[MadDog5145]

I would go for the black. My sweat really shows up on my silver slimx and I really hate that.

 

[Lando]

Quote:

Originally posted by swalker Pretty much all the portable players from major Japanese companies have unbelievably long battery life these days - Panasonic, JVC, Aiwa, Sharp, etc. AFAIK, I don't think it's possible for iRiver to match that kind of battery life while retaining the upgradable firmware feature.

I doubt that the upgradeable firmware has much to do with the iRiver's battery life. I think it's probably because iRiver's players push 6mw per channel at 32ohms impedence (and 12mw at 16ohms) while the competition is at 5-6mw for 16ohms. Of course, this doesn't matter as much if you're using an amp, but that optical out does look like it might come in handy....

 

[Kelvie1234]

I think it's 8mw for 32 ohms

 

[eyeless]

Just listened to a bunch of new Sony players and the D-NE1 has a distinct and loud jitter over all the music (if you plug in an amp it will be tragically clear). It also had the lowest out volume of all Sonys I tested -- apart from that, it seemed nice...http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/newre...hreadid=32507# . The DE- j855 was the best on sound quality and volume out level of the ones I listened to and was almost as good as my old Philips player... . Wish there were some good players out there -- lsitened to the iRiver400 and Philips Expanium black (the most expensive of those last years models) -- those two had the best sound of the mp3-players I have listened to with audio CDs, but they werew not obviously better than my old Philips in any way.

Jerry

 

[opresterud]

Quote:

but they werew not obviously better than my old Philips in any way.

Just wondering, which model is your old Philips?

Ola

 

[eyeless]

Cannot read that any longer -- maybe it says something like 400 at the end. It was in the line of the first players from Philips that had official CD-RW support (have a sticker on the player saying CD-RW compatible) -- it was not their most expensive, nor their cheapest -- it has only 15 secs on ESP (anti-shake) but I always turn it off anyway. It's like 3 years old now.

 

[MrYman]

And the iRiver 550 does really cost $150, click here. Looks promising, but I'll rather await for user reviews before buying it

 

[hawkfire]

ON a sidenote,

The Diamond RIO PMP 300 and 300SE was never able to play mp3 VBR files.

IN fact,

It couldn't even play normal bitrate MP3s encoded above 160 and heaven forbid if you used encoding that wasn't fraunhoffer based as the RIO WOULD NOT play these files.

I still have an old BLACK (not transparent teal) PMP 300 SE 64 meg unit that I keep as a souvenir of working with the original design team for this unit.