[elitiste]

This is my very first post on Head-fi so please bear with me. I’m looking for a large capacity portable media player with good sound quality to replace or complement my Sony Ericsson Walkman cellphone. My requirements are:
-Large capacity (60GB or larger), potentially can be used as a portable hard drive to backup important files
-Can play lossless music such as those encoded in APE, FLAC and WAV
-Good sound quality, good DAC, potentially can drive a standard 30+ ohm headphone such as the Audio Technica ATH-M50, which got great review from fellow Head-fiers
-Good build quality that would potentially last 3-5 years of use
-A nice to have would be video and photo functionality but it’s not a top priority

My girlfriend uses iPod so I’m familiar with it. I like the large capacity of the iPod Classic (120 GB), its good DAC, sound quality and photo, video functions, but find it lacking in terms of the lossless music format supported. After all, Apple is the top music retailer in the US and it wants you to buy its proprietary music format, IMO. Of course, nothing wrong with a company attempting to win a “format war.” But I personally prefer an open platform standard. If nothing else, it reduces the bargaining power of the vendor.

Microsoft’s Zune appears to be similar in its limited support for open lossless formats. Sandisk’s Sansa Fuze appears to be getting wonderful reviews but its storage capacity is quite small. Nor does it appear to support APE either.

Is there any device that suits my requirement? Or am I just asking for a pie in the sky?

 

[elitiste]

BTW, the sound quality doesn't have to be outstanding because a lot of the listening will be done while on the road or in an airplane cabin. But the ability to drive a decent closed-back headphone is important.

 

[iriverdude]

ipod 5.5, rockboxeded 80GB plus LOD + headphone amp?

 

[REB]

sansa fuze sq is outstanding with flac. It has a micro-sd slot, so you can augment its memory quite a bit. It has 8gb of its own (the largest version) and 16gb micro-sd cards are available, so if you buy two, you can use one (partly) for data storage. Not sure whether 32gb micro sd cards have been released yet.

 

[Rip N' Burn]

The Cowon D2 can play .flac, .ape, and .wav files but it's still limited to 16GB internal memory. It has an SDHC slot and when they finally come out with a 32GB version, get a 32GB SDHC card and you'll meet your storage requirements. It's a great sounding player.

 

[zeroibis]

You can get any player that supports rockbox and use that. Some ipods support it so check there site and find one that fits your needs!

 

[elitiste]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rip N' Burn /img/forum/go_quote.gif The Cowon D2 can play .flac, .ape, and .wav files but it's still limited to 16GB internal memory. It has an SDHC slot and when they finally come out with a 32GB version, get a 32GB SDHC card and you'll meet your storage requirements. It's a great sounding player.

The fact tht it plays .flac and .ape files sounds fantastic!

I would investigate it further amongst the retailers here. Thanks a lot!

By looking ath Cowan's web site, it appears that the D2 only supports a headphone with a maximum impedance of 16 Ohm. I wonder if anybody has used it with a 40 Ohm headphone (sans amp) and can comment on its sound quality. I intend to buy a headphone similar to the ATH-M50 studio monitor. I has 38 Ohms.

Also, it doens't look like the D2 supports Windows Vista. I use XP now so it's not a big problem. But if I update to Vista with my next computer, this might not be a very future proof player.

 

[elitiste]

Thanks for recommending Rockbox. Would look into it as well.

 

[Punnisher]

I would look no further than a 5g ipod. Grab a refurbished 80gb unit from ebay for about 180 shipped and put rockbox on it. You probably won't look back. I have a couple 80gb models myself.

 

[Rip N' Burn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by elitiste /img/forum/go_quote.gif The fact tht it plays .flac and .ape files sounds fantastic! I would investigate it further amongst the retailers here. Thanks a lot! By looking ath Cowan's web site, it appears that the D2 only supports a headphone with a maximum impedance of 16 Ohm. I wonder if anybody has used it with a 40 Ohm headphone (sans amp) and can comment on its sound quality. I intend to buy a headphone similar to the ATH-M50 studio monitor. I has 38 Ohms. Also, it doens't look like the D2 supports Windows Vista. I use XP now so it's not a big problem. But if I update to Vista with my next computer, this might not be a very future proof player.

The D2 is powerful enough for medium-high impedance phones (30-100 Ohm) - quote from headfier dfkt. 37 mW per channel. It opens up as an UMS device. Drag and drop. It should work fine with vista. It also has excellent battery life.

 

[smallcaps]

for 'open format' i would definitely recommend anything that can use rockbox. vast format support, customizable, skinable, plugin ready, open source!

a 5.5gen ipod is a good choice. you can use it as a hard drive for mac and windows if formated on a windows pc, has good SQ from LOD, hard drives and batteries are easy to find on ebay (think you can put in a cf card as a mod too) so you can save it if need be, and finally you can do an imod.

iriver 1hp-hxx series is also a great player once rockbox is installed but are harder to find and is under your required space.

 

[ericj]

The Gigabeat S is the only rockbox target that plays ape encoded at -c4000. Gigabeat F and iRiver h1x0, h3x0, and other coldfire targets play to -c3000. Ipods, iriver H10, and other portalplayer targets only decode ape encoded at -c1000.

 

[robojack]

Another area that the D2 lords over most players in is its monstrous battery life. Playing off of internal memory, the player will easily last 50 hours. Playing off an SDHC card will rob the player of about 5-10 hours, resulting in a still very respectable 40 hours of play (and this is FLACs/ape playback I'm talking about). Two years later, and my D2's battery life is still going strong.

 

[elitiste]

Thank you all for your helpful and kind replies! This forum is really awesome! I especially like the fact that people not only post their opinions, but they also give you their logical reasons to back up their assertions.

Looks like Rockbox is getting a unanimous endorcement!

 

[elitiste]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif The Gigabeat S is the only rockbox target that plays ape encoded at -c4000. Gigabeat F and iRiver h1x0, h3x0, and other coldfire targets play to -c3000. Ipods, iriver H10, and other portalplayer targets only decode ape encoded at -c1000.

Can I trouble you to elaborate a bit more on this? I assume you are referring to the different levels at which an APE file can be encoded. Do they affect the sound quality noticably when played from a portable device?