I see more and more threads about DAPs come up.
they usually are about what's a good player to buy with feature x and y.

in the light of this, maybe it would be a good idea to start a new subforum about portable audio players.
it could be divided into flash and hd based players. my idea is that it consist mainly of reviews by people who own different brands/models in order to gather and centralize information in a useful and searchable form.
that is, only if mods and crew find this idea useful and the time is there to implent this. maybe a poll could be done first?

some things that could go into the reviews:
- appearance/build quality.
- features (FM radio, connectors, play modes, gapless playback, etc etc).
- codec support / development.
- battery lifetime.
- user support.
- price (good bang for the buck?).
- ...

I would gladly start with my two flash based players I owned so far to make a start.

cheers,
Digga

any comments on this?

do people find this useful? - mods?

this would be incredible useful for those (such as me) looking for a DAP with good audio quality. the reviews on HA would certainly take things such a quality into account and be much better than looking to some magazine or other review site (cnet :shudder:) for "reviews".

Doesn't the audio harware forum fit this purpose already?

If I look there, I see 2 kind of posts: a) which soundcard? b) which DAP?

I don't immediately see a reason to split further. Perhaps you can crosslink the reviews in the wiki to give a good overview. e.g. make a "reviews" section there or something similar.

hmm, I thought because the DAP topic is one major part of the audio hardware forum it justifies to make it a subforum to make searches more accessible to ppl in search of a new DAP. like pyrosb says.
the way it is now, we have many threads like:
'what should I buy?' maybe with an additional 'I need this and that'
followed by posts mostly like 'I have player x. it's great.'
not very informational IMO. if it fits the purpose of the thread, fair enough. but my idea is to make it a little more accessible and better structured.

but yes, creating a wiki part and maybe make it sticky would be a good idea also which is probably sufficient. I try to mess with the wiki once I have a bit more time and make a start.

Actually, there is also: c) which headphones/speakers, d) alltogether.

But since the headphones can be used in both scenarios (either for DAP or home using), you are right, there is no need of splitting.

Wiki system is much more flexible, I think.

And by the way, I already suggested making a basic FAQ on recommended audio hardware some months ago… Too bad I don't have enough information/experience to do that myself.