[MaraUCSD]

Hey guys,

I am thinking about picking up a new portable player. Here is a list of what I want it to do.

- Good SQ through UM1's, unamplified
- Quality line out
- Long battery life
- small enough to fit in my pocket
- reasonably resitant to scratches from being in my pocket
- minimum 2GB of storage
- easy to use with a Mac OSX computer
- color screen, video/pics capability a plus, but by no means necessary (this would probably require more storage for these types of files).
- less than $300

I already own a 4G ipod, but I am looking for an additional player to use in the car, at the gym, etc. I tend to leave my 4G at work since it gets several hours of use a day there, and I hate it when I forget it at home and have to work a whole day without it. Of course, the ipod nano would work, but I am open to other suggestions for what may be a superior player.

Thanks.

 

[akg_man701]

I don't know how small you really want it, but my iriver iHP-140 fulfills all those things (or the 120). I have used it unamped with my UM2s and it sounded great to me. Some people complain about a hissing sound but I didn't notice it when the music was playing, and it doesn't matter to me if there's a little hiss when there's no playback. I believe the battery life is ~16hrs using rockbox. I know it is better than the stock battery life. It is very durable and has all the features you could want except for color screen/video IMO.

 

[MaraUCSD]

What places are still carrying these irivers? Also, other suggestions are good too. As far as size goes, my 4G fits in my pocket just fine, in fact it could probably be a little bigger than a 4G ipod.

 

[YamiTenshi]

You can still get the iriver H320 (which has the color screen) from the iriver america website. It's refurbished and cost $160.

 

[MaraUCSD]

How well do the iriver players work with Macintosh (OSX)? $160 is pretty tempting.

 

[akg_man701]

I got mine for $289 at Mistic Audio. May sound a little steep but it's well worth it. You might be able to find a good deal on eBay. Sorry, don't have OSX.

*EDIT*: The Mistic Audio site says it's "still the best mp3 player money can buy". I think that's a pretty accurate description.

 

[MaraUCSD]

So it appears that the iriver players don't work with a Macintosh. They require WMP 10 or 11, and the latest version available for a Mac is 9.

Any non iriver suggestions?

 

[wanderman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaraUCSD So it appears that the iriver players don't work with a Macintosh. They require WMP 10 or 11, and the latest version available for a Mac is 9. Any non iriver suggestions?

the iriver h100 and h300 series are both ums devices and will work with mac. I think all the iriver players can be converted to ums with exception of the clix and some h10 models.

 

[akg_man701]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaraUCSD So it appears that the iriver players don't work with a Macintosh. They require WMP 10 or 11, and the latest version available for a Mac is 9. Any non iriver suggestions?

I know the H1XX series does not require WMP at all. I don't have any software installed on my pc. I just drag and drop. It's ums, and I wasn't sure but it looks like that applies to mac as well. One of the great features of these players that I love is I don't have to use any crappy proprietary software. I just use it like a portable hard drive and it plays the files wherever I put them. It's so liberating after having an iPod!

 

[MaraUCSD]

I read the manuals for the iclix and one of the other current players and they both required WMP. However, if the H1XX or H3xx are drag and drop they should be good to go. I will check it out.

 

[P0iNT]

I've got a H340 and it will work fine with macs. It is just plug and play so basically you just hook it up and away you go. None of this software crap. If you can get your hands on a h340/20 I would say go for it especially with rockbox, it makes an amazing player.

 

[MaraUCSD]

Just out of curiousity, what makes the iriver players superior to other brands? It seems like this board really likes them.

 

[akg_man701]

I know the H1XX is special specifically because of its features. It has line in, line out, optical in, optical out, tuner, nice lcd remote (that works good for portable amp/dac combinations) and I must say it works great with rockbox. The biggest feature that makes it popular here is the optical out that allows it to be the only portable player that can be hooked up to an external DAC.

I purchased one a couple of weeks ago and I'm astounded. Its build quality is excellent, and even though the screen is not great, the features make up for it and rockbox gives me so much control over them. With rockbox I can play gapless FLAC and use the 5-band extremely adjustable eq (with unlimited presets I believe). I also love the ability to drag and drop my FLAC files into whatever file structure I want (not a feature of rockbox but of the player). It works really well as a hard disk also because you can just drag/drop data files, directories, etc. You don't have to put it in 'disk mode' or ask any proprietary software's permission.

As for the other iriver products, I'm not sure if they are any different from other DAPs. None of the other irivers have the coveted optical out.

 

[MaraUCSD]

Ahhh....optical out is very nice. I was wondering if any players had incorporated that feature. Now it becomes much clearer to me.

 

[wanderman]

The h300 series is almost identical to its prettier older brother the h100 series with the excetion of optical in/out. The analog line out the the h300 is very good though and very clean. Optical kills the battery life though so if you are in situation where you don't have access to a charger regularly you are going to find your player running out of battery very quickly. With the h300 series you gain album art, video(albeit 10fps), picture displays, and usb otg using the host dongle.