Best portable MP3 Player (Sound Quality from Headphone out) ????

[imz14u2nv]

I don’t care about size, color screens or looks (ok, maybe looks), I want to purchase a DAP and my only real concerns are sound quality from the headphone out jack (I don’t plan on carrying a portable amp, too much bulk), and at least 6GB of Storage. I don’t need to play videos or display pictures, so a color screen is not important either.

I plan to use this player with my Shure E5C’s IEM’s.

Given the above with sound quality as the highest priority, which player would you recommend???

I was looking at the Creative Zen Touch, but I don’t really know anything about the various models of DAP and how they rate, I would like to have an equalizer as I don’t like to listen to sound flat.

Please help, I would like to get this ASAP!

 

[RedLeader]

I don't have alot of experience in the dap world, but I would heartily recommend the rio karma. The SQ is awesome, 20gb, no color screen, but has an rca line out if ever you want it. Nowadays it's a no-nonsense, no-flash great sq player. (IMO of course)

 

[chrisfromalbany]

Well that is what I thought when I first got my Creative Zen. Wanted the best sounding DAP. But UI of the creative Zen was so bad I had to return it and then got a Rio Karma. Then I returned the Rio because I didn't like the sound quality compared to the Creative player. Maybe I am in the minority here, so I went with ipod. Of the three at the time, jack out the creative sounded the best. Ipod was second, Karma was third. I thought the Karma being a 60 mwatts for channel would be louder.

Creative to me at the time has the best sound quality but when dealing with hundreds or thousdands or songs UI becomes an issue. Creative UI sucks at the time. From what I read it is alot better now but you still need to use "Nomad Explorer" to load the music. At a libary level this explorer was a pain. You need to find the files again after looking them into the libary.

My opinion is Apple and itunes is the easilest to use. Loading the songs into itunes and then copying them into Player. The ipod may cost you alittle more and may not sound quite as good Creative player. But after spending hours trying to get the tags right, loading the files. Not being able to find the files on the unit. Creative not being supported as well. I gave up. On top of which I found the built quality of the Zen juke as bad and looked bad. It is alot of work to get a catalog of songs onto a player and to manage all the files.

If I were choosing now, 5th gen ipod. What is your budget? If you have the money get the ipod. I didn't want to just on the bandwagon but if you are going to serious use the use alot the time saved loading the files, managing the files, and then find the right song when you want it, ipod is going to win. Now of the SQ ends, I don't believe it is the best but I will take pretty good.

Shure e5s so quite a bit better with am amp. Try it before you say you disown it. The line-out to nice amp AE-1, SR-71, SM3 will make the biggest difference in SQ.

 

[iancraig10]

I have found the Iriver products to be good sounding, with a healthy output too. I use three:- IFP799, IHP120 and the H320 (Colour) All very good, especially with a portable amp.

Ian

 

[catscratch]

This depends on what kind of files you have lying around. Do you have a lot of AAC and ALAC? Get the 5th get iPod. Do you have ogg's and FLAC's? get the X5. Do you have a lot of mp3's and wma's? Then it won't really matter. The file format and bitrate are more important than the quality of the player as long as the player is in the upper echelon of quality, so to speak. Out of those, I have a lot of experience with the Zen Micro and the X5, and both are pretty good. However,

Just last night I tested the X5 with the SR-001 and UM2 against my 13 year old Fisher PCDP (FLAC on the X5 vs original CD), and, well, the X5 got pretty beat up. On pretty much all counts. Guess mp3 players aren't quite there yet.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrisfromalbany Well that is what I thought when I first got my Creative Zen. Wanted the best sounding DAP. But UI of the creative Zen was so bad I had to return it and then got a Rio Karma. Then I returned the Rio because I didn't like the sound quality compared to the Creative player. Maybe I am in the minority here, so I went with ipod. Of the three at the time, jack out the creative sounded the best. Ipod was second, Karma was third. I thought the Karma being a 60 mwatts for channel would be louder.

Very strange because my rio karma is so loud with my shures i had the volume set to 1/30 on an amtrak train (of all places). Not only is it loud, but it drives even my sr100's with authority. The iriver comes close and the njb3 surpasses the karma in some aspects, but i definitely dig the sound signature of a properly eq'd karma. It's close between the iriver and the njb3, it just does something so...well...only a turntable could do.

Make the music fun to listen to.

"My opinion is Apple and itunes is the easilest to use."

Weird, because i thought iTunes was an incredibe pita to use, i couldn't figure out how to transfer mp3's from my HD to my sister's iPod. At least the other guys had a button on their gui to load mp3's and transfer them over, making it a cinch.

