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PRO 900s, JDS CMOY, what DAP?

post #1 of 5
8/14/11 at 10:37pm
Thread Starter 

Hey all,

 

I just recently started getting more serious about my audio and got a pair of Ultrasone PRO 900s and a CMOY amp from JDS Labs, and got all my music over to FLAC.

 

Mostly, I have been using my Android phone (HTC Thunderbolt specifically.) for listening to music, and frankly it sucks.  The new phones + amp certainly helped but I can't help but feel like I'm still being hamstrung by a poor player overall.  


I do have an iPhone 4, and that certainly sounds better than my Android phone but now I'm leaning more towards getting a dedicated music player...

 

So the question is, what do I turn to?  I've read about a lot of different options and I'm still not 100% sold either way. 

 

So most important factors for me are:

 

1) Sound quality, thus must play lossless.  FLAC preferred but I would convert if it made sense.

2) Looks, a Clip+ probably won't cut it, I like my snazzy looking album artwork..

3) Space.  I am planning to just use FLAC so a decent amount of storage would be good.

4) Does not need to double as an entertainment system, I have other devices for that...

 

Right now the leading contender is the Cowon J3, but I am wondering if there are any alternatives people would recommend to me over this?  The price of the J3 is about the high end of what I am looking to spend, so around 300$ would be the budget.

 

Anyways, any thoughts/comments/suggestions welcome, thanks!

 

 


Edited by griffonz - 8/14/11 at 10:39pm
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post #2 of 5
8/15/11 at 12:02am

you'd want a source with line out feature *if you're looking for portable player. something like ipod (or i/diymod for better SQ, nationite s:flo2, hifiman HM601, or colorfly CK4)

 

ipod + LOD + jds would be much better than j3 + mini-mini + JDS *IMO

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post #3 of 5
8/15/11 at 12:13am

ipod classic 160GB, theres really no other choice for space and quality.  I ordered my LOD from qables.com, i dunno how sold i am on expensive lod's make it sound better but i bought it cause it looks so freakin cool. I will a/b it with a cheap fiio LOD and i bet they both sound the same (thats why i buy cables based on aesthetic.)

 

If you need a lot of space and a good line out that bypasses the players internal amp nothing beats the ipod classic 160 ANDDD  you can mod the ipod classic with a SSD drive upto 256GB drive and the ssd drive loads songs faster and uses less power then a spinning hard drive the seak time alone on the 4200 rpm 1.8 drives is like 15ms+  seek time on ssd is 0.1ms so you can make the ipod a lot snappier and make the storage space the biggest for any device of that type and size.

 

Get the ipod classic it will leave you with a lot of room for future upgrades (ssd mod + clas or hp-p1 for digital line out to rly high quality dac than run that analog line out to ur amp) It will be great even without those upgrades but it will give you sometyhing else to upgrade too in the future.

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post #4 of 5
8/15/11 at 12:31am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freeze View Post

ipod classic 160GB, theres really no other choice for space and quality.  I ordered my LOD from qables.com, i dunno how sold i am on expensive lod's make it sound better but i bought it cause it looks so freakin cool. I will a/b it with a cheap fiio LOD and i bet they both sound the same (thats why i buy cables based on aesthetic.)

 

If you need a lot of space and a good line out that bypasses the players internal amp nothing beats the ipod classic 160 ANDDD  you can mod the ipod classic with a SSD drive upto 256GB drive and the ssd drive loads songs faster and uses less power then a spinning hard drive the seak time alone on the 4200 rpm 1.8 drives is like 15ms+  seek time on ssd is 0.1ms so you can make the ipod a lot snappier and make the storage space the biggest for any device of that type and size.

 

Get the ipod classic it will leave you with a lot of room for future upgrades (ssd mod + clas or hp-p1 for digital line out to rly high quality dac than run that analog line out to ur amp) It will be great even without those upgrades but it will give you sometyhing else to upgrade too in the future.


I'll need to go from FLAC->ALAC here, right? This is certainly an interesting option as well...not a huge fan of iTunes but I could tolerate it....

 

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post #5 of 5
8/15/11 at 12:53am

yes converting flac to alac is very easy and painless

 

i use dbpoweramp for conversions it works great. And yes you are right Itunes sucks my left nut but it gets the job done.

 

If you want large storage space + a good line out for your amp ipod classic is really your ownly choice plus the ipod is VERY user friendly and a joy to navigate through.

 

 

The Cowon is a POOR choice. It has no line out you cannot skip its internal amp section. The ipod line out destroys the cowon output, The cowon j3 is limited 64GB of stuff with you at a time ipod adds an extra 100GB to that. Ipod GUI is better too and its 50 cheaper.


Edited by Freeze - 8/15/11 at 12:56am
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