MP3/CD player craze

[Vertigo-1]

Joe, no I haven't tried that yet. I don't envision myself doing that to my player while listening to it from a seated position either, so I don't know that testing for it will do me much good.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

It's supposed to be a PORTABLE player...

Why don't you get a DVD player with mp3 capability or something if you're sitting still. Would probably sound a lot better.

 

[Vertigo-1]

I dunno, do they make those? I would think a PDVDP would have horrid battery life, not to mention it'd probably be the size of a PSOne.

Yeah my listening style doesn't really require the player to be skip free since I don't put it into skipping environments really. Hence why I didn't even mention skip protection in my first post. I'm part of the group that believes listening while walking around a busy street is somewhat dangerous. Plus my walks from one place to another last about 10 minutes...too much hassle for me to even bother pulling the 'phones out and try to get it back in when I arrive.

Nonetheless I'll go ahead and try what you said, just to see what happens. I kinda expected something disastrous to happen if you disturbed its spin up on MP3 CDs just by how the disc has to spin up every now and then to load the memory up. Strangely from what I read at the MP3.com forums, the Sony was supposed to be the best at not skipping while doing this, and most people have said it is indeed skip free all the way, MP3 CD or otherwise.

 

[stan11003]

I have had the D-CJ01 since it came out. I like the unit it has it's problems but it does its job and has good sound quality. It used to have some power issues driving my new cans (Ety ER6) but once paired with a fixup Mini amp everything seems alot fuller even with my bigger Senn HD580 headphones. I was interested in the Slimx imp-400 but I am spoiled by the 24 hour battery life of the Sony.

 

[Whitebread]

I want to get either the 350 or 400 SlimX, I will be using an amp, which should I get?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

I mean a non-portable DVD player...

 

[Vertigo-1]

I use my J01 on school campus while doing last minute homework, hence the sit down listening style. So.......why would I want a non-portable DVD player again?

 

[Vulpix]

I wanted to get a MP3 player but found out most 8cm CD MP3 players were total ****, and couldn't tolerate much shaking, so jogging with them is impossible. To me, size is important, and I like my stuff the smaller the better.

Eventually, I sold my MP3 player, and bought a MD. Never looked back.

 

[JiPi]

I used to own a D-CJ01 and I returned it hoping Sony would come
out with a new and improved D-CJ02 (?) sometime this year, but
apparently they won't now? This is sad.

I really like the CJ01 but I didn't like the non-FFWD/RWD on mp3
playback. It not being firmware upgradable didn't really bother
me, at least not to a point to return it just because of that. But
now that I know (...) Sony isn't going to produce another one I'm
thinking of getting it again. Or should I?

I liked its sound, its looks, its battery life, its build quality...
Well, pretty much everything except this FFWD thingy. It's really
annoying when you listen to a whole cd (not ripped into tracks)
and open up the lid for some reason and then have to start over
again from the beginning of the cd (since it seems to lose memory
when you open the lid..

).

So what should I do, go with it or wait for a better SlimX or
possibly a new Sony? Hopefuly?

 

[Vertigo-1]

I've been really enjoying my J01 since getting it. It's a player that just clicks with me...I liked it the moment I looked at the display model in the store, and I like it even more when in use. One of my habits nowdays has been to slap one of the new CDs I've bought but never had the time to listen to at home into the J01, and when that CD's through, I can slap an MP3/CD in to tidy me over till I get back home.

Battery life is definitely a major reason I chose the J01...I believe the ideal balance between good sound and battery life is 20 hours on internals. I don't believe in exactly going hogwild over battery life like 100+ hours, but I'll admit it wouldn't hurt if it strikes a balance with sound quality. It doesn't matter to me if I had the best sounding portable in the world, but at the cost of battery life...a player that's dead in the water isn't going to be imparting its sound quality at all. Likewise in a portable environment, I'm much less likely to notice or care about the advantages of a stronger amp.

