This has prompted to pull out everything I have (old, new, cheap, expensive, free, whatever) and listen to it all. I've tended to spend my gear money on DAPs and headphones, and occasionally a modest amp, 'cause they're sexy and seem to hold the most promise for changing/improving my sound. But...

xzobinx - I have a ipod 5.5 (non-RW modded). Even through LOD, I think the sound quality totally blows compared to the Clip+ and most other modern players I've heard. It may have been great in its day, but it's not any more. I think current gen ipods are the best sounding ever.

 I have a Clip+, Zune HD, and stack of other players. The Clip+ and Zune HD both sound fantastic, but in all other respects are in totally different leagues. As soviet911 said, the tiny screen on the Clip makes it a PITA to seriously browse music on, and of course no album art or anything fancy...

So I'm browsing in a thriftshop and come across a pile of PCDPs. I already have an old Car Discman that once in a rare while I haul out and listen to, just to make sure it still sounds worse than my modern DAPs. It always does. So I really wasn't looking for another PCDP. I haven't even bought...

Quote: Originally Posted by Sparky191 I use one of these.... Protect Your iPod with Tire-Themed Case - autoevolution I got one like that off ebay. Silicone, very grippy, I love it. Unfortunately the seller only has iphone cases right now, but touch cases may come back.

Great thoughts all. I think that I am getting off the upgrade merry-go-round for a while. I've bought 5 sets of IEMs and cans in the last couple of months, and only the RX700s have been entirely satisfying. Aside from this find, the only good thing to come out of this round is that I've realized...

Quote: Originally Posted by Napilopez Felt mod them! Assuming you haven't, that is. You'll get a lot more detail after you do the very simple(and tool-less) felt mod. It's a very essential mod that so far I haven't heard anyone complain about. It's the same as the felt mod for the...

I've now gone to LAME 3.98r V0 rips. Most people can't distinguish V0 from 320 or even lossless. I've never used lossless on a portable source, but I can't tell V0 from 320 and it takes up about 15% less space. For that matter, I doubt many people could tell V0 and V2 apart for mobile listening...

Please post your impressions, when you get it. I have an ipod 5.5 and can no longer stand to listen to it. I own a half-dozen newer DAPs, including a touch 2g and a 3g, that absolutely smoke it. My touches smoke all of my old ipods by a large margin. Judging from threads, I may not be alone in...

I was gonna start a new thread, but hey, let's keep this one a goin'. I've only got 24hrs burn-in on my new 700s, but right out of the box I was VERY impressed. They are my sixth set of full-size cans. My first were Grado SR60s, which I've used pretty much daily for several years. But I...

Quote: Originally Posted by david1978jp Thank you. If anyone wants more info, I suspect this Spark is "Philips GoGear SA2840 with a color"screen. The model# is SA2925A/37. Might also mention that, while it's not clear from the ABI review, this player has 5-band custom EQ in...

And yes, it always looks this bad. I need an intervention.

I'm just posting a few comments here, since I don't think anyone else has. For full info, ABI did a very full review. After reading the ABI review, I thought about picking up a Spark for a workout DAP, to replace my 1GB Clip, but prices are too high ($45@Amazon for the 2GB Spark). But I...

Quote: Originally Posted by ljokerl I have the M9 too. No room for it in my sig. The M9 does have some soundstaging artifacts and the bass is just too present for my tastes (yes, it is everywhere in the soundstage; not really concentrated in a particular spot), but I thought it would be...

I think the most powerful vocalists are classically trained, not pop vocalists. I'm not sure you could compare Jeff Buckley to someone like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Find a copy of Fischer-Dieskau's recording of Schubert's Schwanengesang (EMI), with a simple piano accompaniment. It's my...

Nevermind is actually a very well mastered album. Grohl's drums hit hard as hell, and everything has excellent bite and separation. Milner talks about it in his book Perfecting Sound Forever, which has a couple of chapters devoted to the loudness wars and what makes great recording and mastering...

Maybe OP could better define what he means by "recorded well," since he gave examples of bands rather than recordings. More and more for me it means primarily, "not dynamically crushed" (i.e., brickwalled, loudness wars, all that), and otherwise having great imaging, dynamics and presence. When...

As has been noted in other threads, Dynamic Normalizer is not EQ or dynamic volume adjustment, but a sledgehammer compression algorithm, like the infamous Pro Tools Finalizer. It's the same technology that the industry is using in the Loudness War (google) to squash all recorded music into the...