Steel Ninja
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2012
- Posts
- 18
- Likes
- 10
Note: I have decided on a player, and am now looking for advice on headphones instead. If you want to help me out, click here. Otherwise, there is still good info in this thread, so feel free to check it out.
I have just recently gotten into high quality music. I used to listen to 20 kbps MP3s and thought they were just fine until I started listening to 320k, and now I've just fallen for FLACs, and I want a good player to do them justice.
My first player was a Sansa Fuze (no rockbox), and that was great up until it stopped charging properly. I then upgraded to a Cowon D2 and loved the sound, but the interface was unbearable, so I moved to an X9. I loved that as well and the interface was much better than the D2's. Unfortunately, I recently left that on a plane in India somewhere. I'm currently using my smartphone as my main player, but I just don't have the space for FLACs when I'm using it as both a phone and a gaming platform.
Clearly I need another upgrade. I've narrowed my selection down to 4 players, though I'm quite open to suggestions.
-Cowon J3
-Colorfly C3
-Cowon iAudio 9+
-Sansa Fuze (w/ rockbox)
The absolute most important thing to me is sound authenticity. I want relatively equal bass, mids, and highs as standard, and a powerful EQ to tailor each song to my liking, with minimal distortion for maximum freedom. For reference, I mostly listen to Synthpop, Chiptune, Europop, and Classic Rock
After that, the UI and experience are most important. I want to easily be able to browse my files by track name, artist, and album, and I want easy access to basic settings such as EQ and shuffle/repeat from the Now Playing screen. I don't mind a learning curve, as long as it's actually a curve, and not just some D2 or iAudio 10 ridiculousness.
Finally, at least 32GB of storage (counting SD) is mandatory for any other player you might want to suggest. FLACs are enormous, and I have a lot of music. 64GB is far preferable, though I don't need anything ridiculous like 160GB.
Other nice things:
-Solid build quality
-Manipulate music from a pocket (this one's actually quite important)
-Album art
-Good battery life
-Gapless support
-Control playback speed w/ pitch correction
-ReplayGain support
Stuff I don't care about:
-Video
-Picture viewer
-Radio
-Recording
-Games
-Internet
-Apps such as calculator, notepad, etc.
-Basically anything else that isn't music-related
More info:
-My phones are a pair of Sony MDR-V6s.
-I don't use an amp and don't plan to.
-My budget is $250 (Used is fine).
If there's any more information that would help, please don't hesitate to ask; I'll gladly provide it if I can. Thanks!
I have just recently gotten into high quality music. I used to listen to 20 kbps MP3s and thought they were just fine until I started listening to 320k, and now I've just fallen for FLACs, and I want a good player to do them justice.
My first player was a Sansa Fuze (no rockbox), and that was great up until it stopped charging properly. I then upgraded to a Cowon D2 and loved the sound, but the interface was unbearable, so I moved to an X9. I loved that as well and the interface was much better than the D2's. Unfortunately, I recently left that on a plane in India somewhere. I'm currently using my smartphone as my main player, but I just don't have the space for FLACs when I'm using it as both a phone and a gaming platform.
Clearly I need another upgrade. I've narrowed my selection down to 4 players, though I'm quite open to suggestions.
-Cowon J3
-Colorfly C3
-Cowon iAudio 9+
-Sansa Fuze (w/ rockbox)
The absolute most important thing to me is sound authenticity. I want relatively equal bass, mids, and highs as standard, and a powerful EQ to tailor each song to my liking, with minimal distortion for maximum freedom. For reference, I mostly listen to Synthpop, Chiptune, Europop, and Classic Rock
After that, the UI and experience are most important. I want to easily be able to browse my files by track name, artist, and album, and I want easy access to basic settings such as EQ and shuffle/repeat from the Now Playing screen. I don't mind a learning curve, as long as it's actually a curve, and not just some D2 or iAudio 10 ridiculousness.
Finally, at least 32GB of storage (counting SD) is mandatory for any other player you might want to suggest. FLACs are enormous, and I have a lot of music. 64GB is far preferable, though I don't need anything ridiculous like 160GB.
Other nice things:
-Solid build quality
-Manipulate music from a pocket (this one's actually quite important)
-Album art
-Good battery life
-Gapless support
-Control playback speed w/ pitch correction
-ReplayGain support
Stuff I don't care about:
-Video
-Picture viewer
-Radio
-Recording
-Games
-Internet
-Apps such as calculator, notepad, etc.
-Basically anything else that isn't music-related
More info:
-My phones are a pair of Sony MDR-V6s.
-I don't use an amp and don't plan to.
-My budget is $250 (Used is fine).
If there's any more information that would help, please don't hesitate to ask; I'll gladly provide it if I can. Thanks!