[averydonovan]

I'm looking for a small flash player to power my UE 5 Pros or maybe my slightly modded V-Moda Bass Freqs (for when I want an even more compact size) when I don't feel like carrying around my Creative Zen Vision:M. I have a plethora of other MP3 playing devices, but they don't get along with my earphones and cause a lot of hissing in them. My Sony Ericsson W710i is the closest thing I have to ideal right now except I have to use an attenuator to keep the hissing down, and the W710i's low maximum volume just doesn't work well with that. I don't care about capacity much, anything from 512MB up is fine, and I'd like to keep it to $100 or less. It must be small and not cause hissing in high-sensitivity earphones like the UE 5 Pro. Also, it must be either MTP or UMS so it can sync with MediaMonkey and must be readily obtainable locally. So far, the following have caught my attention:

Samsung YP-U2 (small and I have read it has no hissing sound at all)
Sandisk Sansa E250 (can be had cheap some places, but read iffy things on its sound)
Insignia Sport (have heard varying reports on its SQ)

Any suggestions would be much appreciated

 

[srozzman]

try the creative zen v or zen v plus. its about the size of a tic tac case, if size is an issue. heres a review http://epizenter.net/e107_plugins/co...php?content.21

btw, you can hear hissing on the sansa if you have some really sensitive headphones. i can hear it at low volumes with fx 33's

 

[bonethugz]

correct, no hiss from any ue that i tried with my yp-u2. from metro-fi to super fi eb and pro. i like the setup

 

[averydonovan]

Thanks for the responses. Yesterday I managed to pick up a Samsung YP-Z5 2GB at a good price and had read many good things about its sound quality and hadn't read any reports of it hissing. Although it does sound good, it hisses a little. Outdoors near a busy street or on the train I probably would not notice the hiss but indoors when it's quiet I do. I might just give it a few days to see if the amount of hiss it puts out truly bugs me that much. Maybe it's a bit much to expect a DAP to be dead quiet, even my Creative Zen Vision:M is not, and admittedly this puts out less noise than any flash DAP I can remember using, and certainly far less than either my Sony Ericsson W710i and my Nokia N800. Maybe I'm just too picky and too sensitive to white noise...

Srozzman, I was concerned about noise on the Zen V due to its OLED screen and that when I briefly had a Zen MicroPhoto with an OLED screen, there was noise every time the display turned on. Size-wise it'd be fine, I just didn't want something that was just about the same size as my Zen Vision:M. But I may have to read up on it some more if I decide the Z5's noise is too annoying. Thanks for your experience with the U2, bonethugz, that unit would still be the top contender if the Z5 did go back since there have been a few reports of the U2 being dead silent.

 

[DobsOnly]

You might want to consider the 1st gen Shuffle if the Z5 doesn't work out for you. Apple store has the 1gb 1st gen shuffle for $49. The Zen V had some nice features but wasn't my cup of tea sound wise. The shuffle has a more powerful, full sound to it IMO. At $49 dollars it's hard to go wrong with it. I've never notice any hiss with my cans YMMV.

Good Luck!

 

[apnk]

Yesterday I bought the Insignia NS-DV4G 4gb for a total of $66.43 on ebay. I don't now how it sounds but on Dapreview they said it was pretty good.