[JoshK]

I am looking to buy a hi-capacity portable mp3 player (or pmp to you netizens) after having not bought one since my Nomad JBIII. I admit that I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with choices. Actually a fairer description might be turned off but the glitz and lack of desriptions about the guts.

I am looking for a music player, not a media player. I don't care to watch TV on a 4" screen. Hell, I don't even have cable or satellite. Nor do I care to surf the web, watch movies or music videos. I just want to have a reasonably small portable music player that has a very large capacity.

My priorities are SQ, large capacity, easy of use, both in terms of getting the music on the player and searching through your large library on the player itself. I dislike programs that force your submission in order to use their player. I have my music collection stored in FLAC on a music server, so I'll transcode to mp3. I'd rather not have to use some glitzy UI to do a simple task of adding music to a player. Drag and drop would be best.

Would you head-files please help me narrow the field of choices?

I have a 2-3,000 CD, 800 LP music collection and growing constantly. I don't expect to put my entire collection on the player, but I'd like to put a reasonably large amount of whole albums on the player and constantly add to it without having to take a bunch off.

I have been thinking the Ipod classic 120gb fits the bill, basically because I know nothing about its competition and its an easy choice. But using my wife's nano and dealing with itunes makes me a bit lackluster in wanting to go that route.

Simply, I want to spend less time on computer and playing with gadgets and more time listening to music, which is why I want a player in the first place.

P.S. I am not much for playlists, or individual song selection, I like to play the whole albs.
P.S.S. I don't intend to use it while working out, I have a mini mp3 player for that, this is for my 45 min commute on a bus.

Advise would be greatly appreciated.
Josh

 

[aloksatoor]

how about a 5.5G ipod rockboxed so you can use flac..... it supports drag and drop and you can bump capacity by upgrading the hard drive from 80 gigs to more....

 

[JoshK]

Not familiar with "rockboxed". Is that hacked?

I'd actually prefer to use 320bp mp3 to get more CD's on the player then use FLAC. FLAC is for my Squeezebox at home.

 

[chinesekiwi]

Rockbox - Open Source Jukebox Firmware

It's 3rd party firmware.

 

[spacemanspliff]

The iMod is the best large capacity, heck, best portable period. Nothing can touch it in terms of absolute sound quality.

Red Wine Audio iMod

 

[roebeet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoshK /img/forum/go_quote.gif My priorities are SQ, large capacity, easy of use, both in terms of getting the music on the player and searching through your large library on the player itself. I dislike programs that force your submission in order to use their player.

Reading your post, I think you would love Rockbox. It is drag-and-drop, and does not even setup a database by default (although you can use one to do searches that way). You drag the files to the player, and that folder structure is exactly what you see on the player. And, it supports FLAC, if you don't want to transcode. It does video and a few other things, but its main goal is audio playback.

As for the player to use, I've tried a few high-capacity units with Rockbox - the 80GB 5.5G iPod, the Toshiba Gigabeat F (40GB) and a Gigabeat S (60GB, which I upgraded to 120GB).

- The iPod is probably the easiest to find, and it's very easy to setup Rockbox. However, it is fairly large and headphone out SQ is not as good (imo) as the Gigabeats. LOD is another matter, if you want to go that route (the iMod that was mentioned).
- The Gigabeat F series is also easy to setup, but it's the largest of the three and it uses an older HDD connector that is not as easy to upgrade. SQ is excellent imo. Not very easy to find, outside of eBay, but is probably the cheapest of the three players.
- The Gigabeat S is the smallest of the three, the SQ is also excellent imo, and upgrading the HDD is fairly easy if 60GB is not enough. The caveat with the Gigabeat S is 1) hard to find, outside of eBay and 2) the Rockbox implementation is not finished, yet. It's functional, but does take some patience and trial and error to get setup. It's also not cheap, not even on eBay. Also, battery life is probably the worst of the three (7-9 hours is a guesstimate).

I settled on the Gigabeat S myself, which I upgraded to a 120GB drive and I love it. But again, it can be frustrating to setup the first time.

 

[JoshK]

Thanks for the replies.

I didn't know if Archos or Cowon offerings were worth looking into but they all seem to be more about the media and frills side of things.

 

[roebeet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoshK /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thanks for the replies. I didn't know if Archos or Cowon offerings were worth looking into but they all seem to be more about the media and frills side of things.

I believe you are correct - granted, players like the D2 stand on their own as a DAP, but it doesn't have the large capacity you're looking for. And the Archos 5 is probably too big for your needs.