IPod? I've had enough. Question for the veterans out there.

actually people said that the 7th gen classic do sound good , but eh up to you

for that budget

you got

Studio 3rd aniv ( caveman UI, sound focused player with nothing else to offer)

Hifiman 601/602 (you can use the 602 as a DAC too)

one of the cowons

 

in term of sound quality all of this should be equal or better than the iphone , or you could buy an android phone that supports usb audio out  , and couple them with a USB dac, you may already have the phone thus leaving only the dac (the good thing? Ibasso d zero is one of the compatible usb dac)

 

Cowons have no lineout , so you have to use the headphone out for the ibasso d zero , just a warning there

Well, if you are say designing the best dap, it wouldnt need an amp, it would be just a player with a line out, most of the people that purchases the likes of the dx1000 probably doesnt use it with an amp, but eh

Most of the unit i listed would have a better amp than the d zero anyway, so you probably better off not using it

The Cowon X7 is quite a different player to the iPod Classic 5th gen. Many dislike its touch screen. It also appears to have a defect if you let it fully discharge it needs to go back to the factory to bring it back to life. With its vast battery life it is an IEM/earbud player for people who like to taylor their sound. I liked my 5th gen. for its durability, interface, availability and ability to sound good with over the ear headphones and IEMs. The 6th gen Ipod I didn't get on with mainly due to its performance with full size headphones. The 6th/7th gen ipods are closer to the Cowon X7 than the shorter battery life 5th gen. A free program called Foobar2000 can convert ALAC to FLAC which plays on non-Apple products. People who migrate to Cowons often find these products are much less rounded than Apples', often less reliable and virtually always have inferior user interfaces. There is also no line out which higher sound quality (=shorter battery life) players usually incorporate. 

Well, i have a software that will auto convert my alac collection to flac. You can do it with a non free media monkey, by setting up rules for players (you can sync itunes with mm too)

If you decide to stay with iPod then the Touch versions will run EQ software such as Accudio or Dirac.  Something to consider.  But, as you already know, the Touch versions offer less storage space than the Classics.  The way I deal with that is that I sync new playlists and songs each week... but obviously not ideal.

 

Love the idea that the Androids allow for USB-out so you could pair up with outboard DAC...

iPod 5g is damn good a sounding dap, and replacing its battery is damn easy and damn cheap.

I use my 5thGen ipod with my home stereo. I put in a new battery, it was a simple task.

My iphone4 (no sim) as a Dap with my Fostex hp_p1 or by itself.

Love the apple UI.

 

You can buy a new battery for your ipod.

or buy a new ipod, get one with a low output impedance.

http://monoadc.blog64.fc2.com/blog-entry-99.html

 

I also fell for the Cowon hype and bought a Cowon C2, i dont really use it, although is is a nice little back up for long trips when I want to use my ipod touch 4G and iphone 4 for movie watching.

Most of the hype is around the BBE EQ it offers.

Cowon and most ipods on flat setting sound about the same.

If one wants cowon sound get an ipod touch 5th gen/iphone 4/s and get the sonicmaxproBBE eq app.

 

I like accudio, flacplayer, equalizer, denon audio and EQu apps.

how about saving up for the ibasso dx100? i used to use an ipod classic 7th gen with fiio e17, just recently upgraded to the dx100. dx100 supports apple lossless so you wont have to rerip your songs, the internal memory was also pretty large, 64gb, and you also get a microsd card slot. its touch screen and easy to use for me since my phone is android so im used to android too. it also has a lineout option so you can use it with an external amp. besides the 3.5mm jack that most daps have, theres also the 1/4 inch jack so you can plug a high end headphone that doesnt have a 3.5mm jack right into it. my advice: save up and go for the dx100

 

Me too and bought a J3 and used it for no more than 6 hrs for the entire 6 months I owned it before I sold it. Even with the EQ's and BBE's turned off, the J3 has a colored sound to my ears.

 

Every time I tried to listen to the J3, my 5g kept pulling me back.

 

Well, first off, an amplifier like the D-Zero isn't supposed to "enhance" the headphone; if it helps, it's either the earphone require more power/current than the integrated chip in mobile devices can provide, or the output impedance on a given mobile device is too high it's basically closer to a preamp output than an earphone output. However AFAIK the 5g iPod (Video) uses an integrated chip similar to Cowons, except what made the latter popular here was JetAudio. If you don't want fiddling around with it, not to mention not having a real lineout (it's cleaner though, better implementation of the chip perhaps), you might want to keep looking around first.

 

In any case, since you already own an amp, the Classic isn't a bad choice - just use its lineout. If there's any reason to not get any Apple products nowadays, it has more to do with storage if you use lossless files. No microSD support and they expect you to give them more $$$ instead but the best you can get nowadays is 64gb, maybe 128gb. Some WiFi HDDs are out there for iOS devices but right now a lot of issues need to be sorted out, like how the "better" music apps* don't do DLNA.

 

Either way this might interest you : http://www.head-fi.org/t/537683/cowon-x7-vs-ipod-classic

 

*"Better" like Goldenears Accudio - but as much as I like the custom EQ profiles for individual headphones to be biased towards a flat response, I can't really expect them to work well with DLNA when the player app can't even consistently read album art.

 

 

If you get a player now and it doesn't support ALAC, Foobar can reformat the digital library so you won't have to whip out the CDs. And unlike people having to do the reverse, at least you can just use Foobar on your computer instead of keeping a separate iTunes folder with ALAC/AAC in it just for a portable device.

 

 

If you can wait until June, and just get a new battery replacement kit off eBay for your iPod, you might save up to $200 - and that includes at least one 64gb microSDHC and shipping : http://www.head-fi.org/t/651769/fiio-x3-appreciation-and-impressions-thread-read-the-first-post-before-posting

 

And yes it supports ALAC (unless some big firmware issue crops up while its being beta tested, but so far no bad news).

Edited by ProtegeManiac - 3/13/13 at 7:02pm