Hi,

for my wife/gym, maybe also for me, I need to buy a portable player. A small one. My requirements:

Must!:
- Sound quality. I'm willing to buy relatively expensive speakers.
- Nero AAC or Ogg vorbis support.
- Good battery life

May:
- Browsing should be done by filenames/folders
- Simple file transfer, ideally access as a drive under Windows
- Gapless playback (I'm not too optimistic here)

Unimportant:
- Fancy display, Video crap, fm radio

Do you have recommendations? The market is flooded and intransparent.
What do you think about this Sony player?

TIA

I haven't been keeping up with mp3 players lately so I cant personally recommend a player, but i can say that you should ask the people at www.dapreview.net , they keep up with mp3 players and can make some recommendations

Try trekstor. http://www.trekstor.de/en/products/mp3.php. I had some experience with vibez 12 GB (this size has apparently been discontinued, now you can get 8, 16 or 32 GB), and it has much of you want. Sound quality seems to be decent to me, though I have not tried it with more sophisticated equipment. I am almost sure that browsing can be done by folders. File transfer is simple. Gapless playback, Ogg, and FLAC are supported, not sure about AAC. It also has a replaceable battery, which may be useful in the future. Charging is done via USB. I think that the design/appearance of vibez is pretty nice.

The only thing you may like less about vibez is size and battery life - I am not saying either is bad, but it's a HD-based player. They have a big range of Flash-based players as well, though with smaller memory sizes.

There are no HD Vibez available anymore. They promise a flash version of this player soon. See Vibez Forum if you are interested.

I really like the features of my 12GB HD Vibez. The new flash Vibez should have the same features.

Good to know, thanks

I have this exact same player, I bought it at launch last year. Audio quality is great without any EQ although a little bass boost sounds nice, the bundled earphones are really nice (they come with extra rubbers in different sizes), navigation is also great, it has a few different modes (I love the cover art-only browsing mode, you'd like the folder structure mode) and the UI is responsive enough to not be annoying.

What you may not like is that to get the nice browsing features such as cover art and tag info-based browsing, you must load the music files through WMP. If you just drag-n-drop to the music folder on the player via windows explorer, all that's available through the player's UI is folders and filenames. AAC can only be loaded through drag-n-drop so there's no chance of any art or tag data being used by the player.

I have been eyeballing the Cowon iAudio models on Amazon for a couple weeks now. They support flac and ogg along with wma, mp3 and wav. They seem (from what I read in the reviews) to have good battery life. I was focused on the flash based players which I found up to 16gb. Comparable to the new iPod nano in that sense, but $50 cheaper. See here http://www.amazon.com/iAUDIO-I7-16RD-Porta...3720&sr=8-2

Hmm, maybe something like Trekstor iBeat organix 2.0. They even know about the existence of vbr mp3. BTW I wouldn't use mp3 (too artifacts prone on target bitrate of ~150kbps), my favorite codec is Vorbis here. Good at quality, lightning speed encoding possible via Lancer.

OMG, I read reviews. Often, they are not helpful. "Not enough bass. May be because I used mp3 192 - you have more bass at 320 kbps"

Trekstor iBeat Organix: Hardly available?

I recommend u rockbox based player. It has all you want and much more. But you would have to install additional firmware, simply process though.

So simply looking at buyers guide, you can choose best available option.

If you're willing to give on some of your "may" criteria, one low-cost option is the Sansa Clip. It's simple, relatively cheap (currently around $60 for 4gb model), and is reputed to have very solid sound quality. It plays Ogg vorbis but not AAC. Battery life is pretty good. It also has simple file transfer as either MTP or mass-storate device - you can sync using an audio player as well, but I just drag-and-drop.
Browsing is only by tags though, and it doesn't have gapless. People clamor for both, and there is a fairly active forum discussion board, and Sansa has added features through flash updates.

The Clip is intended as a competitor to the Ipod Shuffle but has a small screen and is easy to navigate and is reputed to have much better sound quality. It's ideal for gym use with a built-in clip.

edit: reputed to have good sound quality

You have anything to back that claim up?

It's the general consensus of many reviews. Past Sansa players (e.g., e200 series) had okay sound quality but nothing impressive, which is apparently what people were expecting would be the case with the Clip. However, lots of reviews expressed surprise and raved about the Clip's sound quality. Not elite but very good, especially for its class and price.

It is also the general consensus of many reviews that $1000 power cables sound better than $1 power cables.
I did not think this was the kind of place where we humored that kind of talk.

