[FateXT]

I am looking for a portable music player to be used without AMP. I would like it to have above 35 hours of battery, supports flac, has good sound for New Age and Asian Pop music.

Actually the recording function is quite important, I will be using it for lectures in college.

 

[geekchic]

The Cowon D2 will meet your specs for FLAC support, battery life and good sound. Use warm/ bassy phones with it to enjoy pop music more. It has a recording ability but a very tiny built-in mic which I think may not work great for recording lectures. You need to purchase a separate line-in cable to attach an external mic.

You can read the review (and the part about recording quality) here;

Cowon iAudio D2 Review

 

[3X0]

I think Amazon still has a few Cowon iAudio X5Ls in stock for about $230. It's an amazing player and can record 320kbps MP3 in the default firmware, or WAV with Rockbox. Its recording quality is great (even better if you replace the default hard drive with a flash drive) and its battery life is quite good (amazing if you replace the default hard drive with a flash drive).

 

[FateXT]

I am actually looking for something smaller, like the iAudio 7, but I am not sure how it does without amp, how good the recording is.

 

[3X0]

You may want to instead look into a product that primarily records but can also play back music, like the Kenwood recorder unit or an Edirol. IMHO most DAPs still-in-production have mediocre-to-terrible recording functionality.

 

[FateXT]

I am considering the iAudio 7 or the D2 with an external mic as suggested, will that work well enough?

 

[Ozric]

I have an old iAudio U3, and it is surprisingly good in the recording department. I use it weekly, and the mic, though tiny, has impressive range and sensitivity. The iAudio 7 should perform quite similarly, or better, since it's the next generation after the U3. I think as long as you sit up front in class, you will be fine.

Just one caveat: with the mic sensitivity on high, leave it in a position where you don't touch it during recording, because it will sound annoyingly microphonic on the recording. Same advice goes for moving papers around it etc.

 

[tds101]

i7 and D2 don't need an amp, and the recording feature is actually very good on the i7.