[Sudarshan0564]

I want to buy a decent sounding portable MP3 Player with some decent battery life just for casual Listening. Budget is under $20.
Can anyone recommend me one?
(I am not talking about high resolution audio player, just MP3 player)

 

[Beyakusenn]

For 20$ I don't know any decent player, but the Sansa Clip Jam ($29) is a great little music player with a good battery life. It will probably last long too, so I think it's worth for you to look into.

 

[Sudarshan0564]

In India, it's $68 USD here. No problem for this price too. Is it better than Fiio M3 ?
Which Headphone sounds best with sansa clip ?

 

[Beyakusenn]

It's not better in sound quality. In fact, I think the Fiio is better on that front. However, the UI of the clip Jam is better and that makes it worth more as a budget MP3 player.
 
Keep in mind that the internal 4 GB of storage of the Clip Jam (or Clip Sport if it's cheaper there) isn't much, so you might want to buy an additional micro SD card. The Fiio M3 has 8 GB internal storage, but that is not much either.
 
For headphones, I would need to know your requirements (comfort, portability, durability, sound quality) and your budget. Considering the preferences I already know, you might want to look into in-ears from VSonic.

 

[Sudarshan0564]

I would prefer in ears, so that I can sleep with them, enjoy music during office time etc. I am a former sound engineer, so I have a experience of dynamic sound with good stereo separation with clarity.
Right now I have a pair of Sony MDR 150AP in ears, which actually sounds awesome. Great clarity with Dyanamic Bass.(It is not xtra bass series from Sony but it shakes my head with bass drops and it feels like subwoofer, without altering the tone of the song) which cost around $25 USD here in India. But it's frequency range is limited to 5hz - 24khz , which is good for casual 320kbps mp3 Listening but I need something like which support high resolution audio for critical Listening purposes, design and other things like comfort doesn't matter for me. What all I need is Sound Quality. Should be in Budget. I can afford up to 100USD. Can you recommend me one ?

 

[Beyakusenn]

I would prefer in ears, so that I can sleep with them, enjoy music during office time etc.

Yes, for portable wear and ease of use, I do believe IEMs are best
 

Right now I have a pair of Sony MDR 150AP in ears ... But it's frequency range is limited to 5hz - 24khz , which is good for casual 320kbps mp3 Listening but I need something like which support high resolution audio for critical Listening purposes.

Let me start on that first part. The frequency range given by manufacturers is often useless because most don't specify in which volume interval it's valid. Having a headphone with a frequency range of 20Hz - 20kHz ± 6dB is a much better indication of the measurements than a headphone with 5Hz - 30 kHz ± 20 dB. To illustrate, see the figure below. The res line belongs to a headphone that closely matches the former criterium and the second graph a headphone that matches the latter criterium.

 
Besides that, humans usually can't hear below 20Hz or above 20kHz (when we are young).
Speakers can make you 'feel' the lowest frequencies if the pressurise the air around you, but the tiny drivers in headphones, let alone in-ears, can't generate that kind of pressure.
High resolution files played on a music player that supports the full format can reproduce frequencies that are even higher than the maximum humans han hear. These high resolution music files (like24 bit 96kHz) do have a measurable difference when compared with their 'normal resolution' equivalents (16bit 44.1kHz), even within the audible range, but this difference is so minimal that just a tiny bit of background noise is enough to make the difference practically inaudible.
 
 

What all I need is Sound Quality. Should be in Budget. I can afford up to 100USD. Can you recommend me one ?

After all the talk above, I do have a few recommendations within your budget in ascending price:
- Monoprice MEP-933 / 8320 (if you can find it in India)
- Xiaomi Piston 2
- HiFiMan RE-400

 

[Sudarshan0564]

Hey buddy. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your advice. I will check all of them and will get one for sure.
Actually when we audio engineers Mix things up in Studio, which is almost flat sounding room with proper acoustic treatment, I hear those critical frequencies a bit, but I never took care of that. No reputed hardware or software equalizer or spectrum analyser is available to see what's going on in 30khz or 10 hz. So our basic experimental field is 20-20k. I used to mix on a SSL G board, where even EQ curve shapes are almost fixed. We just select frequencies and boost/attenuate them. Parametric EQs are handy in this case. We can make weird EQ curves, even split L/R separately and treat them so. But still they are limited to 22khz.
Except Metal, Rock, Classical, and Jazz, most modern music like electronic, pop, EDM , including Bollywood usually depends upon virtual instruments and they produce some weird sound with weird frequencies and I never seen a hi hat frequency pumping at 30khz in my life.
But in real drum recordings, it happens. Just an example.
And I have seen many who does a weird master Chanel hi/lo pass at 20hz & 20khz and exports at 24bit 96hz which is pretty funny.
Between studios, loudness war is going on and many company making plugins for turning tracks loud by keeping Dyanamics (What they claim commercially or whatever). Where I prefer tracks with some good Dyanamic range with Good stereo image. I learned a new thing from you today about volume interval. ☺

 

[JK1]

  It's not better in sound quality. In fact, I think the Fiio is better on that front. However, the UI of the clip Jam is better and that makes it worth more as a budget MP3 player.
 
Keep in mind that the internal 4 GB of storage of the Clip Jam (or Clip Sport if it's cheaper there) isn't much, so you might want to buy an additional micro SD card. The Fiio M3 has 8 GB internal storage, but that is not much either.
 
For headphones, I would need to know your requirements (comfort, portability, durability, sound quality) and your budget. Considering the preferences I already know, you might want to look into in-ears from VSonic.