While you're free to go ABX-nazi on me, I understand the need to weed out unfounded and BS claims. But a few points here:
1. I should have said "is reputed to have good sound quality" instead of "has good sound quality"
2. any equivalent to ABX testing of mp3 players is much more difficult, on a practical level, than with audio files and formats
3. I don't have the best ears to be confident in my own judgment here
4. the OP was looking for practical help in choosing an mp3 player based on a variety of criteria, and my main claim is not about the Sansa Clip's sound quality
5. with high-end speaker cables and other types of equipment, audiophiles have incentive to make a big deal about "I bought this cool super-expensive stuff and it sounds better" - that is, major expectation-bias effect on perception. with the Sansa player, it's a cheap player and any expectation bias would have been in the other direction because previous Sansa players were not reputed to have impressive sound quality

Another point in favor of the Sony player: excellent build quality. Mine has been in constant use for a little more than a year and it still looks new, the screen is very scratch-resistant and buttons are solid. The only part that feels flimsy is the data/charging connector which is a proprietary Sony design. It could easily survive a few drops from pocket height.

EDIT: Looks like this thread is headed in another direction. I believe most regular users/readers of this forum know how to interpret subjective views, opinions and reviews coming from outside sources (like these mp3 player reviews). I personally was able to grasp timcupery's idea from his first post in this thread, and I think others did too, there was no need to clarify and go off topic.

AAC/Vorbis is meant as either/or.
Sound quality is a big word. I want best available quality at prices <80 EUR. Stop your ABX debate It's just a player used in a gym with some amount of background noise. I have honestly no idea if todays "walkmans" sound pretty similar (lets say they play lossless) if I'd e.g. replace a CD player at my home stereo by them. Or if there's really crap around.
Your subjective opinions are an indicator. Hey, I'm asking at HA, not at smileydingdongIpodKiddieforum.org.
Currently I have Trekstor or the mentioned Sansa on my target list. Not sony, the screen offers Album Art which I will not maintain.
In a shop I've seen pretty stylish Philips players. Looked like a silver ball. Is Philips worth a mention?
Hmm. Sandisks current models are not rockboxable? c/e200 are older models I guess?

There is difference though. Those you can ABX. We have seen countless test's performed.



I made the same claim about Foobar2000 being based on high-quality playback and I got yelled at (They claim there is no "difference" in the output quality of most players, but I beg to differ I have yet to see any test's that have been performed (from what I understand there are only a few that were done with MAD decoding that was about it). There are exceptions though to making unsubstaintied claims if there is no way to measure the output. I understand where you are coming from. It's very difficult to measure the output quality of DAP's. I saw somebody attempt to do it once on this forum, but it's a complicated process so I will take your word for it. This person btw was attempting to measure the output quality of the IPod, which they came to a technical conclusion was very good



I am going to second you looking to the Cowon models. They have support for both of those codecs out of the box and support a lot of other features if you aren't into Rockboxing your player.

Edit: HA web server got real sluggish and slow for some reason and double posted my comments.

There are loaded RMAA tests for many popular players out there, and the testing procedure is not hard.

Call me "nazi" all you want ,but since there is an easy objective test of player sound reproduction quality, second hand anecdotal sighted reports of "sound quality" really seems more like the realm of another website, not HA.

As for the Cowon iAudio 7: They look very interesting. I'll have to buy a power supply separately? What are the specs?
EDIT: OK, I found I could load it via USB.

Running RMAA tests is anything but simple! It's certainly not as easy performing ABX tests. You sometimes get different results if you perform different tests to which is consistent with RMAA tests. Yes, but did they show a subpar performance on any of the players that Tim mentioned above?. If the answer "yes" then maybe his claims were a bit bold. If we use the same logical then I can come to the conclusion that the IPod has high quality playback. Afer all if has been proven by this test if you follow the RMAA.

http://www.bsstudios.com/downloads/iPod_via_FF400_t2.htm

In order to have album art without installing WMP 11 you have to embed all the album art inside the ID3Tag.

And be careful, if you install WMP10 ( I don't know if the same happens with WMP 11), you cannot drag and drop aac files.

Cool, I usually don't embed cover images so I didn't know this. I have WMP 11 and I can drag-n-drop AAC files to the player via windows explorer, not WMP.

EDIT: I don't have any DirectShow filters installed, maybe that's why WMP won't read AAC files.

Note my use of the word "loaded"

I do NOT want to start an ABX debate.

BUT: when people talk about Sound Quality in DAPs, are they mostly talking about SQ with manufacturer-supplied 'phones, or with their own known-good/optimal/standard 'phones?

This actually matters to OP, since an otherwise excellent player that comes with crappy 'phones would be easy to fix, and for gym use 'phones are a consumable, anyway.

FWIW, my very undisciplined personal impression is that iPhone earbuds are not the best I own, but with, e.g., Sennheiser PX100s I can't hear any difference between an iPod and my iRiver H120. But that is very impressionistic, and I have tin ears.

