Portable Player Suggestion (Replacing Archos 504)

[sa_ill]

Hey
I purchased an Archos 504 80GB 3 months back (for an unbelievable price $200). The player is nice, but music management isnt that great. It doesnt list Album Artist wise, and thus I get millions of artists which makes it really irritating to browse.

Plus it big.

Although it supports all formats and has an excellent screen, I still want to go for something more compact and music oriented, since the Archos is more oriented towards watching movies.

I'm willing to spend around $350. Any suggestions? Also, keep in mind that I'll be using Sennheiser CX 95 or Shure SE530 with the player, so there should be a player that can take full advantage of these earphones.

I have my eyes on the Ipod Classic 80GB right now. If the next gen Ipod is coming out soon, I can wait.....since I have my Archos with me. Just tell me what you think is right.

 

[Aevum]

heres the thing, today as large volume storage PMP´s theres several options,

theres the classic, and the zune, which provide the best storage to price ratio, but the jumping trough hoops to load music, poor format support and propietary cabling makes them difficult,

theres the cowon A3, which due to using a Windows CE core and the power hungry TI davinci chipset, good sound quality, amazing format support, but the 13 hours for audio and 5 for video make it a bit less then portable,

the Archos 605 has the same stats for battery, but is somewhat cheaper, has wifi, but archos insists on selling the player in chunks insted of just charging a bit more and have it bring everything straight from factory, but atleast they have the battery dock that gives you a bit more juice and lets you avoid the proprietary cable,

i hate to say it, but the classic is the best storage to price player on the market today, but to get good SQ out of it you might need to pick up an amp and a pocket dock,

 

[sa_ill]

Hmm.....even I was considering the Ipod Classic considering the good battery life and the size.
What about the IPOD 7G......some sites say that they'll come out by September 2008. Is it worth the wait?

 

[sa_ill]

bump

 

[sa_ill]

bump again