Best sounding 2.5 inch HDD media players for Flac or Wav library
Nov 16, 2008 at 7:58 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 13

thoughtcriminal

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I've been kicking around the idea of converting my whole library to lossless or uncompressed format.
Problem is, with the math I've done, I will have over 300gb of music in Flac and even more in wav form. And I need room for expansion
No mp3 player comes even close to that.
Looking at my dads creative Zen extra, I had an idea. What if I took an old school mp3 player, with a 2.5 inch drive and popped in a 500gb hard drive?
I'd go with a bunch of SD cards, but 15+ cards will not be feasible, neither for easy portability (to many loose parts or several bulky card cases), nor for my wallet ($80*16 cards = $1280)

This will be my ultimate perfect portable sound (more for long term travel and home use than day to day portability) rig. I will not compromise sound. A zen xtra like my fathers is not up to par. It has too much background noise, and is not clear enough.
It needs a line out, or some way to run one without to much hacking and soldering (I don't trust my shaky hands that much).
Flac support, either native or with third party firmware would be a huge plus.
Its got to be something I can actually get my hands on
Must be able to support high capacity drives.
Features don't matter, I only care about the music
edit: one feature I would like would be plug and play portable hard drive compatibility. I will probably end up with a few gb left over after all my music, it would be nice to be able to back up some files onto it. Not a deal breaker though

Anyone know of any such players or is this just a pipe dream?
 
Nov 16, 2008 at 8:41 AM Post #2 of 13
Quote:

Originally Posted by thoughtcriminal /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I've been kicking around the idea of converting my whole library to lossless or uncompressed format.


Have no idea about the rest.
But you say converting to lossless or uncompressed...
From what?

Lossy (mp3, ogg, etc) to lossless(flac, wav) = worse than original SQ and bigger file size.

If you have the original CDs however, go ahead and await the useful posts.
regular_smile .gif
 
Nov 16, 2008 at 8:52 AM Post #3 of 13
Quote:

Originally Posted by mattcalf /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Have no idea about the rest.
But you say converting to lossless or uncompressed...
From what?

Lossy (mp3, ogg, etc) to lossless(flac, wav) = worse than original SQ and bigger file size.

If you have the original CDs however, go ahead and await the useful posts.
regular_smile .gif



From the original source, of course. Mostly from CD, a few DVD audio and SACD, and once I have a decent vinyl source, some from that. I know the few albums I only have in mp3 are a lost cause. I'm not even going to try to convert them, as like you said, will lose SQ in the conversion and make them bigger
 
Nov 16, 2008 at 9:31 AM Post #4 of 13
Quote:

What if I took an old school mp3 player, with a 2.5 inch drive and popped in a 500gb hard drive?


You cannot do this - modern 2.5" drives are all SATA; largest 2.5" drive with PATA interface is some 250GB from Western Digital... and i do not believe that "oldschool" mp3 player with 2.5" hdd has sata hdd inside...
 
Nov 16, 2008 at 9:46 AM Post #5 of 13
Quote:

Originally Posted by penartur /img/forum/go_quote.gif
You cannot do this - modern 2.5" drives are all SATA; largest 2.5" drive with PATA interface is some 250GB from Western Digital... and i do not believe that "oldschool" mp3 player with 2.5" hdd has sata hdd inside...


ah. you're right. I can't believe I missed that. I dabble in pc hardware on the side, I should have thought of that. Ok, any 2.5 inch hdd players with SATA connections?
 
Nov 16, 2008 at 10:58 AM Post #6 of 13
Quote:

Ok, any 2.5 inch hdd players with SATA connections?


Maybe these huge archoses?
Or you can wait until 2010, Sandisk promises to release 128GB microSDs then...
confused_face(1).gif
 
Nov 16, 2008 at 4:31 PM Post #7 of 13
Neuros II with HDD backpack. That'll take a 2.5" drive.. wether it suppurts 250 GB or not is a whole other matter.

Good player though, and open source to boot.
 
Nov 16, 2008 at 5:55 PM Post #8 of 13
You could get a few of the ipod clasic 160gb, 3 or 4 should be enough. They are $249USD refurbished from apple. Don't think you will find one portable that has that much storage.

But...
There are some ultra portable laptops, that can have 1tb+ hdd. You could get better quality out with an external dac and a ultra portable than any hdd player.
 
Nov 16, 2008 at 6:12 PM Post #9 of 13
I was thinking along the same lines as Acrog, a UMPC with an external HDD could work... You'd have to be careful picking them though due to the power needed for the HDDs.

Even then it's not the most practical (or cheapest) solution in the world but it's another option for you.
 
Nov 17, 2008 at 1:54 AM Post #10 of 13
Toshiba is coming out with a 240GB 1.8 inch ZIF hard drive:

MK1231GAL 1.8-inch Hard Disk Drive

It's allegedly the same size (8mm) and same ZIF connector used in newer HDD-based players (iPod 5th Gen, Older Zunes?, Gigabeat S series come to mind). Whether or not it would actually work in one of those players in another matter, and we don't know how much this drive will cost yet.

Besides Acrog's solution, you could also consider an Archos 5 250GB - I read that the latest firmware adds OGG Vorbis and FLAC. I'm not sure what drive is in there - maybe it's the same Toshiba drive above?
 
Nov 17, 2008 at 11:31 AM Post #12 of 13
[q]It's allegedly the same size (8mm) and same ZIF connector used in newer HDD-based players (iPod 5th Gen, Older Zunes?, Gigabeat S series come to mind). [/q]
Zune 80/120 are using 5mm HDD.
 
Nov 17, 2008 at 7:11 PM Post #13 of 13
Quote:

Originally Posted by penartur /img/forum/go_quote.gif
[q]It's allegedly the same size (8mm) and same ZIF connector used in newer HDD-based players (iPod 5th Gen, Older Zunes?, Gigabeat S series come to mind). [/q]
Zune 80/120 are using 5mm HDD.



I know the newest ones are 5mm, correct. The 5.5 gen Ipod Video 60/80GB are 8mm, and I think the 60GB S series is as well (but don't quote me on that). As for the Zune, I don't know if the 1st gen 80GB was 5mm or 8mm.
 

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