Is it possible for the mods to split off the discussion of ABX equivalents in the DAP world, into a separate thread? I should have said "is reputed to have better sound quality" in my original statement about the Sansa Clip, it wasn't my main point and I wasn't trying to divert the thread into yet another you're-just-a-pseudo-scientist discussion. I believe that those discussions have their place and relevance, but it's a fairly different question from helping the OP find a DAP which fits his criteria.

In most of these "RMAA" tests that have been run the tester is usally using their own optimal standard headphones. It would be wise to get portable hi-end headphones with any audio player you are looking to get anyway (this is of course if it's within your budget)



In the same way as a lawyer interprets the constitutional law of the United States based on a given word or phrase the same can be said about "quality" on the HA forums.

I am not sure you understand what, exactly, an RMAA test does.
You use headphones only as a load on the amplifier circuit.. The sound reproduction characteristics of said phones do not matter (outside their impedance), as it is not the phones being tested, but rather the ability of the DAP itself to accurately reproduce an analogue signal.

I am not an engineer I have no idea what the heck the "impedance" on a circuit is. I take you are referring to resistance? My understanding of DSP or any other Electrical Engineer concepts is minimal if at best. I still am convinced that RMAA tests are little bit too complicated for the average user (that's just my opinion). I have no idea what a "ground loop" is either. The only thing I understand about RMAA tests is they calculate all of the characteristics of an audio signal. The problem is that the results are always inconsistent depending upon how you perform the test (you would probably have to have multiple testers). Unlike ABX tests I don't really see how the intermodulation distortion of a signal effects the audio quality. The same could be said about the total harmonic distortion. Yeah I mean they look nice on paper, but let's not kid ourselves. Let's not go off topic, but take the Transporter for example. How many people are actually sensitive to clock noise or jitter that they need to spend an extra $2000 dollars on the player when they could have just easily bought a Squeezebox.

Full stop then.
Please stop making claims against the validity of a test you admit to not understanding.

Do people read more into the results than they should sometimes? Sure - that's the person's failing, not the test's.
The tests are not "always inconsistent", and stop straw manning.

I understand the basic premise of the test I just don't see how the results are meaningful. Excuse me and everyone else not being an "Engineer". I am sorry if the 10% of engineers out there are not satisfied that nobody cares about there objective tests and that nobody can use the word "quality" around here anymore without getting slapped in the face. The bottom line is that the average user is not going to go out and perform an RMAA test on every claim they make about the sound quality of particular DAP.



If you are such a stickler for RMAA tests why don't you go to the great lengths of showing us how well they work then ;-D. Let's make this argument relavent to the original poster. What don't you show us some RMAA tests that were performed on the Cowon A2 he was thinking about buying! It seems to me that you have got into arguments with people on other forums over this before.

::

Reviews here:

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/
(though I think you know the site)

Forum:
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/

::

Do you not see the fallacy in asking the one who asked for proof to produce said proof?
Normally it is the one who claims audible difference who is expected to demonstrate evidence.

Well I can't speak for him myself, but I don't think he know's how to perform an RMAA test and I don't think he cares very much! (I am guessing he probably not an engineer) . Honestly if I had Sansa Fuze I would go to great lengths to perform an RMAA test or at least show somebody else how to perform the test just to post the results here. The problem is I don't have a Sansa Fuze and quite frankly the RMAA tests don't say very much to me about the output quality of the player! (I approach this from a skeptical point of view). If it was an ABX test I would say to that person you need to produce some proof evidence for yourself (due to the subjective nature), but it is not. It was suggested by somebody over at anythingbutipod.com that people that are more objectivists or sticklers for RMAA test's perform some tests and post the results of a comparison of the output quality between various DAP's for people who don't have the time or hardware to perform these kinds of test. If the results aren't "inconsistent" as you claim they are then there is no reason why this should be a problem. That is one solution to this argument.



What model were you considering buying? Cowon is definitely a good choice.

Yes, I've seen the website, it's helpful. I don't want to make the decision too complicated ... I think I'll go for the Cowon. The next questions will be: which headphones - is the difference between 50- and 200 EUR headphones significant?

People seem to like those sony headphones.

@Soap: Squeller has asked for recommendations. There was no stipulation that scientific papers were needed to back up the recommendation.

::

I don't think so. Have a look here:
http://www.headphone.com/guide/by-applicat...est-headphones/

The PX 100 is great (and not even expensive).

::

My postings from yesterday did not appear: I ordered a Cowon iAudio 7 yesterday from Amazon. Good for my wife, she'll listen to audiobooks also, this one can bookmark and start playback from where it ended afair...
Additional ECHs maybe in one or two weeks