[a1leyez0nm3]

if you want a pcdp mp3 player. you could go Iriver SLIMX $200 or Rio 250. ($150). i have the 250. the memory stick mp3 players are for crazy people.

 

[Magicthyse]

Bet those 280's brings out the hiss on the SP250 perfectly, huh? huh?

 

[chriscu1]

I think the best portable solution these days is 40 GB version of the Nomad Jukebox 3. It will set you back a good $500, but it gives you over 50 full CD's worth of uncompressed music since it can play (and encode) WAV files. It would be exactly the same as listening to the CD the WAV was sourced from. Probably the only knock on it is it's about the size of a portable cd player so you can't put it in your pocket, but if you're just talking just the ability to carry around as much music as possible and get the absolute best sound quality out of it, this is it.

 

[Buddha]

After much research I decided on the Diva mp3 player, and have just won this unit on an ebay auction. For US$84 my unit will come with 64mb onboard and an additional 64mb compact flash card. It will run for 10+ hours on a single AA battery, and also does duty as a voice recorder and universal file transfer device.
It looks like a "cheap transistor radio" (which means its less likely to be stolen) but most importantly, sound and build quality is said to be good.

For those detractors of flash based players consider this ...
these days you are never very far away from a computer with a cdrom drive and usb port. Even if you are travelling overseas you could carry half a dozen mp3 cds which could easily be loaded to your player while checking your email at an internet cafe .... so you can take extra gigabytes of your favourite music with you, and without worry or expense.

 

[lextek]

Today for kicks I loaded a bunch of WAV files on my iPod. Excellent sound. It depends what you want. A CD replacement or a portable library.

 

[fredpb]

I have minidisc units. RIO 300, RIO 500, RIO800, Nomad Jukebox 6gb, Treo 10 mp3 jukebox, MP3/CD, and CD portables.

The best sounding of the bunch in the MP3 hardware class is RIO800. But it is not cheap, and it is very unreliable when it comes to battery charging. You can charge it up overnight, try it the next day, and the battery is dead. You are forced to use their batteries. But it is a nice machine.

Next thing in size and weight is the Treo 10, which you can get at COMPUSA. The original aluminum ones were heavy, but the current plastic ones are very light for what they are. They are cheap. Other brands are massive in size in comparison. I think the Classic brand has a similar one.

The Nomad and Rio Jukeboxes are not small. The PJB100 is nice tough.

You may get sick of the music of a hardware mp3 player. I use mine ONLY for exercise. For everything else, its portable mp3 jukeboxes or minidisc.