[john_jcb]

My current portable setup is a Panasonic CT-570, Cosmic amp and Ety 4S. This works pretty well for most of my needs when traveling but I am looking for a more compact setup for the gym and those times when I do not want to carry so much.

Here are my requirements in descending order of importance.

Store at least 50 CD's at the highest quality level (If this is high I can live with less)
Battery or Wall-Wart operation
Good reliability
Ability to arrange CD's or tracks so I can have for instance a gym list and a quiet listening list, etc.
Line Out
FM
Replaceable battery

Price is not all that important.

Thank You

 

[Bolt San]

I don't think any players do, actually.
iRiver is the closest but it doesn't have a user replacable battery.

 

[DeadTrying]

For Gym and Jogging HD player are out of the questions so,

I River IFP 599t 1GB Flash Based Player (if you are ok with High Quality Mp3's - It will store 8.5 hours of music at 256kb/sec)

Has Radio
Check me on Playlists/Ordering
Magnesium Case = Reliability
Small
No replaceable battery. Impossible in a unit of this size. I wouldn't worry about it that much though.
Has power adapter
Optical Line out (not sure about analogue)

Not cheap

Some Specs here

http://www.audiocubes.com/product_in...b156fb86132c97

 

[sleepkyng]

a 40 gig iPod with a sik imp line out might be up your alley,
if you're using iTunes, you can rip into AIFF (mac equivalent of wav.) and then customize on iTunes a bunch of smart playlists.

tack on a super mini with the line out and you're rolling. The super mini (IIRC) can have a built in ety adaptor.

i dont' know exactly how this works on a PC, but pretty much everything you described can be done on my iPod, save the replaceable battery and fm.

 

[john_jcb]

To clarify most of what I do at the gym is on Cardio machines that have a tray for players etc.

 

[sleepkyng]

256kbps is no where near as nice sounding as AIFF. AIFF is either exactly CD quality or damn near, i'm not sure, ask some of the encoder guys.

if you put your ipod in a nice case and leave it on the tray, you will have no problems with skipping,

hell, i bike with mine in my pocket all the time and never get any skip problems.

iPods also have a lot of after market versatility, there are many cases, upgrades, ad ons that are helpful.


hope this helps

 

[elrod-tom]

Hi John:

Welcome to my world, even now....

I've just purchase a used iPod 5gb, and I have to tell you that I'm pretty impressed with it. The sound quality is pretty good (better than I expected, frankly) when using 320kbps MP3 files, and at the size ranges that they are offering now, you could easily fit close to 4000 CD's on one using that level of encoding.

BTW - I was warned about using files that are too large in these players. Apparently the hard drive spins too much, and it nukes the battery power pretty quickly. Just an FYI...

They have iPod mini's that will hold 4gb (roughly 40 cd's at 320kbps), and they're pretty smallish. Don't know about the line out on those, but pretty sure.

The thing that I really like is how easy it is to use. Love the wheel and menu...very well designed. The battery life is also pretty good (I use it at work for hours at a time and it works out well). I've been using it with my older Total Airhead too, and the lack of a line out has not proven to be a problem for me...I just turn the volume up to about 2/3rds, and I'm off!!

None of the iPods have user replaceable batteries or FM...the line out requires either an after-market add on, or the use of the docking station...but it does have one.

The software is very easy to install and use. I have a Windows based PC, and was a bit concerned that I'd run into difficulty with it. Not a bit...at least not yet <<knock wood>>

Call me an iPod fanboy, but I'm pretty pleased so far...and I've got an older one.

 

[4130]

Jsut to clear things up iHp does have a user replacable battery

 

[lindrone]

Quote:

Originally posted by sleepkyng 256kbps is no where near as nice sounding as AIFF. AIFF is either exactly CD quality or damn near, i'm not sure, ask some of the encoder guys.

AIFF is exactly CD quality, it is not encoded at all, completely uncompressed.

With iTunes on PC, you can rip into AIFF as well (don't need to have a Mac). On top of that, iTunes apparently stores some secret metadata in the AIFF file format that keeps all the tag data (like ID3 tags), so in case of a hard drive failure, you can recover from a backup of your AIFF files elsewhere.

Ripping to WAV stores no metadata, so as soon as the WAV file is moved to a different directory, you will have to manually re-tag everything.