"But after spending hours trying to get the tags right, loading the files. Not being able to find the files on the unit."

It normally takes me 3-5 tries to get the tags right on a player, maybe you're not too familiar with whatever you're using? I use eac.

 

[RedLeader]

not quite sure why you were having so many tag problems, like gloco said, perhaps its a ripping problem?

 

[chrisfromalbany]

I am still going to stand by my comments about other application to load music into the player. I didnt like the creative or rio software. Again this is personal perference. I picked up itunes the quickiest. I would prefer that any of these DAP would just come on as a portable device (hard drive) and I could load that music that way. But that most DAP force you to use an application to load the files, I liked itunes the most out of the applications that I don't like anyways.

Like I said I tried all three and didn't go with ipod first because I didn't want to. Forgot to add that, I was using or testing the DAPs with Shure e5s at the time. But after trying the other units, I decided the ipod was the easilest to use, if you were going to use it on a daily basis. Along with the fact there was great support in forums from there products(ilounge). I don't care for there computers and wish that had gapless playback and good EQ.

As for the SQ of the rio. I thought the Creative player was loudest and cleanest. Rio was not as loud as the Creative Zen in volume. Rio also has something unnatural about the sound from the jack out. Not sure what it was just didn't like it. Personal perference I guess. So it was a let down for me because I read in forums about how good the Rio sound was. I also like the look and docking station.

The Ipod (3rd gen) at the time wasn't as loud as the other two DAPs but the sound was more natural like the Creative Zen. I then had to admit the UI was better and found the music I wanted quicker. So that is why I went with it. If I was only storing 100 songs, I might have gone with Creative. But the UI sucked, and I found myself wasting my time trying to find the right song. All that time adds up.

But compared to others the talk about the subject matter, I have owned all three models and I made my judgement after trying them all.

Again I state the biggest difference was listening to the shure e5s though the line out to SM3. That will be the biggest difference and whatever model with a line out and good amp will blow all other away. Just my honest opinion. I would suggest seeing what you are missing before passing up on it. Night and Day. Bass controlled. Treble detail increase. So much better. Oh yea I owned shure e5s for 1 year before upgrading so I can talk about them

.

-Chris

 

[Jeffreybar]

You're going to get a wide variety of responses, since no one seems to be able to come to a consensus on DAP SQ around here. But I'm a Shure man as well, and for my money, the players which I have heard which meet your criteria rank as follows (best to worst):

iAudio X5 (best)
iHP-140
Creative Zen (an older one, mind you)
iPod Mini/4G iPod (dead heat for worst sound)

Others will tell you that the iPod is the best sounding out of that batch, many will tell you that the iRiver doesn't sound so good. They're wrong, of course, but they'll tell you that anyway.

I think the X5 is probably the way to go now though...good sound, tons of customizable sound options (including a 5-band EQ, BBE, etc.), etc. I found the older Zen to be a bit too polite for my taste. It might be a good DAP for classical though. I'd say iPods are to be avoided if you're listening with IEMs through the headphone out, unless you just love massive amounts of slightly-harsh treble. Others will disagree.

 

[micaela]

IRiver with Rockbox offers the most advantages right now. Gapless playback - lots of codec support & tons of setting options. They are out of production but can be had here & there. (shameless plug for the one I'm selling in the forums) -- but even my plug asside - Rockbox is Awsome and the IHP's are well built solid players.

 

[Leto Atreides II]

Note that even the best quality DAP probably won't match a good portable cd player in terms of sound quality.

 

[Buzzbait]

I think that much of this has do with your choice of earphones. Some earphones and headphones do much better on certain DAPS than others. Not only is it hard to choose a good DAP, but it's even harder to find a decent pair of cans to match with it.

From what I'm hearing, Shure lovers (including myself) are generally having a great time with the Gen5 Ipod.

 

[imz14u2nv]

Would these be good candidates for me to consider? Would it be wise to buy one of these used or just go with a new unit?

Are there any reasons not to consider these other then software ease of use issues, I don’t think that I will need the large capacity (I only plan to keep about 800 songs on it), but will get it if there are no alternatives.

Creative Zen Sleek 20 GB

Creative Zen Touch 20 GB

If something else is better, just let me know, I will spend what it takes, I just don’t want to carry this DAP, my Palm Treo 650, Jabra BT800 Bluetooth Headset, Shure E5C, and still have to carry an AMP.

 

[scorpian007]

Out of all the players I had, I was most impressed with my Creative Zen Micro and iRiver H320 in terms of sound quality. Simply beautiful sound.

 

[nabwong]

Rio Carbon