said:
I would have thought WAV and WMA would have you covered for lossless support and thus the amp would be of benefit?
Click to expand...
Wav doesn't have tagging, WMAL is ok, but for ~ $500 + shipping + vat, it isn't good bang for buck wise. There are also two models, the older one, which has white noise problems, and the newer one which doesn't have the white noise, but is more expensive.
 
Forgot about the tagging. Doh... Though if it used filetree thats not all that much of an issue if you don't use tags. Looks like it doesn't from what I've read on it. (no much TBH). Unless you use a cheap DIY amp like a CMOY, I thought most other portable amps run about £100-200. So I guess you have to take that into account. Though I doubt the Kenwood amp is of comparable quality.

Why they can't make a decent earphone out to start with on MP3 players is a Mystery to me. I've a Zen Micro. Sounds good but like someone else mentioned I also hate the touch pad.
 
I was amazed by the quality of the pakard audiodream. Previous reviews labelled them as not quite loud enough but with a decent set of headphones and 30mm drivers they sound fantastic. This little gem cost me 25 quid from the local computer fair and it outclasses my previous Sony. it also accepts wma lossles compression but comes in 3 varities of 128 512 and 1gig.
 
At what point did this thread turn into value for money? The guy is contemplating buying E5c's for god sake.

It's light on features but bhe only criteria was sound quality, the kenwood does gapless wav and has the best amp avalible in any DAP. No if's or but's about it.
 
thxs for all your help :)

all i want is something that give great quality. right now i have a 512mb monolith player with psp headphones. now that setup was fine, but then i heard a friends super.fi 5Pro earphones on his ipod and now my setup seems......crap (damn him :( ). i dont want an ipod because everyone has them :D , what i want is something better then my current player that would compliment the super.fi 5Pro and price/storage space aint much off a issue as long as it gives quality sound.

on a side note should i go for a player that plays lossless files, or isnt that an issue :confused:

thxs for all your help so far :)
 
That will be down to the super.fi's m8, not the ipod, I should know I have a set of SF5P :)

Think they stick Wolfsons DAC's in most of the monolith players m8, and tbh you going to struggle to beat the quality of that, certainly beats an ipod hands down for a start.

Maybe upgrade to the 2gb MX7000 monolith which deffo has a Wolfson DAC and a set of UE super.fi pro. It doesn't get much better than that SQ wise.
 
kidkhaos said:
....
on a side note should i go for a player that plays lossless files, or isnt that an issue :confused: ...
Click to expand...

I think most people go with lossless if they are archiving their music AND have a large capacity player that they'll be using as a jukebox at home. They'll be using that player probably through a home hifi and perhaps full sized headphones.

For mobile use where you'll be in a less controlled enviroment, you'll be using smaller headphones or IEM's and so its debatable if you'll hear the different between a lossless file and a good quality high bitrate file. It also depends what you consider portable. Some audiophiles consider full sized headphones, a iPod and portable amp, portable. Thats too overboard for me.

Check out some "portable" rigs here... give you some ideas. :eek:
http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=155048

Beware though, you're on the slippery slope which leads to a quest for SQ. Its usually fatal for your wallet. ;)
 
At the moment I have a Zen Xtra and Sony EX71's. Are you saying that there are better portable headphones out there than these? I didnt think that was possible, but then again it has been quite a while since I last looked at decent portable headphones.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom