Quote:
I checked out the hifimen which start at 8 gb and end at 16 gb with a cost that is pretty big. The tera players are extremely expensive.
The whole idea of players like those is for manufacturers to throw more of the cost of production into the audio performance parts, and you're gonna have to source microSD cards on your own. Which, at the time they came out and assuming you've kept the player until now, means you'll appreciate the cost of the microSDs now compared to if you had to pay how much more to get 64gb of solid state memory built into the motherboard of the player. HDDs are out of the question since they'll drain the battery too fast, which has to spin the platter and run individual chips - DAC, opamp, headphone amp - instead of a single chip (it, like the Wolfson WMxxxx on a Cowon or Samsung).
I'll point out, more directly than in the posts preceding mine, that such discussion and debate on portable player specs/requirements are already in pretty much any thread here regarding portable players. I will outline all other points raised there below,
but generally keep in mind that what we're all dreaming about at this point is unrealistic given today's tech. For a desktop transportable player it's possible, but not for portables.
Quote:
This is what I want and all I want with my portable music player:
1. Big Memory
As above, cost is prohibitive. They'll give you microSD slots for a variety of reasons:
1) When the street price of SD cards drop, you can take advantage of it, rather than just lower the price of their players when the cost of those SSDs built into the motherboard goes down and then those who bought them earlier can't benefit from that (unless you can desolder the old chips then mount new ones)
2) HDDs take too much space and take up too much battery life (see more below)
If there's any disadvantage to microSD, it's that some people think they'll fumble around switching them. To each his own but a few pointers: if you have a player with this much performance, it's not going to be small, so it probably has its own bag. Get a small camera bag, like a Crumpler 1 Million Dollar Home, and it has pockets for a couple of microSD cards (buy the ones that don't come with a standard SD adapter so the plastic case will be smaller and you can fit more), and jsut avoid switching cards when it's not convenient. Like when you're in moving public transportation that isn't a large enough jet or boat so it won't be subject to turbulence or wakes and the trip is probably long enough to justify switching cards.
Quote:
If you want a portable player with its own dedicated amp circuit as opposed to an integrated, DAC-headphone amp chip in one, you'll need a bigger player to house the amp board (look at the HiFiMan)
and a bigger battery. There are tons of articles out there that discuss how much behind its development is compared to the growth of the computing power of portable devices. It's not just portable music players - phones and tablets sporting quad-core processors are mot often cited in pop tech articles, and even laptops (despite Acer Timeline, MBAir, etc) have issues, despite their physically larger batteries when you have a Core i7 and an NVidia graphics card running at full tilt.
Quote:
3. Wide range of audio codec compatibility including 24bit to 192kHz
Some portable players can do 24/96, but again, the hardware that can decode high-res are designed primarily for home audio gear plugged into the wall socket. The S:Flo for one was basically the circuit board of a home audio CDPlayer, built smaller, given its own touchscreen, and a battery.
Quote:
4. A battery that can last me a day of constant play at least
Again, if you notice, every problem with the performance requirements ultimately go back to the lag in the development of battery technology. Simply put, the technology barely exists. Think of how much smaller, say, a Marantz CD6004 (which has its own dedicated headphone driver circuit) and a few solar-charged deep cycle batteries can get in order to run a full day, using either the transport (spinning a platter HDD in a portable) or the USB Input (SSD or microSD on a portable). It's much easier to miniaturize the Marantz, as the S:Flo basically was; the battery, on the other hand, is another matter altogether. Imagine a player the size of the two iPod Touch back to back, but given the performance parameters, the battery to make it last nearly 24 hours is the size of, at least, the battery in an iPad (or a laptop).
Quote:
5. Maybe some day if it improves in signal strength and more channels use it HD radio (maybe)
Paying for HDRadio service made it prohibitive. "Cable radio" lags behind cable TV and internet audio streaming.
To summarize, to get all that performance out of your player, prepare to split them into several devices. You either have one device that won't fit in your pocket, but even so the battery life won't last too long and it doesn't have an HDD, or get a 160gb iPod Classic and a Fostex HP-P1 and strap them together. No high res though. Or you can get one with WiFi and use a mobile HDD with its own battery, like the Seaggate GoFlex Satellite - I'm saving up for one and battery pack for use with my iPad at home (solves the damn 32gb-no microSD slot problem) and with my Android phone and an energizer battery pack to keep me sane on an intercontinental flight, but of course not around town.
--------------
Quote:
What I don't need but seems to be where everything is going:
1. Video playback
Even serious players have this, sometimes as a plus since they were using a large screen anyway. Or in the case of the S:Flo, it was originally intended to be a video player. Think of it as a flagship universal disc player with all sorts of analog audio outputs from Denon, Pioneer, Sony, Marantz, etc, kicking the heck out of an entry level Sony CDplayer.
Quote:
As per my response on HDRadio above, streaming is more useful for now, unless something drastically changes. As for apps, well if you have internet on the device, why not get apps to conveniently get you software for it, instead of hooking it up to a computer to upgrade the firmware for incremental options? An app developer can sometimes give you the music player with features you're looking for better than the device manufacturer, but then again, it's the case mostly for multi-purpose devices. Thing is, you can just avoid putting Angry Birds on it unlike other people and just have fun getting to download Neutron Media Player, which is basically the /////Alpine PXA-H701 active stereo/HT surround processor in software form.
Quote:
This is one of the areas where it's a lot harder to please people. Put the interface and screen size of a Clip+ in there and there will be people with complaints on the UI even if its lag free - have to sort through menus, etc etc - in a time where a tablet/touch screen format makes it a lot more convenient. Then again, you're right about the cost - just look at the price of a DX100 vs an HM801. But then that just means whichever you're comfortable using you get that one.
Quote:
5. FM/AM (because the sound quality is horrible)
I look at that in a different way - it's an emergency feature. When all hell breaks loose infrastructure goes down, and WiFi etc will need electricity to run routers and modems, while radio can just keep broadcasting while you're out. I've gotten caught in typhoons while I'm out, and instead of straining to hear the news with everyone crammed into a 7-11 or Shell station minimart, I at some point understood why these are there. But yeah, maybe your phone should have it more than your portable player, but if it has all these connectivity options anyway, I'd gladly take this as a bonus.
Quote:
I may have not thought about other features that are useful or not so much but you get the idea. I want a player that does not cause me to pay for things I do not intend to ever use. I want true audio lovers fantasy not what apple has done to their players and that is give it endless over rated functions. Please consider every time you buy a portable player with a big screen it drastically reduces the battery life and increases the cost of the player. Players also got smaller memories but do not get me wrong I understand you can add a card but that usually limits you to like a 32 gig even though the 64 would be preferable to anyone.
If you know of one that fits my criteria and not so esoteric that it increases the expense so drastically that it is out of the range of reasonable price.
Not perfect, but you won't pay for stuff you won't need; you'll just have to buy SD Cards and keep a battery pack in your bag :
QLS QA350.
I wanted one but not really even for portable use, until at some point I'm happy enough with my iPad via USB, especially since the mobile drives with WiFi came up. But I still haven't lost interest in
this. Doesn't run on batteries though, which kinda sucks for my long-term, off the (noisy?) grid, full-size 2ch rig.
