[cam94z28]

I've had my Sony Vaio Pocket VGF-AP1L for several years now. It has been a very good player overall, when it works, but I'm sick of it's quirks. It will randomly fail to spin-up (or freeze, I'm not sure which) when changing tracks if the drive has powered down. The battery is is also dying, and is about $70 to replace. It drops down to 25-50% remaining after 30 minutes use, although it's never actually died (hard drive does the above first).
 
So anyway, I'm tired of the quirks and bugs and looking for something new. The biggest benefit to this player, though, is it's sound quality. This is the best sounding player I've ever had. I bought a refurb 5G iPod several months ago, and it's SQ is complete garbage. Bass gets compressed and starts buzzing/crackling, whereas the sony has perfectly accurate, deep bass and clear mids. Also sounds great with my eBay cmoy, and even better with my Headstage lyrix pro.
 
I'm looking for a new model player that has equivalent or better sound quality in comparison with the sony. I would like a memory-based player (no moving parts, yay!) that will expand up to the 16/32GB cards. I would consider another hard drive player if it's a good value. I would also like something with a good quality manual EQ, whereas the vaio only has preset EQ and nothing that will cut midrange.
 
I would prefer recommendation from those that have owned or at least heard this player.

 

[PhoneLover94]

Can never go wrong with the Ipod =) A lot of people on here also like the Cowon D2

 

[Duncan]

cam94z28...
 
I like the Vaio Pocket, thankfully - although the battery life isn't great on mine, it doesn't sound quite so 'iffy' as yours...
 
What I can say is that the nearest player that I have heard to the Vaio Pocket is the Sony NW-HD5 (my current preferred player) - Still old school, but easily replaceable battery (Sony Ericsson BST-33 from many handsets is a drop in replacement) - although only half the hard drive space (20gb)
 
Many will say that if you like the Sony sound to go for the X series, however I will say as an owner of all three players that the X has a midrange peak that makes music sound a little unnatural compared to how you'd be used to it (you could probably EQ this out with a little patience, but I have been unable to as yet)...
 
Hope it helps
 
Duncan.

 

[mobbaddict]

In my book the VP is still top notch in terms of SQ. The s:flo2 and the Clip come pretty close but can't quite match it for separation and soundstage. The VP doesn't go higher than 15 khz so i don't know maybe this is why it sounds special.
I would recommend the Clip though as it's a great package in terms of value for money and portability.

 

[cam94z28]

 
Quote:

Can never go wrong with the Ipod =) A lot of people on here also like the Cowon D2

I've heard a friend's newer model iPod It actually didn't sound that bad, and had fairly powerful and clean bass. I've read somewhere that they have other anomalies in the sound though. My model, however, is complete garbage. Mids/highs sound OK, but the bass is ridiculously bad. I even tested with a solid bass note at various frequencies, and above a certain (fairly low) volume it started to buzz. Any further and it started to compress and distort, even with rockbox. Maybe I just got a bad refurb, but I'm not a fan of the iPod as a result.
 
The D2 looks good, with completely insane battery life for music. But, accepting SD, and not SDHC (or does it?), add-on memory is limited to 2GB.

EDIT: N/M, It appears the D2+, which is currently available, supports sdhc. I will look into it.
Quote:

cam94z28...
 
I like the Vaio Pocket, thankfully - although the battery life isn't great on mine, it doesn't sound quite so 'iffy' as yours...
 
What I can say is that the nearest player that I have heard to the Vaio Pocket is the Sony NW-HD5 (my current preferred player) - Still old school, but easily replaceable battery (Sony Ericsson BST-33 from many handsets is a drop in replacement) - although only half the hard drive space (20gb)
 
Many will say that if you like the Sony sound to go for the X series, however I will say as an owner of all three players that the X has a midrange peak that makes music sound a little unnatural compared to how you'd be used to it (you could probably EQ this out with a little patience, but I have been unable to as yet)...
 
Hope it helps
 
Duncan.

Most of my problems with the vaio might be related to the battery, but I'm not willing to spend $70 to find out. Otherwise, it's an amazing player. The HD-5 looks good but it seems hard to find, and I'm not sure if i'd like the b/w screen.
 
Quote:

In my book the VP is still top notch in terms of SQ. The s:flo2 and the Clip come pretty close but can't quite match it for separation and soundstage. The VP doesn't go higher than 15 khz so i don't know maybe this is why it sounds special.
I would recommend the Clip though as it's a great package in terms of value for money and portability.

I didn't think I was that out of the loop. I've heard of the other two but not the "VP".
 
The clip is kind of small. I think I might break it, the way I tend to treat my gear. I have been looking at the Fuze though. It's a little bigger and supposedly has the same audio chip/sound quality.

 

[mobbaddict]

VP = vaio pocket

Yes go for the Fuze otherwise. But the Clip is actually more solid than it looks.

 

[cam94z28]

Oh,
 
Thought it was some mysterious player I hadn't heard about.I think I'm going to find a Fuze today. Zune would actually be my player of choice though, if it had a damn EQ.

 

[cam94z28]

Just wanted to update. I bought the Fuze, and being the EQ hound that I am, I'm not very happy. It sounds very good set completely flat, but when enabling the custom EQ it uses so much of a precut that it muddies up the sound. This would normally be good for SQ, but it doesn't have enough power (volume) to make up for it. It goes from sounding open and airy, to sounding like a stock cheap sony earbud, all bass and no mids/highs. In all the reading I did before buying, I didn't see any mention of the EQ not being great on this player. Oddly enough, the day after I bought it that info was everywhere. Thankfully I bought refurb. I will still use it with earbuds when I need to be ultra portable. Otherwise, hopefully the S:Flo2 I just ordered can hang with my Sony.
 
It's pretty sad when my ancient woot refurb sansa c250 (rockboxed) sounds better than my Fuze, and 90% as good as the Sony. I already bricked one Fuze v2 trying to rockbox it. Not trying again until there is an officially supported FW. Maybe things will change at that point. On the Fuze my new dual driver roland RH-50 (only $50, get them while you can) sounded overly bright with some kind of hump in the midrange, no matter what I did to the EQ. On the c250 they are much more tame and smooth, and easily listenable without fatigue. I am very sensitive to sibilance/beamy mids, so maybe it's only my ears.

 

[cam94z28]

Managed to get rockbox on my v2 fuze. Now, it's a keeper. No major bugs with newest build, database works properly so i can shuffle all tracks = YAY!
 
Sound quality is night and day compared to stock. Sandisk could learn something from the folks at rockbox.