mp3 player with good EQ

Cowon J3 maybe? I've heard the EQ on the Cowon is pretty great

MintPass MintPass.   12 bands.

Cowon has got a very good EQ, but with lower impedance phones there might be bass roll-off unless you tweak the EQ. I have got the S9 and I have found a good setting bass-wise. However to me the BBE+ effects on the S9 brings a slightly artificial tinge to the music. I worked around that by lowering the higher mids band but that was at the expense of vocals - it brought vocals further back in the music. But at least they do not sound so artificial to me now.

Other that that slightly artificial sound (that not everyone might experience), the Cowon DAP:s are great. I have not heard the J3, but as it is an updated version of the S9, the BBE+ effects should not be too different.

So my suggestion for bass and good EQ is either Sony or Cowon. However they might both be a bit expensive. I do like older Creative DAP:s, but I wonder if newer ones have much bass. My wife's Creative Zen does not have much bass so I bought a Fiio E5 headphone amp for a bit extra bass ooomph. But the latest Creative DAP I have heard is the Zen, so the X-fi2 might have improved bass response...

Samsung P2, P3, D2+, iriver Clix 2, S9 and S-Flo2.....

For what i've read the eq of the s-flo2 it's not that good.

Any rockboxed player? The 5 band parametric eq is awesome.

x2 on a rockboxed player. You get a 5 band variable frequency, variable q parametric equalizer - you can adjust in 0.5db increments. Wonderful! Plus you can save various EQ presets for easy changeability with different phones. I'd recommend the sansa clip + rockbox for its portability. Other options would be cowon players, but they typically suffer a little bit of bass rolloff with low impedance IEMs (unless paired with an amp).

Quote:

Originally Posted by g1981c 

hm.  only +/- 6 decibel is very unusual.  with IE8 this may be enough but with most headphones it won't be.  also the lowest band is as high as 63 hz which is silly for a 12 band EQ.  most of the compensation i need is actually BELOW that.

Rockbox. You can choose whatever frequency you wish to adjust, and it lets you go as low as you want. IMO it's the best equalizer in portable audio. Cowon has BBE which are very nice, but when looking at equalizers alone, there is not anything I know capable of besting rockbox.

Quote:

Originally Posted by g1981c 

how is the EQ on the samsungs ?

 

i heard that if u boost bass too much on s flo 2 it begins to distort ?

I have no experience w/the S:flo2, but the Samsung EQ is awesome. I had the Q2 and the P3 - both equal to Sony DAP's for SQ. I only miss replay gain on Samsung's (Sony's Dynamic Normalizer works quite well), otherwise the sound is just amazing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by g1981c 

how is the EQ on the samsungs ?

You get three user (MyDNSe) settings.  They include a 7-band EQ, with seperate 3D & Bass, Concert Size and Level, and clarity settings.  The bands are 80, 150, 400, 1.1kHz, 3.5, 8, and 14.