Best portable music player for lossless music

ben_j_davis

ben_j_davis

ben_j_davis

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Tonbridge, Kent
Recently I have been ripping CD's to FLAC format instead of mp3 as I wanted to get the best out of my (reasonably good) sound system.

True it's difficult to tell a difference from a decent Lame mp3 rip to a FLAC rip, so maybe I'm wasting my time.

But anyway

As I spend a large amount of time commuting, I spend a lot listening to music. I have nice in-ear headphones so it would be nice to listen to my lossless music on the go.

Here is where my problems begin, as i'm trying to find a music player which:

Reasonably priced,
Plays lossless music (or a player which can use Rockbox)
Large capacity (at least 20 gig otherwise what's the point?)
Good sound quality
Small and sturdy
Good battery life.

The first thing I looked at was the Cowon iAudio X5, however after reading a few reviews, it turns out that it breaks easily if dropped and the music navigation (the way it's listed) is as basic as it gets.

All Creatives do not support bit-rate higher than 320kbps

The new iPod Classic whilst having big storage capacity and better battery life, apparently has poorer sound quality than previous generation's (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1126861&tstart=0).

Most other players that support lossless music are either 4 GB or £400.

So really it comes down to either a 80gig iPod Classic (re-ripping everything to Apple Lossless), or the older 80gig 5.5 which i can install Rockbox on.


Any suggestions?


Thanks
Ben
 
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waste of time to be honest. most people cant tell the difference between well encoded mp3 and lossless on thousands of pounds worth of audio equipement, you're not going to do it with a DAP
 
james.miller said:
waste of time to be honest. most people cant tell the difference between well encoded mp3 and lossless on thousands of pounds worth of audio equipement, you're not going to do it with a DAP
Click to expand...

I can. Must be your Onkyo. :D
Also can tell difference with DAP, comparing back lossy (MP3/OGG) and flac, with decent headphones.

Of course iriver H140 fits your bill, but discontinued product.
 
id love to see you do a double blind on a dap with no external amp. ive not met anybody who can, unless by decent you mean £300 worth of headphones lol

/remembers how people failed drz's tests on these very forums.
 
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james.miller said:
id love to see you do a double blind on a dap with no external amp. ive not met anybody who can, unless by decent you mean £300 worth of headphones lol

/remembers how people failed drz's tests on these very forums.
Click to expand...

Grado RS-1.:p can be driven by DAP's own output. Still I can notice it on cheaper phones too (£30 Senns) Once you can recognize Mp3 metallic sound you'll always hear it, even with lower end gear.
 
badbob said:
Grado RS-1.:p
Click to expand...

aha well there you go:p

Still I can notice it on cheaper phones too (£30 Senns) Once you can recognize Mp3 metallic sound you'll always hear it, even with lower end gear.
Click to expand...

metallic? id question the encoder if thats the case? there's only really a loss of resolution to deal with if its well encoded. you can get the odd artifact with certain material but by large that doesnt happen any more:) lol iand i never said i couldnt tell the difference:p
 
I've seen it time and time again on music forums, people really can't tell the difference between a decent rip and lossless, but if the actual person thinks that they can....well let them get on with it thats all that counts ;)

As for the player; X5 is so long in the tooth now.....personally I'd go for a TrekStor Vibez there isn't much that beats it SQ wise, but 12gb storage falls short of what you wanted. Perhaps a Cowon A2 if I really need more space.
 
True it is very difficult to tell the difference, sometimes almost impossible. 99.9% of my music are LAME encoded MP3's. However, I will continue to rip songs in a lossless format as better hardware is bound to come along in the future. Rather like I continue to keep photo's in massive resolutions and non JPEG formats. Just because I don't have a monitor now that can display them full screen doesn't mean I won't be able to in the future. If lossless music is no different to a 128Kbp Mp3 then why do studios spend so much money on equipment?

Then why do I want a portable player that supports lossless music? I just happened to download quite a bit of music that was in FLAC format and it would be a shame only to here it at home.
 
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it is different, that wasnt really the point. the point was, there's very little hardware you'll be able to tell any difference on. were talking about 224k+ lame mp3s as well, not 128k. unless you want to get in to external amps and/or £300 headphones, you might as well stick to finding the best player for mp3 formats.

the argument about what may come along in the future doesnt really make sense. there's nothing stopping you keeping the music in a lossless format on the pc and just encoding for the mp3 player as and when you need to. it only takes a few minutes an album at the most
 
That's true, I guess I'm asking too much for something that only cost's a few hundred quid.

Just been looking at the Zune 2, looks pretty sweet. As long as the don't swap the $ for £ sign, it will probably be in the £150-180 range. Although I don't know what the sound quality is like. I'm still thinking my best bet is the older generation iPod.
 
If your that particular about the SQ the difference between the 5.5G and 6G iPods isn't what you should be worried about. You should be looking to the line out and a portable amp.

Store everything in the highest quality thats practical. Thats different for everyone.
 
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