Post your portable player journey!

[Xan7hos]

90s: crap ass Rio PCDP/MP3 player
2005-2006: iPod Color Silver 4GB
2006-2007: iPod 1G Nano 4GB
2008-2009: Sansa Clip 4GB
2009-2010: HiSound Audio AMP3 Pro2
2010-current posting: Sony NW-HD5

 

[stevenswall]

RCA Lyra RD2780 - Portable DVR 20GB capacity
Mp4 Watch - Very small, bought out of interest, shuffle size with a screen!
JXD951 - 4" of screen real estate LTPS LCD
Gp2x F200 - Open source portable game emulation and multi-media playback.
Ipod Video 5.5g - My first experience with Rockbox... and how bad Apple really is.
COWON S9 - Finest sounding portable DAP, Ethereal EQ
 
Future: Sony X - Only if it sounds better than my S9  

, otherwise, it'll be a J3 for me!

 

[Young Spade]

Quote:

RCA Lyra RD2780 - Portable DVR 20GB capacity
Mp4 Watch - Very small, bought out of interest, shuffle size with a screen!
JXD951 - 4" of screen real estate LTPS LCD
Gp2x F200 - Open source portable game emulation and multi-media playback.
Ipod Video 5.5g - My first experience with Rockbox... and how bad Apple really is.
COWON S9 - Finest sounding portable DAP, Ethereal EQ
 
Future: Sony X - Only if it sounds better than my S9  

, otherwise, it'll be a J3 for me!

 
Haha You should read up on it and see if it is. I've been thinking about a S9/J3 for a while now; the T51 for home use and the portable with IEMs when I'm out and about at the uni.
 

 

[-Morris-]

2001: Some generic discman
2002: Sony Walkman tape player
2004: 15gb I pod 3rd gen
2006: Sony Ericsson W850i walkman phone
2008: Iriver E100 8gb
2009: Sansa E260 4gb, then a Sansa Fuze 4gb

 

[stevenswall]

From reading it sounds like the Cowon EQ has the Sony X and its EQ beat... I believe people think it sounds better because it costs 2x as much... and even then they say it only sounds better when the X and S9 are compared with no EQ, because if they did use the EQ, there would be some serious mopping up to do of the Xs broken superiority complex.
 
Quote:

 
Haha You should read up on it and see if it is. I've been thinking about a S9/J3 for a while now; the T51 for home use and the portable with IEMs when I'm out and about at the uni.
 

The X7 by Cowon should be out withing a several months... and maybe replace the S9/J3 as number one!

 

[Somnambulist]

Mid-Late 90's = Sony Walkman (cassette)
Late 90's Early 00's = Sony Discman
2003-2005 = Rio Karma (stolen 

)
2005-2009 = Sony NW-HD5
2010-Present = Nationite S:Flo2
 
Used my iPhone 3GS a little too, in between getting the T51/S:Flo2 and selling the NW-HD5.

 

[ChrisPDX]

Sony D-844K Car Diskman portable CD player.

How have you liked the performance and build quality of the D-844K ?

 

[originalsnuffy]

Fun thread. Brings back many memories.

Started off with portable cassette machines of course. I liked to run with music, and for the most part cassettes were bad for this. Sony had a sports series and outback series, and some were better. My best unit was a direct drive digital unit from Sony.

Briefly tried DAT for running. Sony had some portables and ultra portables. They actually worked in terms of not skipping, but rather finicky and fragile.

Then on to minidisc. First units still skipped. Later they fixed that but right then MP3 players arrived.

I had an Archos, a Rio PMP, a Nike RIO unit. They mostly sounded dry and awful. The PMP needed a parallel interface if I recall; yuk.

Moved to the Sansa. Not a bad sound really.

Then on to Apple devices. Had many over the years; Nanos, sticks, ipods of various flavors. My favorite unit was a 30gb hard drive unit that was upgraded with the Tarkan adapter. Not a bad sound but you needed third party operating systems to really get the benefit of the unit.

Then (and this is the best part). hi res came into my world. The first unit which I had was a FIIO X3. Boy this sounded pretty darned good when you get right down to it.
Over time there was an X3 II, then on to Shanling M2, M2S, M0, M1, probably others. From there to Cayin N5II (great sound once I got over that promised features never came about and the USB system was somewhat broken). Actually still have and still love the machine.

From there; HiBy R3, R5 (first gen), R5 Gen II.

Full circle, I really liked the idea of running Android and the app ecosystem (Tidal, Amazon Music HD, etc.). But there was always a hardware lag and often micro glitches in the audio. Never had those glitches with my iphone. Now the iphone used to be annoying for getting music out of. I became aware of the idiosyncracies of CCK (camera connecting kits, both generations). Used my DAP units as oversized DAC dongles.

Bleh.

Then dongles became Apple lightning capable (at least some are). Started with Zorloo Ztella. I don't love the ESS sound on that unit, but not bad and really small. Of course I have a few Apple lightning adaptors lying around, and they are okay. Also have a Shanling UA unit (can't remember the number exactly). Its okay but also has that dry ESS sound. Finally, picked up a FIIO unit for $150 that has 2.5, 3.5, and 4.4 plus AKM chips. At first it was glitchy but it all settled down and I really like the unit a lot. No one here talks about it for some reason; probably because FIIO hid the thread for the unit in their forum section.


In the future I would want a DAC with Android 11 (for the Android Auto feature), a fast processing chip (snapdragon?), a great DAC (R2R or AKM), super amplification (class A or something good along those lines), and can also work as a dongle with native IOS compatibility. Don't think such a thing exists yet though some units have some of this. If I had any new DACs at all. By the way, all my units in the future will have volume wheels. So much more convenient than buttons for volume.

 

[e-dub]

90s: PLENTY of tape players, my favorites were Aiwa ones. Their bass boost always did for me compared to Mega Bass. I had lots of Sony Walkmans, too, of course.
Mid and late 90s: plenty of cheap Discmans.
...
2014: picked up a Fiio X5mk2 out of nowhere and loved it. Held on to it for while until...
2022: Fiio M17, lol.

 

[jmwant]

My first portable Player was a Panasonic cd player. Then an ipod nano, followed by an ipod touch. As my collection got bigger, I shifted to ipod classic. Then came the era of using sony Ericsson walkman phones. Those were pretty cool. I briefly used the FiiO X2 before getting the Pioneer xdp-30r. To this day, this was the most I enjoyed using. After that I got Hiby R2 followed by Shanling Q1.

 

[Double C]

How have you liked the performance and build quality of the D-844K ?

Broski, you just bumped a 10 year old Thread!