[hifiboom]

what is the best player today if you want the best headphone audioquality from a player device, no matter if it is a memory stick, MD Player, HD Player or PDCP.....

Is there still one that has excellent audiophile quality headphone output.

 

[halcyon]

Simple answer: afaik no.

All have their failings.

 

[hifiboom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by halcyon Simple answer: afaik no. All have their failings.

you mean there is not one single player on the market that has audiophile headphone output?

 

[FenderP]

AFAIK, no player is geared to be truly audiophile. Some drive headphones better than others, but when they are designed, they aren't debating on whether they'll drive my Etymotics properly. It's all about lowest common denominator as they are made for the mass market.

 

[taymat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hifiboom you mean there is not one single player on the market that has audiophile headphone output?

The ipod mini is beaten by the rio carbon and the nitrus is too expensive, it's priced nearly the same as the carbon. Same with the shuffle 1gb it's too close to the rio carbon/zen mini. If it was me I'd go for the carbon/zen mini if you want good sound and more portability, with a decent amount of storage. Or the ipod 20gb if you want a lot of storage and don't mind paying more for less bulkiness. The ipod is tiny for a 20gb player and has a fantastic scroll and click wheel. However the karma is very cheap on ebay now and sounds better than the ipod, it also drives any headphone up to 50ohms well and has better battery life.

 

[deadlierchair]

Another great thing about the Karma is that it comes with a great docking bay with built in ethernet and RCA line-out connectors. Something really bad about the Karma is the pitiful 90 day warranty, and it seems like they are more fragile than iPods...

 

[Jmmmmm]

perhaps the nomad jukebox or the upcoming neuros III. i dont think any of the current daps are 'audiophile' quality

 

[philodox]

I really like my Archos AV320. About as audiophile as you can get when you use the digital out to a DAC. My only complaint is lack of lossless support. I can always fall back on WAV's for special recordings, but they take up so much space.

 

[aseltzer144]

The term "audiophile" is difficult to quantify and would be subjective at best. That said, I tend to agree that the portable players are not designed to meet the expectations of the audiophile and in being designed to be portable, have to incorporate compromises that preclude exhibiting audio of the highest quality possible. Nevertheless, I remain amazed at just how good the portable devices of today can sound.

Of all of the portable devices and recorded formats available, I still find minidisc to offer the best sound quality and trade off of sound quality to portability. Its ATRAC compression algorithm also seems to offer a good compromise between CD and MP3, with file size somewhere between the two and sound quality closer to the CD standard.

To further bring sound closer to an audiophile level, a portable headphone amp would be a good thing to acquire. These will bring out the high and low end potential of todays devices. Most headphones, regardless of how well they may be able to be driven by the builtin amp in the source device, will really exhibit another level of sound quality with an external amp.

 

[bigshot]

Any compressed format is not going to qualify as audiophile, so minidisc doesn't fit the bill.

One way of getting audiophile sound would be to get an iPod loaded with Apple Lossless files with a line out and headphone amp.

See ya
Steve

 

[philodox]

Thats it, I'm building one!

 

[YamiTenshi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by philodox Thats it, I'm building one!

Send me one when you're done.

Or you can go here and help them.

 

[paradio]

Looks like a simple question, but difficult to reply.
In general, PCDP->>MD->MP3 and WAV->lossless compression (like ape<monkey>)->>Mp3.

I have used the foobar to play ape lossless formated music on my laptop. The sound is quite good than Mp3 and file size is roughly half of the original source (compared to wav). And this format can show the advantage of your good cans ( at least from frequency response point of view) than Mp3. But unfortunately, no portable player can support this!

 

[Edvard_Grieg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot Any compressed format is not going to qualify as audiophile, so minidisc doesn't fit the bill. One way of getting audiophile sound would be to get an iPod loaded with Apple Lossless files with a line out and headphone amp. See ya Steve

Or go with FLAC on the Karma and get gapless and a 5-band parametric eq to boot.


See ya
Ed

 

[philodox]

Quote:

Originally Posted by YamiTenshi Send me one when you're done.

Heh... will do.