[ZackT]

I'm sure a lot of you have checked out "Headroom's" website but I stumbled upon the section "The Mobile Audiophile" today...

http://www.headphone.com/guide/by-ap...le-audiophile/

It's confused me. They go on and on about the use of a portable DVD player as the best option for audiophile sq - and yet I haven't heard anyone around here talking about portable DVD players.

Does anyone have experience using portable DVD players instead of HD based digital players - are they the ultimate option?

Seems a bit overkill to me but I'd be interested in your opinions.

ZT
PS. I've just copied the web address above. Can someone tell me how to create a link as I have no idea hoy you guys do it.

 

[Mr Do]

Portable dvd players have a digital out and can be connected to Headroom's Mico Dac and Micro Amp conmbo. Not many palyers on the market can do this. They aslo play mp3 cd's and dvd's. Some even play dvd-audio discs. If you don't mind carrying several cd's with you than this can be a cheap alternative. I thought about getting one of the highly regarded panasonic models and Micro Dac but found an an Iriver iHp-140 with optical out instead.

Good Luck!
Do!

 

[ZackT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Do Portable dvd players have a digital out and can be connected to Headroom's Mico Dac and Micro Amp conmbo. Not many palyers on the market can do this. They aslo play mp3 cd's and dvd's. Some even play dvd-audio discs. If you don't mind carrying several cd's with you than this can be a cheap alternative. I thought about getting one of the highly regarded panasonic models and Micro Dac but found an an Iriver iHp-140 with optical out instead. Good Luck! Do!

Thanks for the info.

I guess you could record your music onto DVD R blanks giving you 4GB of songs on each disk? This would be enough not to have to worry about carrying many too DVD's around.

Is the sound quality streets ahead of HD based players though? Is optical out is a better solution?

ZT

 

[Mr Do]

That would make sense but most dvd players will not play mp3's on a dvd disc. I think the panasonic models might be able to but I'm not sure. The advantage of a digital out is you can use a better DAC than the one inside the player. The DAC's in dvd's player in most cases are better than Mp3 HD players but can still be upgraded through the digital out. The sky is the limit when it comes to DAC's but only a few are portable. Email headroom and they may be able to recommend a portable dvd player that will play mp3 dvd discs. If your lucky you may find one tha twill play dual sided discs as well. Imageing 8gigs of mp3's per disc.

Do!

 

[brianknewbie]

Portable sources with digital out:
1. iriver ihp-140 (i just managed to pick one of these up new in Taipei last week and immediately thereafter sold my 60gb iPod Photo instead). With Rockbox firmware, this supports FLAC and gapless....also has wired remote control (actually very useful), ability to record via optical (!!) line-in, built-in FM tuner, etc. Also could mod it with extended battery or larger hard drive (60gb for now, 80gb or 100gb int he future?).

then there is the rest -- each of which have compromises:
micro laptop such as Dell X1 -- barely weighs 2 1/2 lbs -- able to store as many lossless sound files as your 40-60 gb hard drive etc supports -- the downside is that they are expensive, fantastic battery life for a laptop (3 hours standard, 8 hours with extended battery) but not sure how this compares to standalone CD/DVD players below, not dedicated music player so there aren't hardware buttons for next, prev etc (would have to use mouse), would want to use something like Transit for to get optical out.

portable CD player or DVD player -- less expensive, but have to fiddle around with CDs, not just having to switch them but also having to lug them around everywhere with you -- also maybe optical out isnt as good as Transit's? I don't know enough about either to be able to compare.

 

[aaroncort]

I can't afford the iriver ihp-140 and also can't seem to find an american distributer for it. Can anybody vouch for the ihp120? Does it record via a line-in though a veriety of compression formats, also with all of the information i've found I can't seem to find one that says if it only has an optical in or is it analogue and optical? Same with the out put is it only optical or is there a normal line out as well? Sorry to thread-jack!

 

[Sparky191]

analog in and out & opitical in and out.

 

[anearfull]

I’m interested in trying out this "portable DVD player/MicroDac" configuration. Looking at the different portable DVD players out there this one seemed to be about right. It’s got the all-important optical out and isn’t much bigger than a regular portable CD player. It’s about $125 online so if it doesn't work out for my purposes, I'm sure my daugher would love to have it for DVD playback in her room after Christmas

.

The Mintek DVD plays back all formats including MP3. Since it can playback DVD media, in theory there’s a whole lot of storage space available on a single disk. Question:do you think it's possible to use my DVD burner to record a huge number of MP3s onto a single DVD disk that could be played back on the Mintek? If so, is there an optimal lossless format that would be compatible?

 

[blessingx]

PDVD players are portable like laptops are portable. Meaning in todays world (with shifting standards towards flash) they're really more transportable. If some of the Creatives DAPs are called a 'brick,' what's a PDVD player? A house? Anyway I think we all agree portability is about compromise, so it's not just about best quality (otherwise we'd be at home where we can control environmental noise, size & battery life isn't an issue, we have access to all our music, etc.).

Plus I've love to see someone use a PDVD while walking to the bus.

 

[lovebell]

have to think about the battery life of these PDPS...

 

[anearfull]

I guess "transportable" is a better term ... it would also apply to many of the classic CD portables.

I'm interested in that combo more for office use. I'm quite happy with my iPod and Xin SuperMini but then again I could always be just a little bit happier

At the price they’re asking for the Mintek, it's hard to go wrong (I’ve ordered one). I'll borrow someone’s DAC to experiment with it a bit and if I like what I hear I'll buy a MicroDac.

 

[bangraman]

Interesting, as I was looking into this a while back. The Panasonic DVD-LS90 to my knowledge allows you to play back MP3's and WMA's on CD *and* DVD. Perhaps Headroom has discovered that the DVD transport is superior to a PCDP transport. Regrettably I don't have any plans to buy one to confirm their occasionally weird recommendations / views. 6 hour battery life and the bulk is a major turn-off.

 

[Oliver :)]

*sigh* ah, tempting. I think one day I will just upgrade my stationary amp & use the present Cosmic the way it was inteded to be used - on the go.

 

[Budley007]

I don't think the IRiver iHP120 or 140 are in production anymore. That being said, they're still available at a reasonable cost. The 1.8" Toshiba hard drive is upgradable with a 60 gig version and soon to be 80 gig version, from what I've read. If you can get an iHP120 for a decent price, it's worth the purchase.

I don't know if you can upgrade the hard drive on the 120. I actually had problems getting the 40gig into the hp120. Apparently, the 2 side panels are just a tad wider on the 140, so I took the 120 guts and used the 140 chassis to support the larger hard drive. the part from each model seem to be interchangeable. The firmware and Rockbox software versions are the same for both models as well. There's also an extended battery upgrade available.

With the optical out driving my HR Microstack, the sound is heavenly.

 

[anearfull]

I’m still wondering about how a portable DVD could fit into this scenario.

A recordable DVD disk can hold about 4.7 Gigs of digital data compared to about 650 Megs on an audio CD. Does that mean I could copy six CDs onto a DVD disk and play them back through the player? If so, that would provide pristine sound and enough music capacity for the kind of “transportable” usage I’m hoping for.

I’m no expert on these format issues … could someone clarify if a DVD player that can play CD-R would be able to play those same audio files recorded onto the higher density media?

EDIT: After a bit of research, I think the answer is "YES"
Here's one appropriate burning application

EDIT 2: Here's another one ...