The Xiph wiki has a very large list of hardware players collected throughout the years, but it's a bit of a mess and I have to confess that I don't own any of those players (I have a brandless Chinese/Korean thingy).

I wanted to create a top 5 list of players for Spread Open Media, since it's the site dedicated to the general public, who won't go dive into the gigantic list in the wiki. So, maybe you HA folks can help me out, since I'm sure many of your have more experience with HW players than I do.

What would be your top 5 (or top 3 if it's easier for you) players? Preferably with FLAC support, too.

As far I know and I see in my circle of friends, the only mp3 player that last for many years, that is easy to buy in every shop, that has a great build quality and amazing features is the blamed-loved iPod.
So I'd suggest iPod with Rockbox on it.

Note Rockbox does not run on the iPods currently manufactured by Apple.

Really? I wasn't aware of that.

I'd like to avoid mentioning the iPod anyway because, let's face it, the common git has no idea what firmware is nor how to install a new one.

I'd think that if they know what FLAC is, they'll know about firmware. But it's a cow that rockbox doesn't run on the latest iPods.

One definition of "top" is "bestselling." There are some statistics around somewhere on the net of sales at Amazon, I think. Of the top 5, something like 4 were different models of iPod.

You'd also need to to think about specifications. For instance, for best player with 160Gig drive, I don't think there's a competitor, but it's not the top player for taking to the gym.

Have fun

Michael

From the Xiph wiki list, the top names I see there are: Cowon, Samsung, and Iriver. Include the Ipod and Sandisk if you'll consider rockbox.

Cowon D2. I love it. FLAC.

I found out that iRiver is about to release a 160GB PMP named "iRiver IAMOLED Photo Tank (or P20)". That would be very interesting since iRiver always supports .ogg & flac. I couldn't find any details about the specs of that player but i suppose they will support both formats as they usually do.

This link below shows a picture of it
http://www.engadget.com/tag/p20/

I think is a very cool player

This is unfortunately not true. Earlier iRiver models supported ogg, but not flac (e.g. H120 which I have supports mp3, ogg, wma, wav, so I use it with Rockbox, so now I have also flac and gapless playback.)

Later models e.g. H10 did not support ogg, and there is no iRiver model to support gapless playback.

Another vote for the Cowon D2. I have two and they are sweet. You do have to label your .ogg track numbers as follows for it to do them in the correct order.

01/12 Song1
02/12 Song2
03/12 Song3
etc

You are right imre_herceg

But lets hope their new model will support both

Anything Cowon generally plays a pretty wide swath of formats (excepting Wavpack, sadly). I own an iAudio 7 and it plays Ogg and FLAC wonderfully.

That's true, but you should at least mention Rockbox, as it is the prime example for open source software in regard to portable audio.
Unfortunately, according to this table, Rockbox doesn't work on any DAP that is currently manufactured... But the iRiver H120 is currently being sold again, and that player has the most feature complete port of Rockbox IIRC. It also supports Vorbis with the stock firmware installed.

Also an Apple iPod does not deserve a place on that list. With buying an iPod you are definitely not supporting the free software movement but supporting proprietary formats and software.

If you are looking for a mp3 player with the best build quality for your money, there is anything better than an iPod. You have accessories, you have replacement parts for few bucks (and u can find them everywhere and for every model, also the 2001 ones), u have an enormous userbase of people to ask help to, you have innovation (ex. the ability to do on-the-go playlists directly on the player) and many other things.

But if you want to buy something just because u support free formats, ok, do it, but i don't think it's a smart thing to do. Ok, iRiver and Cowon support free formats, but i doubt they donate money to Xiph devs or something like that, so u actually think to support free audio, but u dont. You are just taking part to a niche of persons and those brands are addressed to that niche. That's all. No philosophy here. Just niche marketing.

If you want to support free audio, open a Paypal account and donate a beer+pizza combo to 1-2 FLAC/Wavpack/Ogg devs. Then choose your mp3 player without the "i wanna support free formats" mind-trick.

IMHO

IMHO I would agree that the IPOD is known for having a good user interface.
The sound quality of the IPOD has been reviewed on multiple sites as being varied at best.
For sound quality, the Cowon and IRiver players receive far better reviews.
A short trip through Google will confirm this for you.

I now realise that iPods are quite irrelevant to this enquiry. What I hadn't properly grasped is that this is a list for a site explicitly dedicated to FOSS, so ability to play FOSS encoded files (in practice, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC) is a primary requirement. Sorry for the red herring.

I still think that anybody who's really into FOSS is not going to be scared of firmware upgrades, and there needs to be a bit more structure in the list than just "top 5": at least, top high-capacity players, and top cheap/gym players.

Best

Michael

I just saw that the Cowon D2 8GB is #7 on the top sellers for MP3 players on Newegg. None of the other top 10 play ogg or FLAC.

Whats the biggest Hard drive in GBs that a Cowon player has?

is it the A3 model with 60 GB drive?

