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Need advice for budget mp3 player - My first mp3 player ever ..

post #1 of 14
12/9/09 at 4:07am
Thread Starter 
I know i know , some of you are wondering how some could possibly NOT have an mp3. That would be me!

I have owned sony tape player, a panasonic CD player, Sony MD player and the past few years its mainly been my laptop since ive been in univ.

But now i have decided to wet my feet in proper or decent audio equipment I have ordered the 25th anniv. portapro and Nuforce Ne-6 (Same as Ne-7m just no mic) as my go to headphones for now.

So i need a proper mp3 player with
-good FM sound
-good SQ
-8gb minimum unless it has an explandable memory slot
- Must play most formats (i dont use aac).
My budget is less than a 100.

Right now based on my own research i am looking at the Sansa 8gb Fuze - but is it true the eq on the fuze is bad? since i do like tweaking my music.

How are the Sony N series and E series walkman (Heard sony EQ is good?
Ive taken a peek at the Cowon units but they are funky... but ive heard Cowon bbe is amazing? and like i said i like tweaking the sound - any units under 100 i should look at?

Thats how far i have got- any advice would be great! Thank you very much.
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post #2 of 14
12/9/09 at 6:27am
The Fuze and Clip+ are good choices. The EQ on my Clip+ sucks, but it sounds great without it. Unless you absolutely need EQ, Sandisks would be good choices. The Fuze would probably be better if you need more storage later on (micro SD slot; micro SD cards are getting pretty cheap). I don't have any experience with the Sony players, but I've read lots of good things about them. Go to a store and try some stuff out and see how you like it. You might want to consider the Clip+. Newegg has a pretty good deal on the 8GB right now.
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post #3 of 14
12/9/09 at 4:54pm
Thread Starter 
Well i tried the store thing but they wouldnt let listen to music from the units - and everyone in the store were ipod users and not anything else :/

And all my friends are ipod users which doesnt helpd any.

I just wish the fuze had better EQ reviews - otherwise i might go for a cheap COWON or Sony.
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post #4 of 14
12/14/09 at 7:35pm
Ahh i remeber my very first mp3 player I brought back at Jan. 06, almost 3 hour bike ride to find the nearest brandsmart and a 2 hour ride back home, it's was a $50 Coby 256mb. which I Mp3gain'd all the file to 106 db cause the volume was too low, add to the fact that I didn't grasp the concept of bitrates then, so most file were 256kbps at best. yikes that probably was a distortion hell


if you want good EQ the Cowon iAudio 7 pretty much begs for EQ tweaking to unleash it's true magic, but you'll be hard pressed to grab the 8gb version + shipping for less than $100, but you get great SQ from the Sansa Clip and Sansa Fuze, the Clip+ has a sd slot to expand it's memory
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post #5 of 14
12/14/09 at 7:58pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fortgammon View Post
Ahh i remember my very first mp3 player I brought back at Jan. 06, almost 3 hour bike ride to find the nearest brandsmart and a 2 hour ride back home, it's was a $50 Coby 256mb. which I Mp3gain'd all the file to 106 db cause the volume was too low, add to the fact that I didn't grasp the concept of bitrates then, so most file were 256kbps at best. yikes that probably was a distortion hell


if you want good EQ the Cowon iAudio 7 pretty much begs for EQ tweaking to unleash it's true magic, but you'll be hard pressed to grab the 8gb version + shipping for less than $100, but you get great SQ from the Sansa Clip and Sansa Fuze, the Clip+ has a sd slot to expand it's memory
lol 256kbps? back in the day post 06 you had to purchase software if you wanted to burn cds past 128 kbps :P

Either way i purchased the new sony walkman 8gb E series for under 65 US (69.99 cdn) - It has a 30 day return policy.
Gonna wait and see if any other deals pop up - cause i need the EQ to adjust the sound and as much as the fuze would meet my needs 110% the lack of a solid EQ kills the deal.
Im sure eventually Rockbox will come out for the fuze v2 and clip+ but till then im gonna stick it out with the sony walkman.
Thanks for the help!
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post #6 of 14
12/14/09 at 8:28pm
Clip+
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post #7 of 14
12/15/09 at 12:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JT Vanguard View Post
Well i tried the store thing but they wouldnt let listen to music from the units - and everyone in the store were ipod users and not anything else :/

And all my friends are ipod users which doesnt helpd any.