I have both the Fiio M3 and the Sandisk Clip Sport. The Clip Jam is built on the same platform as the Clip Sport. The Jam has a smaller screen though, and only 18 hours of battery life vs 24 hours for the Clip Sport. The Clip Sport is slightly larger than the Clip Jam. Both have a built in clip, and FM radio, while the M3 lacks both of these. The Clip Sport comes with 4GB or 8GB built in, while the Clip Jam and Fiio M3 have 8GB built in. The Clip Sport, clip Jam, and Fiio M3 use separate databases for internal memory and card memory. The difference is that the M3 databases allow up to 4,000 songs each, while the Clip Jam and Clip Sport allow only 2,000 songs for each. The Clip Jam and Clip Sport might also have issues with cards faster than class 4, so I use a class 4 Sandisk microSDHC card in my Clip Sport. The Fiio M3 uses faster cards. My M3 has a 32GB Sandisk class 10 card in it. I use only card memory on the M3, but my Clip sport has a 16GB card in it, and I use its internal memory as well. The fiio M3 puts out much more power than the ClipSport and Clip Jam, so it is better able to drive more power hungry headphones. The Clip Sport and Clip Jam are both listed as getting 24 hours of battery life. The Clip Sport battery though is 220mah, while the battery in the Fiio M3 is 550mah. The fiio M3 is fussy about which cards it uses, and it gave me trouble when I had a Transcend card in it. The M3 firmware has a glitch, it won't play songs in an album in the proper order by track number. The sound quality on the Fiio M3 is better than that of the Sandisk Clip Sport or Clip Zip. In some other ways though as I mentioned the Clip Sport and Clip Jam are better. Make your choice based on what you want in a player, and how these are priced in India.
 
Wow! $68 for a Clip Jam, more than double the US price. What does the Clip Sport 8GB cost in India? How about the Fiio M3? How about the original Fiio X1? In the US the original Fiio X1 is down to $80 now, as the Fiio X1(II) has been released. The Fiio X1 has much more power than the M3, but is larger and much heaver, and gets only around 10 hours of battery life. The Fiio X1 has much better sound sound than the M3. If you want very inexpensive IEMs(in the ear canal isolating earphones) that sound quite nice, the Soundmagic ES18 sounds great at only around $14 in the US. if you want to spend around $100, there are some two or three driver hybrid BA/ dynamic earphones in that price range that got nice reviews, such as the 1MORE triple driver IEMs. I haven't heard it though.

 

[Sudarshan0564]

JK1 Hey buddy, Clip Sport price in India is = $100, Fiio M3 = $67, Fiio X1 = $111

 

[JK1]

@JK1 Hey buddy, Clip Sport price in India is = $100, Fiio M3 = $67, Fiio X1 = $111

 
$100 for a Clip Sport????? I bought an 8GB one two weeks ago for $37. Of the three, the M3 seems the most reasonably priced when compared to US prices.

 

[Sudarshan0564]

JK1 I bought a Sony MDR EX750AP, and my friends and others, when I tell them it's price, they simply laugh at me.
I stay silent because it's useless to explain. They won't understand how an audiophile listens and look for. This is how usually we are. Yeah.

 

[JK1]

@JK1 I bought a Sony MDR EX750AP, and my friends and others, when I tell them it's price, they simply laugh at me.
I stay silent because it's useless to explain. They won't understand how an audiophile listens and look for. This is how usually we are. Yeah.

The cost of living and average salaries are so much less in India than in the US. At around $40, the 8GB Clip Sport represents around 2 hours of work for the average person in the US to buy. At $100 in India, it might represent the salary for a whole week for the average person? So it isn't just that electronics prices are higher in India, but that electronic items in India are so much less affordable for the average person.

 

[Sudarshan0564]

Yeah. That's true. If I buy a water bottle in US, it cost around RS 200 INR in Indian currency. Price of an 8GB Micro SD Card. Heh.
But I still love my country, don't know why. ☺

 

[JK1]

Yeah. That's true. If I buy a water bottle in US, it cost around RS 200 INR in Indian currency. Price of an 8GB Micro SD Card. Heh.
But I still love my country, don't know why. ☺

Indian food tastes great. It makes excellent use of spices. Spices don't just taste great, they have great medicinal properties.   The are many doctors in the US who are from India.
Most people in India are vegetarians. There are more vegetarians in India than in the rest of the world combined.
 
I guess the high electronics prices in India are due to high taxes on luxury goods? I don't blame the Indian government though, as they need revenue. Brazil also has very large taxes on luxury items such as electronics.
 
I can't believe how cheap flash memory cards have gotten here. I bought some Sandisk 32GB class 10 cards this week for less than $11 each. I remember when 32GB microSDHC cards first came out several years ago they were over $200, and that was for a class 2 card.

 

[Sudarshan0564]

Yup.. You got it right. We have to pay high taxes on luxury goods, specially in Electronics. Most things are imported from china.
but now, few things have changed.. under Digital India scheme by our PM. Now we make our own. But still this project is under development.
we have some of our own audio manufacturing company like this http://cadenceaudio.com/about1.html but I never tried them. I am kinda Sony Fan.
People of India more interested in Bollywood and Hip Hop Music ( google "Honey Singh") rather than Metal, Rock , Folk and Classical. ( We have our own form of classical music called Indian Classical music, If you have some time check out "Tala Matrix" By Zakir Hussain and "Up" by Karsh Kale in https://musicmp3.ru/artist_tabla-beat-science__album_tala-matrix.html#.WBwqKvRdvMc and https://karshkalesixdegrees.bandcamp.com/album/up. I think you will love them ). Cheers