Hydrogenaudio Forums > Portable player

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Matyas

Jun 12 2006, 02:25

Hi,

I am getting desperate in my search of a player (on google) which would do the following:

Replaceable flash memory - this should give a big save in investments: if the flash memory becomes little, I would like to be able to keep the player and just add a bigger card. Somehow all the players nowadays are built with fix memory - I know, I know! They want to sell me something even after a year: the same player, just with bigger memory. Damn! The other problem seem to be that even if I find a player supporting SD cards, their support is somehow limited to mostly 1GB. Why? If they are able to read FAT32, why this limitation?
Line-In recording capabilities - I know I will use this "AT LEAST ONCE" (and maybe ONLY once), but regardless, it is still a good feature to have to
Replaygain support - speaks for itself
rather the 'better' sound quality - in case I am in a quiet environment and plug my KOSS headphones, I don't want to hear noise before the music begins...
replaceable standard "AA" or "AAA" batteries - again, if its portable, it should not rely on a bulky external charger

FrontierLabs' Nex 3+ seem to do all these except replaygain and I am not sure about the quality. I own their previous product which is great, but the noise before the music starts in an mp3 is a bit annoying. Apart from that, the desing is just UGLY!!!! Anyway, does anyone have experience with that player? Or could refer me to a different one providing all these?

neomoe

Jun 15 2006, 02:54

QUOTE(Matyas @ Jun 12 2006, 00:25)

Hi,

I am getting desperate in my search of a player (on google) which would do the following:

Replaceable flash memory - this should give a big save in investments: if the flash memory becomes little, I would like to be able to keep the player and just add a bigger card. Somehow all the players nowadays are built with fix memory - I know, I know! They want to sell me something even after a year: the same player, just with bigger memory. Damn! The other problem seem to be that even if I find a player supporting SD cards, their support is somehow limited to mostly 1GB. Why? If they are able to read FAT32, why this limitation?
Line-In recording capabilities - I know I will use this "AT LEAST ONCE" (and maybe ONLY once), but regardless, it is still a good feature to have to
Replaygain support - speaks for itself
rather the 'better' sound quality - in case I am in a quiet environment and plug my KOSS headphones, I don't want to hear noise before the music begins...
replaceable standard "AA" or "AAA" batteries - again, if its portable, it should not rely on a bulky external charger

http://www.sandisk.com/Products/ProductInfo.aspx?ID=1946

http://daniel.haxx.se/rockbox-sandisk-connection.html

jido

Jun 15 2006, 03:41

QUOTE(Matyas @ Jun 12 2006, 00:25)

Hi,

I am getting desperate in my search of a player (on google) which would do the following:

Replaceable flash memory - this should give a big save in investments: if the flash memory becomes little, I would like to be able to keep the player and just add a bigger card. Somehow all the players nowadays are built with fix memory - I know, I know! They want to sell me something even after a year: the same player, just with bigger memory. Damn! The other problem seem to be that even if I find a player supporting SD cards, their support is somehow limited to mostly 1GB. Why? If they are able to read FAT32, why this limitation?

They are able to read FAT16, which does not allow bigger volumes.

QUOTE

Line-In recording capabilities - I know I will use this "AT LEAST ONCE" (and maybe ONLY once), but regardless, it is still a good feature to have to

Right that may be useful. But check the sampling rate and bit depth. Your mobile phone or your digital camera may be able to give better results!

QUOTE

Replaygain support - speaks for itself

You can always apply Replaygain on your computer

QUOTE

rather the 'better' sound quality - in case I am in a quiet environment and plug my KOSS headphones, I don't want to hear noise before the music begins...

I had a Samsung and a iPod, both give good sound. How many ohms are your Koss?

QUOTE

replaceable standard "AA" or "AAA" batteries - again, if its portable, it should not rely on a bulky external charger

That's a good idea

QUOTE

No experience with FrontierLabs.

neomoe

Jun 15 2006, 08:50

you ought to check the links I gave you.

QUOTE

Features

* Sleek, thin design with large 1.8” TFT color screen for easy viewing
* Strong Liquidmetal® back casing provides excellent durability and scratch resistance
* Simple to use, backlit controls for fast device interface navigation
* User replaceable and rechargeable Lithium Ion battery for up to 20 hours of battery life (Battery Life Based on Continuous, Standard Playback, 128 Kb MP3 file)
* Features microSD™ expansion slot for additional memory capacity
* Supports SanDisk TrustedFlash and Gruvi content cards
* Digital FM tuner*, on-the-fly FM recording*, and voice recording
* No FM-tuner (and no FM-recording) is available in Europe
* Supports Subscription Music Stores
* One year warranty

at least two features are there. okay, no AA or AAA batteries, but a replaceable Li-Ion battery. quite a good compromise IMO

from the second link:

QUOTE

On May 26th 2006, a person from SanDisk USA contacted the Rockbox team, asking about our interest to port Rockbox to their Sansa e200 series. (...) Our SanDisk friend put together a package and sent us. Archos Recorder, iriver h140, iAudio X5 and Sansa e200

In spite of UPS doing their best at throwing their lousy service at me, I managed to get the package in my hands.

I received the box with great hopes but with suspicion things won't be as great as we'd like them to be.

At about 10 am on June 14th 2006 I opened the box and it contained:

* one Sansa e250 player (2GB)
* one Sansa e260 player (4GB)
* a printed user's manual (there's only PDF versions provided with the players, on the bundled CD)
* an article from San Jose Mercury News from feb 9 2006 about SanDisk and their sansa players.

Yes, there's a certain lack of... docs or any other developer's material.

if there comes a Rockbox-firmware - replaygain will be in sight!

Matyas

Jun 16 2006, 02:24

Yop, read through the articles. I knew about it, though not knowing about Rockbox, it was not too interesting. Otherwise seemed to be good.
What is striking, however, are the following two lines on the product's website:

QUOTE

Digital FM tuner*, on-the-fly FM recording*, and voice
...
* not available in Europe

Now I wonder... do they want to disable this by software, or have a completely different board for Europe?If Line-In will be unavailable, then this is not going to be interesting at all.

QUOTE(jido @ Jun 15 2006, 10:41)

I had a Samsung and a iPod, both give good sound. How many ohms are your Koss?

Koss Porta Pro 60Ohms. How does this relate to the noise I get? The sound level is "conveniently loud" yet below the player's maximum volume, thus I can enjoy good music even in a noisy environment, and it is OK to have it on 4-6/25 if I am in a quiet environment. But in this case strange noise is clearly audible where the mp3 contains 'null' samples. Actualy, the same was audible also with the bundled headphones - which surprisingly were of an above average quaility. Definitely better than what you get with an iPod. Still I enjoy using my Koss.

Matyas

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