What would be the best portable player out there from a audophile point of view? I'm talking something that would justify my recent ER-4P buy. I see that a lot of portable players support wav formats now (I think iRiver will support flac format soon) so, with lossy crap out of the way, the only issue would be DACs I guess?

Meaning?? Lossy crap such as..??

I apologize for using that word, my intentions are not to start another lossy vs. lossless debate. Just some opinions on quality portable players.
TIA

hi - i am a new member and i bought the iriver 40 gb and it sounds terrific - i got it on ebay for $350 (new) and i bought the sennheiser px 100 headphones which fold up and they work well - i use the lame encoder to create mp3's at 256 and they really sound great (i have experimented with loading wav files onto the iriver which works fine and they are not noticeably better than the 256 mp3 - of course my whole collection of jazz music masterpieces (1950-1965) is only about 500 in number and 40 gb is plenty of room - enjoy your life's soundtrack (take the time to make it a killer soundtrack) bill

From most audiophiles' points of views, no portable is truely 'audiophile' worthy. However, their assumptiong/judgements are often not based in reality. In reality, just find the player that has the features you want. Just about anything should be able to drive the ER-4P as far as suitable amplitude, distortion, signal:noise and frequency response is concerned. WOrry about the features, not what some group of people think about the product you purchase.

-Chris

Hello,

From what I've read, you may want to look into the rio karma. It has flac support, and does gapless playback. It's also supposed to sound better than any of the other portable HD based players. However, I've got an ipod and love it - don't have any problems with the sound quality...


-rex

I have Ety's 4p/s. I use it with a Nomad zen nx. Personnaly, i prefer to use it wit the adpater for the ety 4s. The nomad is sufficient to drive them.
I have compare the nomad with a professionnal headphone DAC/amplifier (grace design 901) and the ety's. the difference is very subtle.
Now, if you hear it on a big speaker system, you can clearly hear the difference.
Talking about compression, I think that pretend to hear the difference here on ha is dangerous.

Just because a portable supports WAV doesn't mean anybody should actually listen to these massive files on a portable. The support is there because it is simple to implement and the manufacturer's marketing material can list another supported format. Kinda like daytime running lamps. It's called a "safety feature" and car makers like them because they don't add to the cost of the vehicle (since headlamps are standard).

I wouldn't worry about lossy compression. I don't think the DACs on any portable will allow you to tell the difference between lossy at good rates and the original - although I haven't tried (so what I've said is illegal on this forum). NJB3s are good (I have one); the Karma and ipod are also said to be pretty good.

Thanks for all responses,
I think I'm leaning towards Rio Karma right now, but I'll have to audition one of those first since I haven't been able to find any tech specs on the sound quality of this player.

It also depends a bit on how portable you need it to be. Even a standard Ipod is a bit bulky for running,skiing etc IMO.

But for the really tiny stuff you have to sacrifice memory still.

As for sound quality, a poor DAC will affect quality but so will the amp chip used as well. There are still alot of underpowered devices out there. Its not even a matter of blasting the volume as much as just following and using the dynamics offered by digital formats.

Some days ago I got a Rio Karma. It is a really nice player with an easy menu navigation and easy to use software. The gapless playback feature was the killer argument to buy one and it works great.
Some additional impressive features are:
- FLAC playback
- LAN connection for use with non-windows systems (the Karma offers a http server that lets you download a java client to interact with the player)
- up to 15 hours of playback (fewer with vorbis @ high bitrate of course )
- Organization based on tags, not on file name/folder structure
- You can flip the display and some buttons if you're left-handed

Should you want to purchase one, also get a case... the pouch that comes with it is ridiculous...

http://www.audiosense.org/forum/showthread.php?t=52

Again, thanx for all the feedback.
ChangFest, that link is gold...I guess then Rio it is

I just got a Creative Zen Xtra 60Gb. All my MP3s are LAME with -V 2 settings and the sound is great, obviously it's still compressed but I can't knock it for the ability to carry around my entire music collection

Will also be used in the car once I get the car kit.

The iPod has quite a good output. But (IMHO) no portable will ever deliver audiophile sound without a headphone amplifier.

Sicter, please use caution with these measurements. No load impedance is specified for the measurements. THe behaviour may vary into actual driven loads by a significant margin. I also warn against the usefulness of a single frequency/point THD analysis. Several frequencies from 20-20 should have been alysed, and at varying loads and amplitudes, to get a good picture of the behavior. However, it should not be a problem for any of the modern devices to remain linear wihtin human audibility thresholds, assuming competant engineering/circuit design. But these measurements are not useful for an accurate frame of reference to correlate with perceptual research.

-Chris

What is 'audiophile' sound? Please clarify, providing the specific parameters that qualify something as such.

-Chris

Well, "audiophile" was used in the initial thread (I'd like to know what he meant ...). AFAIK audiophile sound is by definition something that sounds like a live performance rather than a recording. For headphones to sound like that, they need an amplifier that improves the sound in the following areas and further:

- headphone listening experience is made more equivalent to normal speaker listening
- added presence and brilliance, greater spatial definition
-> being able to listen "into the recording"
- overall sound improvement

Without a decent amplifier, no headphone, even with high-end source, sounds like a live performance. But this is very much my opinion and experience.

I'm sorry for grammatical/spelling mistakes, English is not my native tongue, and that stuff is not easy to explain

PLease, specify the relevant parameters(mesurable parameters) and reference me to the correlating perceptual papers that demonstrate these quantifiably.

The only particular confirmable feature that I am aware that some headphone amps offer that portables may not, is a proper crossfeed circuit which cross mixes L, R channels with a low pass filter and delay approximating an average human head in order to more closely represent a stereo loudspeaker situation effect. But not all people may prefer a crossfeed filter, as they do not achieve the exact intended effect. A more complex DSP spatializer, accouting for individual HRTF of the user is required to do this accurately.

Thanks.

-Chris

As I said, it is very much my opinion. I don't think that there are measurable parameters and I cant provide the proof you may want. Also, as you said, it depends on the individuum. I lately had the chance to listen with ad quite decent headphone amp. I found the sound to be much more "realistic".

I am a bit driven into a corner now, which maybe serves me right for I can't provide proof for what I claimed.

I'd really like to hear other peoples opinions about that.

Well when comparing similar measurements to other DAPs all taken at the same time would allow for assumption of quality differences between the units.

This forum requires scientific proof of audible differences. Any subjective audio claim will not be taken seriously. Read TOS #8.