I dismissed the IMP-400 and just decided to see how the IMP-350 did mainly because of battery life. iRiver does not seem to be concentrating on improving battery life, with the 400 getting 2 hours more then the 350 on internals. Given that, I don't know just when iRiver will finally be getting players out with 20 hours internal, which is my minimum requirement.

If battery life isn't a big deal to you, or you don't mind lugging around that AA pack to make up the 20 hours, then iRiver might be for you. I do think the iRivers have bettery sound quality overall. But there were definitely some annoying perks on their players (like that volume spacing issue) that I don't have a problem with on the J01.

 

[Tina]

Quote:

Originally posted by JiPi I used to own a D-CJ01 and I returned it hoping Sony would come out with a new and improved D-CJ02 (?) sometime this year, but apparently they won't now? This is sad. So what should I do, go with it or wait for a better SlimX or possibly a new Sony? Hopefuly?

when i heard about that rumor in one of the korean boards here, that actually stuck until i found out that the d-j01 was actually introduced last february. usually with sony's portables, they have a one year space until they release the next generation. so it's very possible that sony is going to have another one early next year. and with the market response that the cdmp3 is getting, it would be unlikely for sony to back out.

i guess our next hope will be 'the sound' compared to the d-j01.

 

[Davie]

I'm surprised to hear so many raves about the IRivers' sound quality. I was under the impression that IRivers and RioVolts were basically the same thing, and I haven't cared for RioVolt sound quality. But if there is a difference, or if there are some models that have better sound than others, I would definitely give IRiver a second look as they are clearly very attractive in many other respects. Can anybody speak to the difference between IRiver and, say, RioVolt 100 or 250?

 

[JiPi]

Hrm, I had my D-CJ01 in December of last year. So Sony should
be putting the new one out soon unless they're waiting to make
a big move later next year. I'm pretty sure Sony won't back out
of that business, I mean, they can make big bucks just with that
and with MP3CD Players becoming real big now, its all to their
advantage.

 

[dparrish]

Davie,

What specifically don't you like about the Iriver's sound?
My wife has a SlimX imp350 and I think it's quite good--clean, clear, plenty of power/low distortion for the headphone out, and the line out sounds good with my Total Airhead and Cosmic.

Granted, it's not audiophile quality, but it's a heck of alot better than other players I've heard, especially out of the headphone output.

Sorry, I haven't heard any of the Rio units, but they ARE made by Iriver.

 

[swakjer]

I'm looking to buy either an MP3/CD player or a MD player, but i'm overwhelmed with so many factors to consider(aren't we all?) and disappointed 'cause in North Americav we don't get the latest cool models and always get stuck with "World models" or the old models in Asia. I was looking at SlimX but the new IMP-400 is.. just so much better looking than the old one. My friends have the Panasonic and Sony MP3/CD players, but they are very barebone MP3 players which are basically CD players with extra MP3 "flavouring" and just feel so limited in terms of functions (no fast forward during a song? bah... )

From what I read so far the new SlimX does use the same amplifier as IMP350, but the level of hiss noise has been lowered and the new remote is a lot better than the old one.(Not to mention that it displays a truckload of information as well as pretty much any foreign language) As for battery life, i heard it's always gonna be worse than Sony's or Panasonic's due to the firmware chip. My guess is Sony and Panasonic use dedicated MP3 encoding chips that consume far less electricty at the expense of the upgradability. Iriver has a solid track record of releasing firmware updates and I think they did make a right choice. As a R900 user, there were so many times I wished the darn lineout setting would "stick" and without the ability to upgrade its functions, my R900 will always have this annoying fault.

It'll be interesting to see how the new Mojo(which i heard is also an OEM made by a korean company as with most cd/mp3 players from TDK and SonicBlue) stacks up against SlimX... and hopefully Sony and Panasonic will come up with something better.

Still, at the end, I feel that I should get a DS8 with ER4P, anybody tried this combo?