Good mp3 player..

[digo]

I want to buy a good mp3 player... i know there is the ipod video\mini\nano but i know there are some more good mp3's that can be better then the ipod.... there is iriver h10, the creative zen touch and the iaudio x5l... what is the best to buy?

[dutchmasterflex]

I just bought a iaudio X5L 20gb... found it for a real good price in the classifieds.. the thing is great, it has so many features that no other player has..

i've been through about 3 ipods already, couple of them have gotten stolen, and my latest one died (4g click wheel.) I bought the X5 because I really did not want to give apple another $300 heheh.. the funny thing is, I took my broken ipod apart the otehr day and put it back together and all of a sudden it works again..

[mindgam3]

I'm not a huge apple mania fanboy but imho the ipod is the best mp3 player out there, except if you wanna go with something like a psp which will cost you less

[mindgam3]

Originally Posted by everso well, sonically speaking....there is NO such thing as a "good" MP3 player. MP3s are a rubbish form of media to begin with......so the main limiting factor in the performance of ANY media player has to do with the fact that: A) they are an MP3 (which can't possibly be good) B) how bad your headphones are. the player doesn't determine much. go buy some proper records, or go buy CDs....that's my advice

Bullshit - if you encode your mp3's at a high enough bit rate, the difference between the mp3 and a CD track is pretty much unrecognisable.... I've tested on various high quality speaker setups and I don't believe for a second that anyone could tell just from listening....

I tried my B&W, Rotel amp/cd player set up and compared it with the cd player and with an ipod connected to the amp in a sound proofed studio and you couldnt tell the difference....

The only way you a difference is going to be told is if you literally spend a couple of thousand on some speakers, a couple of thousand on an amp and a couple of thousand on a cd player but the difference will still be minimal.

Plus, you can't carry all that around with you in your pocket

[Fleischmann]

IMO...if you have the cash then go with iRiver. Whatever you do, don't opt for creative labs hardware, my GF has the MuVo and it's built like shit, it's completely not durable.

[dutchmasterflex]

mp3 players can do what CD players and Phonographs could never do.. hold 500 albums at "cd quality" into a player that fits in your pocket...

if you're not big on recording straight to mp3 via line in, mic or fm radio, go with an ipod.. if you want those features, go with the X5

[AlienDB7]

Originally Posted by everso MP3s are a rubbish form of media to begin with......so the main limiting factor in the performance of ANY media player has to do with the fact that: A) they are an MP3 (which can't possibly be good) B) how bad your headphones are. the player doesn't determine much.

That argument is as rubish as you claim MP3s are.... so "it depends".

MP3s are bad if:
A) You're a dog with good hearing
B) Your headphones are so crappy you can't hear any details to begin with
C) Used a crappy MP3 encoder (e.g. ISO or Xing based)
D) Used a low bitrate

If you use a quality MP3 encoder such as LAME and encode properly without stupid settings such as low 128-160kbps. Starting from 192kbps, the difference becomes hard to tell for most people. I use the extreme preset in LAME and it works very well in almost all cases.

I guess you haven't been using digital formats for long. MP3 has come a long way since the .MODs days when the best consumer soundcard you can get is a 8bit SBPro... Yes, I actually used it to play MP2's when they came out

Although *most* newer MP3 players have decent DACs, some of them don't. I have a Sandisk Sansa E140 (with a pair of Shure E2C) myself, it comes with WOW enabled by default which distorts the music. I disabled it right away but seems like some people actually like it. This again shows how "quality" is subjective and differs from person to person.

Not only that, when you're using a portable player on the road, what you hear is really limited by the level of background noise. Unless you have a pair of studio headphones with good isolation, the background noise will be greater than the artifacts generated during a proper MP3 encoding process. If you can't hear anything from the outside, you're definitely playing your music too loud!

Sorry for the long post ops:

[digo]

well thanks guys i have seen that the iriver h10 6\20 giga and the iaudio x5\l have the best sound quality and battery life.. whats is the better? and another thing i want to know is if those two player are easy to use?.

[digo]

someone?

[5vz-fe]

Try the iRiver, I have one of their flash type MP3 players...and they sounded pretty good. Didn't have any experience with iaudio tho....I hope that helps some what

[dutchmasterflex]

I'm very pleased with my iAudio X5L.. Easy to use, no bullshit software (i.e. itunes and the like) to load music on to the player, just drag and drop.. (for movies you need to convert them before transfering)

Does the iRiver play movies, or record (with line-in, built in mic, or FM radio) in mp3?

[digo]

yes it does.. the difrence between the two is the price , the sounnd quality and the battery time..

[dutchmasterflex]

yeah, one thing i like about the X5L is the battery life.. the latest firmware gives me atleast a solid 30hrs of use.. probably a little more closer to their claimed 35hrs..

you dont need to charge it every day, no real need for a car adapter and works great as a portable hd cause of the extra long battery..

the one thing you might not like about the X5 is the navigation and the way it sorts media or lack there. the X5 doesnt sort it music by ID3 tag (like the ipod), you have to organize it your self when you load the files onto the player.

edit: the H10 doesnt play videos, bottom line, the X5 has the best bang for your buck.

now i will stop trying to sell this damn mp3 player to you

[digo]

thnks dude my choise will be the x5l...

[dutchmasterflex]

hope you like it, how much are you able to find it for?