I just wish the fuze had better EQ reviews - otherwise i might go for a cheap COWON or Sony.
That's no good. iPods are okay, but there's so much more out there. Unless EQ is a vital necessity for you, you could go ahead and get a Fuze or Clip+ and wait for a stable Rockbox port. If you don't mind going used, you could look for a v1 Clip, v1 Fuze, a 4th gen iPod, or a 5th gen iPod. Rockbox works on all those, and it's a huge improvement over the stock firmware (at least in my experience).
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post #8 of 14
12/15/09 at 12:58am
Clip or Fuze any will do.
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post #9 of 14
12/15/09 at 2:40am
^ agreed.
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post #10 of 14
12/15/09 at 4:03am
Yes, the EQ of the Fuze is pretty much worthless, but the sound quality of the Fuze is so good and so all-rounded that there's no need for an EQ. If EQ is a must for you one option is to try to get a Fuze V1 and install Rockbox in it. Another option is to stretch your budget a bit and get a Cowon iAUDIO 7 8GB for $104.00. Or a D2+ 8GB for $129.25.
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post #11 of 14
12/16/09 at 8:03am
Another vote for the Fuze.

If you're so heavily inclined to "tweaking" your music, you might be better off actually editing the audio files using software like Sound Forge where the level of control with a "real" EQ (Graphic, Paragraphic, and Parametric with up to 20 bands to play with) when they're in uncompressed raw format is superior, and then doing whatever tweaking you want before conversion to either a lossless compressed format or lossy if that's your goal.

The EQ on the Fuze (and Clip/Clip+) is just... ugh. But then again, I never use EQ, I just don't get why so many people do I suppose, never will probably. Been listening to whatever comes from the headphone jack for decades now, and when CDs first came out I grabbed the first Sony portable CD player (what a beast that was) and loved it every second I had it, but I never even considered using EQ, I still don't.

But the Fuze with some microSD cards would be a fantastic choice...
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post #12 of 14
12/16/09 at 10:47am
The Sansa sound is good, but I think the EQ and other settign on the E series Sonys is MUCH better. I love Sony's SQ and prefer it over the Sansa's I have heard. You can get a 16Gb for only $86 right now at Amazon too:

Sony E345 16Gb
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post #13 of 14
12/16/09 at 10:44pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Average View Post
Another vote for the Fuze.

If you're so heavily inclined to "tweaking" your music, you might be better off actually editing the audio files using software like Sound Forge where the level of control with a "real" EQ (Graphic, Paragraphic, and Parametric with up to 20 bands to play with) when they're in uncompressed raw format is superior, and then doing whatever tweaking you want before conversion to either a lossless compressed format or lossy if that's your goal.

The EQ on the Fuze (and Clip/Clip+) is just... ugh. But then again, I never use EQ, I just don't get why so many people do I suppose, never will probably. Been listening to whatever comes from the headphone jack for decades now, and when CDs first came out I grabbed the first Sony portable CD player (what a beast that was) and loved it every second I had it, but I never even considered using EQ, I still don't.

But the Fuze with some microSD cards would be a fantastic choice...
Well considering all the sansa love im going to purchase a clip+ or Fuze and see how it sounds for myself.

But i do agree with you back in the day you had to live with what you had. BUT it all changed when Tape players and CD players came with Bass boost or sound enhancement of sorts. Ever since then i have been hooked, especially listening to music on the laptop with EQ settings has spoiled me completely - I change the EQ based on what genre of song is playing. BUT that being said i will give the fuze and clip a go and i will post which route i have chosen on here- the expandable memory is a feature i cannot easily overlook

Thanks for all the input guys you may just turn me into a Sansa fanboy yet.
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post #14 of 14
12/16/09 at 10:46pm
I really really like my Fuze. The Clip is supposed to be more or less the same thing electronically.

The expansion slot is very handy - a $39 16GB SD card will turn a $30 Clip into an 18GB mp3 player. That's a lot of storage!
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