Looking for the best MP3/CD Player on the market

[seeberg]

Hey all you hepcat boys and girls (particulary girls, wink) out there in HeadFi Land, I gotta know, what's the best MP3/CD player out there in terms of sound quality, durability, price, and features (Q/D/P/F).

Right now, I use an iRiver IMP350 which I consider at present to be an overall awesome player if not for the stock Sanyo 1400mah NiMH batteries that only lasted me a year and now I have 1450mah iRiver brand ones on backorder. The DC charger is kind of nitpicky too, the tip has to be fully inserted to make the player recognize it's plugged in. It should come to no surprise that I only use the stock buds when not using my beloved SR60's in certain portable situations (i.e. dentist's office, Library, city bus, freaking Salem Center and Lancaster Mall-you gotta live in Salem to know what I mean).

That was the bad, now for the good: The player has CD-Text /ID3 tags compatibility, backlit remote, nimh rechargeable "gumstick" batteries, custom EQ (I only use it on cheapo buds), FM radio, decent firmware, and compatibility with VBR mp3's and WMA files at least(I don't know about AAC though). Overall, I'd say it's pretty sweet, sans the stock earbuds, and I paid ~120$ for it with an extended warranty I'll be renewing when my batteries arrive. I rate it at 5/4/4/5.

Are there any other players out there that can compete with my model of choice (I'm considering shopping around if the suggestions are enticing), and do any of these players use rechargeables (which is a must to keep costs low)?

Lemme holla atcha, holla holla holla, holla holla holla, holla holla holla atcha,
Abe

 

[Michael1980]

Certainly the most expensive one:

Sony DNE20.

 

[seeberg]

but is it worth anything? I've seen offerings from iRiver that had digital output (imp-550), but I don't quite find it necessary considering that my PC uses coaxial digital output. All I need is a decent iTunes like music hub that has CDDB compatible CD ripping for WIN98SE.

Thanks for the suggestion, and keep them coming!

Fajitas!!!,
Abe

 

[infiskik]

awesome to still people using win98se, faboulas windows, but lacked proper memory management so when i bult my current comp had to use win2k amm, anywho....


the non funky iriver, ive heard and to me it sounded great, price aint to bad, has nice iriver features im fond of owing a h120.

your going to get alot of opinions in your quest, best bet is to do self research.

 

[seeberg]

I can't stand Winows. I got to play around on a Mac OS-X Panther platform for a week back in December, and now I wish I could swap operating systems.

Self-research is fine, but companies don't give much in terms of what real quality their portable players deliver, outside of iRiver and the iPod. Opinions are totally welcome, as I like to hear what people think of my setup, especially. Check out my profile to see what I mean(especially ladies with certain artistic interests), because it's kind of funny, at least I can laugh at myself.

Keep the replies coming, and I'll keep up the nonsensical rambling, ha ha!

Late,
Abe

oh! and hey, I checked out your audio codec shootout, pretty interesting. I keep to variable bitrate MP3's at 75% quality when ripping CD's due to their extreme closeness to original CD's in quality-I don't notice any difference through my Grado SR60's + RS pads.