Birthday portable DAP recommendation

My b-day is coming up and I'm looking to get a portable DAP. I was thinking Fuze+ but it has no rockbox support and I'm looking for 32gig minimum (since I've been redoing my entire library in flac). Another really nice feature would be digital audio output via USB or some such. I dont need all that video playback wifi browser and that junk because I have a phone that does all that and I never watch anything twice so converting it to phone-sized portable format is a pain.

any recommendations? I'm also saving up for a set of full size cans <$500 and I currently have monster turbines as my normal listening pair. i enjoy listening to various types of rock music like system of a down, pink floyd, maximum the hormone, and also some electronic music like Daft Punk's Alive 2007 and Pendulum's stuff. most of my music will be centered on sub-bass as I collect more, so I dont want a DAP that simply drops all frequencies below 20hz. I can hear all the way down to 6hz according to the audiologist and up to 18.5khz.

I dont know how fuze+ or clip+ store music...I know they have internal storage and are expandable via microSD but I dont want to be in a position where I have to balance folders between 2 storage areas on the device, and I definately want at least 32 gigs because only half of my library is in flac so far and I already hit the 16gb mark. This is with me being extremely choosy and deleting random albums that I didnt listen to often enough.

dang, i was really hoping the fuze+ would treat the sd card and its internal storage as one contiguous unit. I'll look around at cowon's stuff and i might considering getting something from Creative.

I used to have a Creative Zen Vision:M 32gb. I loved it to death except for the easily scratched surface. I took it with me on a trip to India once and when I came back it refused to charge. I think something in its recharging circuit broke. They quoted me 200 bucks for repairing it plus 80 for checking what was wrong. That was the second time I got screwed by creative, first was on their expresscard "sound card". I also dont buy sony products anymore since the ps3/psp debacles.

I was hoping to get somethign flash based but I'm pretty sure that anything over 32gb isnt going to be flash based, so i'll look around at Cowon's things.

Any other suggestions? perhaps something from samsung?

Is the J3 cowon's best model? it looks pants-wettingly sexy to me and comes with 32 gigs default that i can expand later by the looks of it....

I really like the looks of teclast but im not terribly comfortable buying from some random chinese brand even though I know it'll sound amazing. I like frequent bugfixes/firmware updates because it lets me know that "you bought it and we dont care after that" situation doesnt happen. Cowon is worldwide so if something goes wrong I can probably get warranty support or some such thing.

I think i'm going to go with the J3 unless someone has a better suggestion. I'm not liking that everything that uses less than 32 ohm headphones ends up having massive bass roll off, but i guess thats just an excuse for me to bank on some nice on ear pairs too :3

the S:flo sounds amazingly high sound quality and all but I like the better battery life of the J3. I'm not a fan of all the DSP the J3 is capable of but i figure that for the few albums that i cant find in anything but lossy mp3 it will make those sound marginally better.... no line-out is not a terribly big deal for me since i'm building the Y1 and have all parts for the Y2 by AMB. i'm building those two to also drive mainly headphones because my speakers are active (amplified) anyways and dont require an amplifier to connect, so simple headphone output works peachy for me. Plus the 32 gig capacity with optional expansion slot is rather nice. Even on my craptastic class 2 microsd 16gb card.

Thanks for the recommendations, guys.

i know of the HM-601 and while I lust after it, the price is way too high for my needs. Most of what I listen to isnt worth getting the full audiophile experience because the people who remaster the tracks are complete amateurs. I listen to pink floyd rarely now, and most of the time I am in a weird system of a down or maximum the hormone mood, and neither of them are well mixed before they record to CD.

As for the sony, on principle I refuse to buy sony products because of the company philosophies of 100% closed source. I also refuse to buy Apple and Creative products, also due to company philosophy.

EDIT: nvm, im an idiot. I was thinking of the 801. I'll do some more looking into the 601 vs the J3 considering how they are the exact same price. I may still lean towards the J3 simply because with the 601 it seems that i'll have to buy SDHC cards to keep it stocked. Its a bit scary reading the amazon reviews about how the 601 is faulty in terms of hardware despite how great it sounds. I really dont want to be stuck sending it back and forth to china to keep it working.

I'm having that problem with my Turbines, actually. every time monster sends me a pair it breaks within a month or so. The first set I got had horrible driver flex issues. so bad that I could only listen to about half a song before having to reseat them in my ears and balance the pressure out. The second set had the entire housing fall apart. now i'm waiting on my third set and each time I send it in they tell me it will be about 2 months till they restock...

EDIT2: Ive been looking at videos of the teclast T51 (aka nationite s:flo 2) and while it is amazing in terms of quality, the slowness of it seems like it would drive me up the wall. I'm almost considering just using the ipod touch because I know how good the sound quality is on it and I know it has nice apps and features. I hate that the J3 attempts to be more than it is and ends up costing the same as an ipod touch of the same capacity but barely does anything apart from music. I cant stand it when companies release a product that makes a half-assed attempt to be something its not. (im refering to the flash player, the text file reader, etc).

If the D3 plenue was confirmed to have the same internals as the J3 i would be all in for the D3.
Edited by shrimants - 7/27/11 at 6:55pm

I decided on the ipod classic because

1) easy to use within pocket
2) last ipod classic would still be working since purchase since 2005 if my sister hadn't lost it and my girlfriend's that she purchased 4 years ago still works perfectly
3) more possibility of rockbox support on ipod classic
4) accessories/cases - half the crap I have already was "made for ipod" or would be made more convienient with ipod
5) disk size/external hard drive mode
6) build quality reports on J3 worried me, specifically the touchscreen being attached with mounting tape
7) crap tastic touchscreen and response on x7
8) horrible price on itouch and completely useless features, considering I have a smartphone already.

Only downside to my decision is that i will have to convert my entire library to ALAC, but lossless is lossless and ALAC might have better compression than flac anyways (i have to check)