[AlexP]

Heya all!
I was the happy owner of a Sony NW-S706 DAP - great sound quality and battery, and the integrated noise-cancelling feature was very useful, because I mainly listen to music while on trains, buses etc. My only complaint was the hiss - it was pretty audible in silent environments. Anyway, it's gone - the earbud connector broke and I only got audio through one channel unless I kept the connector in place by pushing it (hard). It was still in guaranty, and it couldn't be fixed so I got a refund. So, my question is, should I get a new s706 or some other DAP?
I only care about the SQ (and battery life, to a lesser extent). I don't need radio or a large screen or video playback or huge memory (altho 2+ gb would be nice). I don't have the budget to buy anything better than perhaps some EP-630 canalphones. iriver's clix2 seems impressive, but will the SQ of clix2 + the creative canals be comparable to the s706 noise cancelling package?
Any other player in the same price range to recommend? Cowon's players are quite harder (and more expensive) to get where I live. Not really keen on iPods. Maybe a Samsung player? Ah! Dunno! Help! Thanks!

 

[akasan]

same thing just happened to mines. if you are in the usa check this out: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/...52921665224910
no sonicstage stage (no atrac either, not sure if that's a good thing).

 

[AlexP]

Link just gets me to the SonyStyle USA front page

and nah, I'm from Europe. If I get a Sony player again though, it's gonna be the s706. And yeah, the earbud connector seems to have been defective in many s70x players.

 

[AlexP]

Poke! Noone? ;/
I'm leaning towards the s706 but I do want to hear some other opinions.

 

[AlexP]

Last bump

 

[Dual]

I really like my Meizu M6 or you can wait for the Zen.

http://www.creative.com/products/mp3/zen/

 

[antonyfirst]

The only problem with the Meizu is that it hisses.
Samsung players shouldn't hiss, and sound quality is top notch.

 

[majkel]

Add Teclast T39 AKA VTec Pro V39 to your wishlist. Outstanding SQ, UMS, mp3/wma/ogg/FLAC full range support (excluding wma pro/lossless/speech/DRM), built-in speaker. The bad is it has got just one button and you have to use touch screen all the time.

 

[AlexP]

I don't really care about the screen or video playback enough to wait for the Zen, and I must order the Meizu or Teclast players online, which I don't really want. But even if I got those, the point is - will the SQ of the player + ep-630 headphones be comparable to the sony player plus the noise-cancelling headphones I had?
Thanks for all the replies

 

[Aevum]

theres no way over it, no way around it, i paid big bucks to have a cowon D2, and every time i use it, i fall more in love with my old NW-HD5, i guess sony has something about it that takes you in,

 

[P0iNT]

I'm using shure e4's with the iriver clix2 8gb and it is nothing but great

The player has a 5 band equalizer, SRS and WOW, and presets as well. I haven't heard a hiss and the player drive these in ears fine. You should check it out. My gf will be getting the clix2 with ep-630s it is indeed a good combination.

 

[alitomr]

http://www.amazon.com/Cowon-Portable...8887510&sr=1-1

The cowon d2 has the best USERs ratings of all Flash based players. I havent heard it but the sound must be simply amazing. I read some guy saying they could drive even an HD600 pretty well, and he must be right because i think its headphone out is rated at 37mWx2, which is simply outstanding.

With $50 more you can have a 4GB (sansa or kingston pls, k thx

) and that would be $235 for the best flash based player there is (the one with the highest satisfied customer/not satisfied customer ratio).

I have bought three Zen Vision Ms, and when they were working (the first one actually is still) i just love them. The problem was i was only comparing them to the Ipods, so, IMO, there was no contest. It seems these are offering much more in terms of audio quality, battery life, video quality ,etc.

I think the new Zen doesnt even have a line out. The cocown D2 has one and it's suposed to be really impressive for both audio and video.

I cant wait for my refund (from my last ZVM) so I can get this one. There is also a new 8G B SD card, for $100. That'd be $285 for 12GB. I'd wait for those SD to get cheaper though.

If you loved your sony so much, why are you venturing with another model?

 

[AlexP]

Well, I liked my Sony, but I haven't had the chance to compare it to any good player with some serious headphones. My previous player was a 128 mb MuVo paired with entry-level Sennheiser earbuds... Needless to say, the noise-cancelling in-ear buds that came with the Sony were awesome compared to that. However, I recently heard a Zen-V with the ep-630, and it wasn't half bad! The s706 was better, but it got me wondering.

I suppose some players are better than the sony ones, but my question was really about player + headphone combination, not just the player SQ. Not many people have heard both the sony s70x players and other quality digitals players so they can compare them though, I guess

I thought about getting another player so I can compare the sound myself, but I guess I will get the Sony after all: it recently dropped in value. The 4gb player costs 95€, while for example a 4gb Cowon D2 and Creative EP-630 heaphones cost about 270€. Ouch.

 

[shiezan]

Are there any brick and mortar stores that retail iriver clix's?

It seems like the only place theyre selling at is online stores.

 

[P0iNT]

Clix2's are only being sold online in the US that is what I have heard. In Australia we just got them in stores a few weeks ago due to high demand for the player. Originally we were only going to get the x20