High capacity that supports huge variety of file types and has a good UI

What about a Cowon J3 with a 32GB mini SD card?

I don't understand why you need that much space, if you're wanting to carry your whole music collection in lossless that's not very practical. Rockbox will be out for the iPod classic soon, but if you can't wait it might be worth looking at the rockboxed 5.5g.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Synergy Sound 

I don't understand why you need that much space, if you're wanting to carry your whole music collection in lossless that's not very practical

Myself and others would totally disagree with that statement. It may not be very practical to you but to me, having to carry around multiple sd cards, having to create numerous playlists, having to chose a different list of songs every time you sync up, etc... is all not practical at all. The only thing that makes sense to me is to be able to carry one device and not having to worry about what songs will fit on it. It's the same convenience of having all of your music stored on your pc. Now to the op original question. Although there are a few high capacity products, there aren't any that I know of that will give you high end sound. Some sounds ok, but non are great. So you have to end sacrificing sound quality for convenience. Now there are some high quality sounding players out there, but then you have to sacrifice convenience for sound quality. Now there are a couple of portable products that can take digital out from an ipod, but they both are super expensive an requires carrying around a lot of bulk which really makes them transportable instead of portable. One day we will have something the size of a pico slim that will extract digital from an ipod and send it to a high quality built-in amp for less than 400.00. But that day isn't coming anytime in the near future.

You didn't understand my statement. I'm talking about lossless, if I too wanted to keep my whole collection portable  I would use lossy. Portable memory hasn't reached the point yet where it can carry an entire lossless collection, and so for those of you that want to store your whole library on a PMP, lossy is the most practical option, for now.

Use Apple lossless

Quote:

Originally Posted by Synergy Sound 

You didn't understand my statement. I'm talking about lossless, if I too wanted to keep my whole collection portable  I would use lossy. Portable memory hasn't reached the point yet where it can carry an entire lossless collection, and so for those of you that want to store your whole library on a PMP, lossy is the most practical option, for now.

I did, and I still don't agree. I don't know how large your library is. But the statement you made is a statement that may fit your preference but not all. There is a portable medium where you can store an entire library in lossless. I was able to use a 240gb ipod to hold my entire library which is about 95% lossless. I was able to put over 6000 lossless flac files with almost 100gb of space left. I could just plug in my ipod into media monkey and click sync. I didn't have to go through and select songs or playlists. I was very simple and very convenient. With having about 100gb left over, I still have room to greatly expand my library. I could easily put another 4-5000 flac files on it if I needed to.
 

No it wasn't a mod, but I did the diymod myself afterwards. The hard drive cost me 200.00, but now there's a shortage of them and they have gone up 100.00. There's one place I've found that still have them for 216.00. Check the link below. And yes it does greatly affect battery life, and you have to upgrade to an 850ma battery. They cost 6-10.00. Changing out the hard drive and battery is very easy to do and there are several guides online on how to do it. When I did mine, I also purchased a new front and back cover, click wheel, and center button to give the look of a brand new ipod. Those parts cost around 15-20.00. But even at 300.00 for the hard drive, I think it's worth it to have a decent sounding, smallish portable that will store most people entire library. Doing the diymod takes the sound quality up a notch. And with rockbox, it gives you the ability to use multiple file formats.

http://www.globaldirectparts.com/Toshiba-1-8-Inch-Hard-Drive-240GB-MK2431GAH-p/tosh861640.htm

Hey!just sit down and try to familiarize yourself with you new device.I have it about one month already and I like it.Screen could be better,cable could be standart but thats all my complains.I can watch videos,pics - you have to get used to tricks of UI,(read manual book,it helps)sound,/music is great  - a lot of space for collections,which were dispersed in many smaller devices,I like music/video clips - now I have place for them.

If you do not have what you like - try to like,what you,ve got.I think,you've got problem with attitude(so called 2nd thought)?

CHEERS!