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Another DAP Recommendation Thread

post #1 of 9
2/24/10 at 2:56am
Thread Starter 
Hello! I've been lurking around reading threads for a couple of days and decided it's about time I get a player dedicated to music. I've been using my cellphones to listen to music but as I've been upgrading my headphones, I felt that I should do the same for my DAP.

One of the biggest requirement above almost anything else is that I need for the player to support East Asian characters, more specifically Chinese, Japanese and Korean (all three), in song titles. It sucks having to change the title of my songs whenever I dump them onto my cellphone.

As for audio quality, I'm not experienced or talented enough to tell the difference in music between players half the time but having a DAP recommended by true audiophiles does help to put my mind at ease =).

I would like for it to have at least 8+ GB and/or a microSDHC slot. FLAC and/or WMA Lossless support are nice but not necessary.

Lastly, the DAP is probably mostly for home use or long trips. So I'm not worried about portability =). Though I like smaller DAPs since I think they look nice? I would prefer it to look nice but I wouldn't sacrifice a significant amount of audio quality just for aesthetics. I don't need video but a visual interface is preferred. Something attractive (more attractive than an iPod) will get more points through me than a nice video/touch screen.

I have looked at the S:flo2, S9, P3, and Zune HD. All of them look attractive but I'm not sure if they satisfy my requirement >.<. For reference, I have looked at the clip, and found it visually unappealing. I liked the looks of the C250 but seems like the audio quality isn't great. Yeah.. I'm pretty picky and undecisive.

Do recommend me others but keep in mind my budget is below 250 USD ^^;;.

EDIT: A netbook with good audio is a possible option.
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post #2 of 9
2/24/10 at 5:21am
Maybe Cowon D2 , it fit all your requirements.

Samsung M1 support more than 30 languages, good sound quality, support memory card , flac and wma support but the price is not below 250USD i think
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post #3 of 9
2/24/10 at 10:48am
Personally I'd recommend another Cowon player, and 1 you've looked at, the S9. The SQ, size, battery life, AMOLED screen, and all around quality of the player make it a #1 choice in my book.
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post #4 of 9
2/24/10 at 11:18am
I would add a +1 for the S9, which is the player I use.

I am unsure about the display of asian charecters (but since it's a Korean player mainly aimed at an east asian audience I'd be taken aback if it didn't display at least Korean).

Why the recommendation?

It plays a wide variery of codecs with lossless and LAME MP3 playing in perfect gapless;

It has MSC and MTP mode;

It has file/folder browsing rather than just tag browsing (hugely superior IMO);

It has BBE sound enhancements. Don't think of other sound enhancements when I say this - these are high quality effects rather than the trash you get with some players. BBE ViVA is a personal favourite preset/sound enhancement;

Extremely long battery life;

Plays divX and Xvid natively, no need to convert and does it on a beautiful AMOLED screen;

Very tough scratch resistant glass front panel (capacitive touch screen);

UCI system allows some great user created interfaces. "Claw" has added tons of functionality like auto-resume, dynamic playlists and the like, FDX/DNW has produced some stunning aesthetic main menu and music screen UIs. There is a nice text reader that allows control of the music player while reading a book which I like a lot.

It's a great player. It has it's quirks -

Problems with loading playlists, awful photo viewer, poor album art resizing, oddly placed headphone input on the bottom of the unit, won't let you use it while it's charging

- but as a whole package it's extremely good.
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post #5 of 9
2/24/10 at 1:32pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the recommendations. I was leaning toward the S9 and Samsung's P3 but one of my major concern was laggy/unfluid interface that I saw in videos. Do correct me if I am wrong.

I'm not to interested in the D2 because it looks like a giant brick o.o. Not my kind of style.

The M1 looks very impressive =O. I might spend the extra dollar for it. Viliv's P3 looks promising as well but I haven't seen much love for Viliv products around here =O.
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post #6 of 9
2/24/10 at 2:04pm
Quote:
One of the biggest requirement above almost anything else is that I need for the player to support East Asian characters, more specifically Chinese, Japanese and Korean (all three), in song titles. It sucks having to change the title of my songs whenever I dump them onto my cellphone.
I have an s9 32gig with the firmware it came with (2.50?) and it displays Asian characters fine. I too listen to music from many different places, so unicode fonts are important to me.

That said, any player that lets you change font will be able to do this. S9 just happens to come with it by default. I think most modern mp3 players (at least the ipod) use a unicode font.

S9 is quite small, don't be fooled by pictures. Since most phones are touch these days, you might look like you're holding a phone but who really cares...

You probably won't find many true audiofiles on this site... That's more hydrogenaudio's domain (where people actually spend hours doing blind tests). However, I can tell you the S9 is just fine It's also hyped as being superior sound quality, but that's just marketing silliness. Buy it because it's got great battery life, nice video, and displays album art very nicely. Be satisfied that it's your recordings that are going to determine how nice music sounds, not any recent well funded PMP.

PS: Please don't waste memory putting flac on a portable mp3 player... S9 does support it, but seriously don't do it if you can't tell the difference between 192 kb/s and 1000 kb/s (which pretty much no one can in a blind test). All you do is waste battery life and force yourself to listen to a very limited library of music (which makes you a boring person!)

EDIT: The lag you see in youtube videos about the S9 is from their first firmware, or from people unfamiliar with how the touch interface works. I don't find myself waiting on the player at all. My iPod (5.5) used to lag when changing menus sometimes, but this has never happened with S9
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post #7 of 9
2/24/10 at 3:42pm
I'm pretty sure the S9 does sound superb, for a DAP. I know the D2 does. The difference between FLAC and 320kbps mp3 can be heard if the cans are up to the job. It's not a massive difference but it is there. I'd go for the D2 personally. Oh, and I consider myself to be an audiophile and I never go anywhere near Hydrogenaudio, FWIW.

Gordon.
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post #8 of 9
2/26/10 at 10:22pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for all the recommendations on the S9. I see a lot of potential in the S9. Through updating the firmware and using UCIs I see that the lagginess I saw on youtube videos disappear. But there's still that unresponsiveness when you touch the screen and it responds half a second after.

So after some contemplation, I'm very close to pulling the trigger for the Zune HD. The major driving force for my decision is because of Zune originals. They come in my favorite color(s), red/black, and I can have a nice design etched onto the back. The sound quality should be close to the S9 minus the equalizer. Hopefully, Microsoft will add a custom equalizer in a future firmware.

But if anyone really thinks I'm making a huge mistake for w/e reason please let me know please xD. The 70 dollar premium for a 16 Zune HD original over a 16gb Zune HD at Tiger Direct with BCB is still having my mind tell me that I'm an idiot for paying 70 dollars so that it can be red with a picture in the back.
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post #9 of 9
2/26/10 at 10:59pm

asian languages?

Quote:
Originally Posted by a_tumiwa View Post
Maybe Cowon D2 , it fit all your requirements.

Samsung M1 support more than 30 languages, good sound quality, support memory card , flac and wma support but the price is not below 250USD i think
I know this problem;your best choice is Samsung, after - Cowon.
Samsung implements all exotic characters perfect- hebrew,greek,russian and
most asian.no gibberish anywhere!
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