[SoulSlayaz]

Anyone please advise on what player i can buy to get thick bass, clarity and loud volumes?
 
I'm using the monster turbines pro and i just recently had the HTC ONE (which had really good bassy sound!!) but now im stuck with the s4 which sounds like some crap from the early 90s seriously im lost.
 
I can go up to £100 or higher if it is truly worth it?
 
Do i just get a sansa, rockbox it? Do i purchase an amp? 
 
Sorry for the sheer amount of Qs im just hopeless rite now!!!!
 
thnx

 

[H20Fidelity]

For your money I would be considering the Clip+, put rockbox on it then amping with C&C BH portable amp. You will be double amping which means you will be feeding the amp from your Clip+ headphone out which is highly frowned upon here, but will give you IMO the best sound quality for your money IF you want bass and clarity.

You can read about the amp here.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/644363/c-c-bh-portable-headphone-amp-80-hours-from-a-single-charge-buyer-review

And because I'm in a good mood you can even have a photo of what it would look like.




Other options you could consider is Cowon C2 which supports EQ like Mach3Bass offering improvements along with other enhancements, it's small and has good battery life but seriously if you want loud volume levels and clarity you should be considering the rig I mentioned, because the C&C BH has an LF switch which boosts bass and clarity, that is the switches purpose, along with other features such as dual headphone out and soundstage expansion.

That's simply what I would do after messing with several sources and never being happy, others might say differently and I suggest you listen to any other options given to you, because we all think differently.

 

[SoulSlayaz]

Dude i thank you from the bottom of my hearts....ive taken note of what u said and im seriously considering ur advice if no one else advises otherwise by sunday ima go for it!
p.s. if ur ever in uk/oxford gimme a shout i'll buy u beer!!!! ^^

 

[SNOOP_DOGG]

The orignal Sansa Fuze are bassies DAPs i ever heard, no roll off in bass region and overall soundquality is better than iPods(but Sansa Clip+ with AMPs like Fiio E11 are amazing too). The other DAPs like iRiver H320, H340, Samsung P2 are pretty bassy yet very detailed MP3 Players.

 

[julian67]

The orignal Sansa Fuze are bassies DAPs i ever heard, no roll off in bass region and overall soundquality is better than iPods(but Sansa Clip+ with AMPs like Fiio E11 are amazing too). The other DAPs like iRiver H320, H340, Samsung P2 are pretty bassy yet very detailed MP3 Players.

The iRiver H300 and H100 series will also go quite a lot louder than a Clip and are better for driving less sensitive headphones. But the chance of getting even a beaten up one for £100 or less is tiny.

With £100 to spare I would go for a Clip+ (8Gb Clip+ is very cheap at amazon.co.uk right now) or maybe even a Fuze (v2 not plus, still available if you search) and a 32 or 64GB microSDHC card. I can't see the need for an amp. A Clip+ or Fuze will drive any sensitive IEMs loud enough to damage your hearing and latest Rockbox has a great equalizer so if you need more bass it's available from the player. Fuze has much longer battery life but in my experience the Fuze's button wheel is more prone to failure than the Clip's simple buttons. Clip can survive all kinds of careless treatment and life in a jacket pocket but Fuze needs a case and reasonable handling.

 

[SoulSlayaz]

Thanks for the feedback and just for ref i can go higher than £100 max is £200 ^^

 

[julian67]

I would still avoid the old iRivers simply because they are now so old that you can guarantee you will be spending extra on new battery and disk and there is also a good chance that non-replaceable compnents will fail. You could spend quite a lot on making a brick. I love these players and own two but I bought them new a long time ago and would only buy one now if I could afford to wave goodbye to the money for potentially no return.

With £200 available it's hard to ignore the iPod Classic 160GB. That's a lot of storage capacity for the money, a well made product, and very high quality sound. You can save a lot on a refurbished or used player but even a new one comes in a long way under £200. With a little work you can run Rockbox on it and it will be a very versatile player.

 

[SoulSlayaz]

In terms of audio quality does the classic have the same quality as like the iphones or ipod touches? Or is it much better?

 

[julian67]

I haven't made a comparison but here is someone else's measurements of iPod Classic vs Nano vs iPhone http://sonove.angry.jp/RMAA/iPodClassic6_nano6_iPhone4.htm

They all look good and the Classic and iPhone look really good. If you get a Classic that can run Rockbox then the notorious volume limiter is disabled. Check the Rockbox site for compatible models and confirmation but I'm pretty sure that's correct.

There is a very good, well written test of the Clip+ and iPod Touch 3G by someone who I believe cannot be named or linked to here because he got banned but google "DOES THE CLIP+ DESERVE ALL THE PRAISE?" and you will find it. Basically any recent Apple player is very high quality hardware. The limitations are in the Apple software so if you get a model than can run Rockbox you have a versatile high quality player and source.

The one caveat with Rockbox is that it does everything at 44100 Hz. That's fine for 99.99% of music out there but not ideal if you want to listen to tracks with sample rate of 48/96/192 Khz because Rockbox's linear resampler is not good. If you have lots of audio that isn't 44100 then convert with a high quality resampler on PC (SoX or libsndfile for example) before transferring, or just go with the manufacturer's original firmware. If going for manufacturer firmware the Sansa models are less attractive as they can't do gapless playback properly. The Clip+ can't play AAC in Sansa firmware and plays with a small but noticeable pitch error, while the Clip Zip can play AAC files but not all of them (some restrictions on duration or bitrate I think).