Do mp3 players make a difference?

I have the sansa zip (rockbox mod) and love everything about it. It is also < $40. My wife has an iphone and we love it. It is > $300 but it is much more than a portable player (same could be said of an ipod touch)

What do you mean by better? Better sound? What headphones are you planning to use with your player? Are most of your files mp3s, wavs, flacs...? What did you hate about your fuze?

If its only for music, the Touch is a bit expensive. If you want other stuff, then I doubt there's an alternative.

Similarly, the Classic is the storage king, the only choice if you want high storage capacity.

If the above two don't apply, then a clip+ or a clip zip + SD Card + Rockbox is a bargain.

i did my darndest to find any iota of difference in sound quality between an ipod touch and a clip zip, then i bought a cypher labs algorhythm solo and did my darndest to hear a difference between that rig and my clip zip.   same when comparing my home computer rig via an objective dac and objective amp via foobar and wasapi.

i finally came to the conclusion that there was none, and if there was, the difference was so minute that i would never ever know the difference anyway. 

maybe some players out there are skewed in their sound reproduction, and oddly you mostly hear that about there really expensive ones, but otherwise, creating a player that just plays correct, flat response, is not really that hard. 

The only player left in my rig that i actually use is my clip zip.  simply because its the most convenient, and it sounds incredible with the right headpones and right eq settings via rockbox. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by MellonCollie 


I mean sound, At the moment I want to use <$100 headphones but I dont wanna lose sound
For me the thing i hated the most was it broke 2 times just dropping it, my itouch lasted longer and is used
Also little things, menu was ugly and the interface isnt as good as itouches, the mic had good quality though but was for fun.
Its not that i hate it, honestly it was a good player but I was way hapier with my ipod, I also love browsing the internet on it.

I would get an ipod touch then.

You've just gotta have a car pass by you outside for any difference to be negligible! Background noise would defeat any real audiable differences :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by MellonCollie 


Hmm thanks I heard the quality was better on a sansa I called bs.

The quality *may* be better, but if you want to have a good UI, screen, web browsing etc then its no use, is it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MellonCollie 


I mean sound, At the moment I want to use <$100 headphones but I dont wanna lose sound
For me the thing i hated the most was it broke 2 times just dropping it, my itouch lasted longer and is used
Also little things, menu was ugly and the interface isnt as good as itouches, the mic had good quality though but was for fun.
Its not that i hate it, honestly it was a good player but I was way hapier with my ipod, I also love browsing the internet on it.

I'm still wondering what headphones you are planning to use though. Differences between the players maybe relatively large or small depending on the headphone.

Maybe I'm wrong but don't some players have better ability to drive headphones than others pr do they all have similar output via the line out?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ukon16 

Maybe I'm wrong but don't some players have better ability to drive headphones than others pr do they all have similar output via the line out?

The Sansa clip/zip is the only player I know in that regard, it has the lowest output impedance among most players, meaning you can plug in low impedance IEMs (as low as 10 Ohms).

But in general, they're all similar, designed for 30-60 Ohms.

If you spend top dollar on headphones, you might need to spend more on a decent Amp. The HD800 might not be easy to handle for an ipod given it's relatively high impedance. That said, some Sony's might not be too hard to handle. Depends on the model and headphone type.