I am looking to buy a new portable player so my question is: Which music player sounds the best? Does not matter if they are cd, mp3, md.. or you could just tell me which of those or other types (eg. cd, mp3, md.. ) sounds the best. Thanks!

Creative ones I think. Zen Touch & Zen Micro.

CD has the best quality, but if you encode your Mp3s yourself, you can encode them at CD quality. Minidiscs uses a custom compression format that isn't very good.

For players, I have heard that the iRiver mp3 players have superb sound, but iPods are the most popular. I've also heard great things about the Creative Zen Micro. Do some research by googling them to see which one you would like.

I love my MP3 CD Player, it never skips either, its a Panasonic and has anti-skip on it. Bateery life is good too and I know this isn't as much as a Hard Drive based player but it stores usually 120 mp3's

Creative Zen's. 98dB Signal to Noise ratio. Which makes the sound quailty out of any mp3 player out on the market right now.

oh so the db's tell how good the sound is? the higher the better?

It's a large part of the picture. The higher the sound to noise ratio, the less "impurities" you'll get that are due to the hardware putting out the sound.

Yeahhh in terms of dB, Creative takes the cake... most of their products are at 98dB... iRiver is apparently 80dB, though it sure as hell sounds a lot better than that. And iPod is said to be in the 70s.

you can't go wrong with a creative or an iriver.

i went to the creative webpage and they have like 10 different muvo's!!! I am so confused at which one to get and they dont put how much db for their product. (unless i missed it)

iriver is 90 and ipod is 86 or 89, I believe.

Ah... I must be confusing the numbers... damn. sorry.

The difference in Signal to Noise ratio isn't great enough between any of the MP3 players to make a noticable difference when using cheap headphones.

Buy a pair of Sony MDR-EX71LP for $35 (link) to complement which ever MP3 player you purchase, and you will hear a noticable improvement in audio quality.

If you have the money, get the Shure E2c setup instead for $65 (link)

You can't just use signal to noise ratio measure the sound quality of DAPs. It is a part of it, but there are still many other factors to consider.

Also, you might like the way a player sounds, even though others hate it. From my own experience, Creative (Zen Touch) is the most "fun", the iRiver (H120, H320) is up there, but still lags behind the Creative, while the iPod is just... flat. My advice is, try out different players before you choose one. What sounds good to others might not sound good to you (except the iPod, it sounds worse than my two year old P.O.S. Samsung DAP, so avoid it if audio quality is top priority).

If you encode at 192kbit, it's almost the same as CD quality, and with some players, you have the option to encode to lossless formats as well.

Like digistil mentioned, if you quality is important to you, buy a good earbud/headphone (Sony EX71, Sharp MD33) as well. Stock earbuds sound like crap, no matter if it's used on a Zen or iPod.

IRiver is 90 and the iPod is 89

I read the Creative has reported S to N ratio of 96!

I also read the iRiver H1xx/H3xx (and presumably the new H10) is around 92, followed by the undisclosed figure of the iPod, expected to be in the 80s.

I can notice a difference between the iRiver and iPod, and both of them versus the low-end Aiwa HDD players.

Theres no definate dB ratio for ipod because apple never released it.

I'd also have to agree that quality headphone are a big part of it.

Sony's newest in-ear buds supposedly have very high quality and put out really good bass. Using them with any mp3 player will help.

But yeah, as far as SNR goes, Creative > iRiver > iPod

Which are the new Sonys? They released the successors to the EX-71s yet?

The EX81s are availble in Japan, but their design is... ugh

i am thinking of getting a creative.. just seems like they make sound products so they gotta be good in these stuff right?

Not necessarily. Listen to me, try it before you buy it!!!

Just because a bunch of people on Neowin tells you it sounds good doesn't mean that you'll like the way it sounds.

From what I've seen, most people love the sound quality of Creative's DAPs. Take it for what it's worth.

I have a little different opinion about this topic. I have people ask me all the time about it because they know I love technology. I like having a pda (I have a hp ipaq 1945 with a 1gb sd card) because I can not only hold tons of music, but I also get all the other functionality that comes with having a computer with me all the time. I can carry tons of pictures, even videos with me. So, I know its not what you asked, but I just like it better having a computer with me always to play my mp3's and everything else. What do yall think?

I have a Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 and the sound quality is awsome on it (though it doesnt go too loud, which im sure is not the case with neweer products from creative now) but I havent not yet compared the sound directly between the jukebox and my new iriver... I can easily say though, iriver is a lot louder.

welll creative zen youch is awesome...not bad just the shuffling kinda slow

creative is the way to go dude! and get a pair of headphones. in-ear varities get uncomfortable after sometime, no matter how good or expensive.

Well i can tell you that if your looking for sound quality you should go for a md player. Mini disk are not carying as much song as an ipod but if your not using the compressed version of attrac on your md ( that is if you record in sp mode ) your going to have a sound really close to your original source. There's a reason why it's used by professional. Compresse at your own risk ^_^

Worst thing about MiniDisc is how annoying it is carrying round the MDs/HiMDs.

Its the reason I switched from my Sony NetMD to an iRiver iHP-140. So damn annoying.

With a HDD player you put your music on, and it stays on all the time... it's just more convenient.

That's only true for the more expensive and non-Japanese crop (Ety, Shure etc.). The Japanese canal-phones (Sharp, Sony, Panasonic) are more comfortable than any kind of headphone. You won't notice that they're even in your ear after you've inserted them.

Hey i just got myself an iaudio X5 and even with the stock earphones it sound amazing check it out.

I also have heard iriver have great sound as well

Hope i can help

Players generally don't determine how good the sound will be - it's usually the encoding and the headphones. If you want good sound quality, I suggest getting a player that supports lossless formats or even OGG. Good headphones are a must as well.

you al seem to have overlooked the sony HD3, its cheap as chips now cause they brought out a new one that looks like my arse.

i got mine for £150 in argos, it holds 13,000 songs on 20gb if you use the compressed ATTRAC3 Plus format, which is by no means lossless, but it is damn good.
its about the weight of an ipod mini, smaller than an ipod and its damn nice to use.

it supports WMA, OMG (Attrac), mp3 and WAV.

oh and did i mention it has a 30 hour battery life?

link

Yes the Sony is very nice.
I have the NW-HD1, it is the same as the HD3 minus the MP3 support.
I convert everything to ATRACPlus at 256kbit/s and it sounds great.
The battery life is fantastic.

Source

1. Creative
2. iRiver
3. iAudio
4. iPod