That is easy, Cowon/IAudio has been making the finest portable media players for many years.
Here is the site for Cowon Global
Cowon International

Here is a link to NewEgg that shows their D2s that have different colors, but are functionally the same except some have 4GBs internal flash and some have 8gbs internal flash. In a way the expansion of the capacities on the SDHC cards make make it worth saving some dollars on a 4gb internal flash. Their price today ranges from $152 to 178, varing on the internal Flash storage.
New Egg pricing today on D2s

For years as well, they have supported the superior open sources codecs like Ogg and Flac, not as any type of add -on, but natively.

Check out the watts that it pumps out. I have a IAudio U3, for several years and still sounds great, Now I use their Cowon D2, with 8gbs internal Flash and a SD slot that accepts my SDHC cards. So I keep a 8gb SDHC card in it (a transend 8GB, class 6 SDHC for $33 U.S. at Amazon.).

In the past year I bought and fell in love with my Cowon D2. It blows out at 74 watts. It have exceedingly flexible means of customizing the sound as well. Mine has 8gbs if flash internally and accepts SD and SDHC cards as well. So I have a 8gb class 6 SDHC card inside of it as well. It will work with Linux as well, no need to be forces to use, Uggggh, Windows Media Player or any third party software to manage the files.

I also use it for photos and for audio books.

It has a small touch screen that takes some getting use to. That is what allows it to be so small and to have so many ways to customize the audio. I find a Palm Stylus really works great with the screen, although it comes with a "arrow" looking light plastic pointer that has a little stretch chord that is always on. I can use my fingers as well.

Oh dear, on their site , I see this ridiculous new model that RECORDS in FLAC, Plays back at 1280 x 780 video without transcoding and supports playing of H.264, has a TV tuner, support Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Flac and Flac, AC3, AA3, can output using the "red/greenyellow" of composite. It is called the A3. I am sure that it would be way out of my price range, but in the future, it sounds like I could just walk around with the portable player that has this big screen and connect to flippin anything as well. No need for creating media or addition stand alone multimedia hardware.

With the small but beautiful touch screen it plays video very clearly and for my, it plays the video the I encode in Divx 6.82 (the latest), at 340 x 240 perfectly and clear as a bell.
I also store Divx videos that are at a higher resolution and play them, not on the Cowon D2, but for when I can plug in via the USB input port of my cheapo $59 Philips 5980 stand alone DVD player. It also uplifts to 1080i when it plays, so even the 320 x 240 play well.

I use the recorded a lot as well. It plays FM radio well, that of course is a function of the reception that is in a particular area. It can record and encode FM radio transmission right on the spot. It also inputs some text documents that I might want to read .

Cowon has upgrade some of their line. Besides the quality of the audio being so magnificent, and the 74w, and native support for Ogg and Flac and APE on the way, is that it has the horsepower to plug into other systems and sound great.

I think it plays 41-50 hours audio on a single charge and about 10 hours for video. They have a IAudio 7, that is smaller and will be much more for Audio only. That batters lasts about 60 hours between charges.

My older IAudio U3, last 20 hours and I have never got near that limit. It charges very fast and downloads and uploads very fast.

I just plug it in, then windows (it works with Linus as well), shows two new drives, if I have my SD card in it and just drag and drop my way into folders for my organization.

Since it supports Flash, people some creative users are now sharing some cool little applications, as well as replacement fonts, etc.

They one or two more powerful units as well as less powerful units that play great.

I for one will always stick with Flash only on portable devices, especially when the price of SDHC cards on 8gb , a transend (class 6) is $33 and the 16gb SDHC drives have dropped enormously. So I can exchange them back and force.

I really feel a motorized disk drive as a but tenuous for portability. although that allows for very large storage. I knock around with mine, in my pocket, might leave it in the glove compartment in my card for a while, you know, move it around without a hard drive.

You won't see them in retail stores, maybe in Korea ?? you do, but you can purchase them at competitive prices on their own store - Jet Mall as well as Amazon and Newegg. I have purchased mine at Newegg, simply due to times when the have some great pricing on them. I have purchased accesories at Jetmall.net as well as Amazon.

Personal editorial - I never call any of the portable players MP3 players !! No, they are portable media players. I don't remember when that changed. Probably Apple/Microsoft had something to do with it.

Is that a 74 watt DAP in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

74 milliwatts. Your battery isn't putting out 20 amps. Which means it goes about 3 dB louder then every other DAP.

Thanks for the help, guys. There's some good stuff here to help me out make the list.

Samsung YP-U2
Ogg Vorbis -q0 -10
Vorbis Comments in UTF-8

Any Windows Mobile powered device in the world with Coreplayer (you get video too). That means all phones, pocket pcs, PDAs, CE devices, etc, and there are a heck of a lot of these in any shape and size you could want, and in any price range, with any battery life, found in any tech store, etc.

My brother got his pocket pc new for 100bux a good while back, and my friend has a tiny SmartPhone, and both have never looked back at the world of specialty "audio players" ever again. Nor have I. 'Nuff said.

Meizu M3 and M6. Good sound quality, and plays Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, though I haven't really tested the FLAC. They aren't perfect, but they are slim, sound good, have a long battery life, look sexy, and are not as expensive as iRiver and Cowon. I paid 45 € for my 2 GB M6.