[Blizzard]

I'm looking for a portable player with 20gb HDD and wav-support. What would be the best choice? I'm mostly concerned about sound quality and plan to use it with Porta Corda III amp.

I was going to buy a Sony NW-HD3, but can't find it at an resonable price anymore in europe and I believe HD5 lacks wav support?

I would really like some suggestions of players and cheap places to buy it in europe would be nice to hear too.

 

[blessingx]

Many players have WAV support, but mind if I was why you aren't looking at lossless support also? You'll get twice the songs (and tag support if you prefer DB searching/navigation) with zero sound quality loss. The Apple iPod, Rio Karma and iAudio X5 all have lossless support.

 

[Blizzard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx Many players have WAV support, but mind if I was why you aren't looking at lossless support also? You'll get twice the songs (and tag support if you prefer DB searching/navigation) with zero sound quality loss. The Apple iPod, Rio Karma and iAudio X5 all have lossless support.

Not all have WAV. Seems that many manufactures leave that out when they release new versions. I have seen great reviews on both Sony and iRiver players in magazines and just as the magazine comes out, the manufacturers come out with new models, without wav-support and who knows what else they changed so the review is useless. And the old player isn't available anymore.

Lossless support would be just as fine too. So any player with 20gb and either lossless or wav would be great. But what would have the best SQ? And be atleast decent otherwise?

 

[blessingx]

Sound quality is difficult to qualify unless we're talking portables on different levels, which for the major players I'd argue we're not. Do you prefer a more dynamic or neutral sound? Do you expect to use an amp (thus best if there is a line-out)? Anything else to narrow it down?

 

[Blizzard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx Sound quality is difficult to qualify unless we're talking portables on different levels, which for the major players I'd argue we're not. Do you prefer a more dynamic or neutral sound? Do you expect to use an amp (thus best if there is a line-out)? Anything else to narrow it down?

As I said, I plan to use my Porta Corda III with it, so yes, line out would be a requirement. I would like more dynamic than neutral sound. Remote would be nice to have, but not a must.

How much difference in SQ is there really when using an amp? Should I look more at other features? Other than SQ, durability would be a priority too.

 

[slwiser]

If you go to Ebay you can pick up an iHP-120 or iHP-140 which does WAV and with the Rockbox open source firmware it will do lossless, gapless files out of its optical out into a DAC which provides very good sound.

This is what I did and as my sig shows below:

 

[Blizzard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slwiser If you go to Ebay you can pick up an iHP-120 or iHP-140 which does WAV and with the Rockbox open source firmware it will do lossless, gapless files out of its optical out into a DAC which provides very good sound. This is what I did and as my sig shows below:

I have an amp, I don't have a dac. So what I need is a player with a good dac. Well the porta corda III USB has a dac, but no other digital input than usb so it won't work with portables, only with a computer.