[Dlognar]

Hello, all.

I've been lurking around here for a good while, off and on... I've come here when I was looking for headphone suggestions, and I must have read hundreds of pages of posts before purchasing my Alessandro MS-1s. I've been a believer ever since. I've suggested friends to come here to look at all the insight, and I guess this is the first time I've come here that I couldn't find someone looking for what I was looking for. So... This is my first post.

I'm looking for a portable music player, and am not a big stickler for much of the other details. I'm looking for sound quality, #1, and here's a small description of what I think might help the suggestions the most: I would like to run un-amped through my Alessandro MS-1's. (I cannot stand anything in my ears, so this is what I plan on using.) I'm also not planning on spending as much on it as the MediaKeg would cost me. No REAL price-range limit, but if there's any chance of it costing less than $300, then I'd be happy. It's pretty much going to be used in an office environment, so no need to worry about small or durable or any other such thing. I listen to a rather varied amount of music, from classical to death metal, but the vast majority of my listening is going to be prog-rock/metal sorts of music, with a good amount of Pink Floyd, Evergrey, Devil Doll (Yugoslavia), with some heavier stuff like Arch Enemy, Carcass, Down, and then some bands like Opeth to sit in the middle.

I, as a general rule, like things to sound more flat. It's the reason I bought the Alessandros over the Grados. So if any of the DAPs help that any, that'd be my cup of tea.

I also have no desire to utilize, nor would I expect to enjoy, any sort of EQ adjustments or any other sorts of sound-modification. I desire to hear the albums mixed how the engineers mixed them. So any players that might meet my requirements but ONLY through EQ adjustments would cause me to shy away.

Here's also a quick break-down of my desires:

Linux-compatibility - This would include everything that is drag-and-drop to players that will sync with Amarok or Banshee. So iPods and Creative gear seem to be excluded. (Unless of course Rockboxed iMod 5.5's are just the best thing for me)
OGG and/or FLAC support - My entire digital music library was recently lost, so I need to re-rip all of it. I'd like to get away from MP3s. If there's something that would be PERFECT and doesn't support OGG or FLAC, I'll consider, but again, the preference would be to get away.
Alessandro MS-1 - I'd like to make sure that the DAP can drive my headphones adequately. They're only 32ohms, but I know that the majority of players are optimized for 16ohms.
Gapless Playback - This is a small want. I listen to a few albums that have very long songs that are separated into various movements, like a lot of classical. Gapless would be nice. I can live without it, but of course, it would be preferred.

Other than those bits, I don't have much preference. I don't care if it's HDD or flash memory. I don't care if it's the size of the original Walkman or if it'll fit around my pinky finger.

I would prefer something larger to smaller, but if it's 4GB with SD or SDHC support, then that's acceptable as well.

I know this is long, but I was hoping to be as informative as possible. Please let me know if any other information would be useful.

Thanks everyone, in advance, for all the help.

You've all already provided me with some happiness with my headphones, and I fully expect to be blown away in the future.

Thanks!
-Troy

 

[LingLing1337]

Archos 5