Which porable player plays the most codecs?

[notuptome2004]

  Smigit said:

even without PS2 or Xbox you would have a far greater number of games playable over a PC as you still have PS1, Nintendo systems, Gameboy, atari, arcade and sega among others plus PC itself.

And yes, an Ipod can hold 1500 songs but you do realise they have players with capacity up to 60gb? Even if he only chose a micro drive of say 5 gigs, 1500/5 = 300songs per a gig so by your math thats all he could hold on a PSP memory stick.

Cost wise the PSP is far more expensive too as a dap. Not only does the PSP itself cost more than most 20Gb media players, you then have to buy a memory stick to be able to carry your audio on it. Sony memory sticks are extremly expensive and this furthermore jacks the price up. MP3 players at least you can use out of the box. (I wont consider headphones since you would need to buy new ones with a psp also if you are into higher quality phones than those supplied).

And yes, I realise it wont skip but you can get flash based Mp3 players that are ALOT cheaper than a PSP and probably sound better. Infact, although it is exy there is a 2GB Cowan available NOW so your still getting more capacity per a dollar compared to a PSP. Overall the PSP may be better value than this player, but not if you dont want to be gaming.

Again I repeat, the PSP is bulky for a audio player alone and while 300 songs on a stick may be ample for you, theres alot of people (like myself and alot of people looking for a dap) that would rather have their full collection with them at all times incase they get the itch to play something.

back to my pc game arguement which you rebutted it doesnt play every game, well likewise when you say "geta PSP it will support everything and what it wont support it will later on with all them Hacks comming out" I can reply that it doesnt support every format at all, probably wont even with hacks and if you are relying on hacks then why not hack your dap's firmware???

I'm not trying to diss the psp at all, I would love one myself but recomending it as a dap isn't necessarily the best idea as it isn't designed for that (its gaming 1st and foremost) and the original poster clearly stated he didn't want a gaming device but a dedicated dap.

Also I have 1330 songs on my comp, but that takes up 10.95 gigs with my compreesion. If I was to put these on a DAP I MAY consider reencoding them to say 190kb/s, but if battery permitted then I may not even bother (I'll see what I do when /If I get an X5L)

586160511[/snapback]

the PSP is $250 a 20gig player most are more like 3 to $350 and if he is lucky he could prolly geta deal on 1gig to 2gig sticks on ebay really cheap / Hell a 512stick is 57$ or so onsale at Frys electronics when they had it so he could wait for the Deals. also i hada chance to buya brand new PSP for $91 on Ebay in box but passed it up No money. so he can look for a deal like that. and yes ther is 60gig Ipods but ther 500$ or so. you can sqeez more then 300songs on to 1 gig

Edited July 4, 2005 by notuptome2004

[Smigit]

Ok then so they arent too exy there. Unfortunatly they arent even out in Australia where I am yet....I dont know about the UK. Anyway if you can squeeze more than 300 songs on a 1gig then you can have more than 1500 on a 5gig player. 1500 songs isnt an absolute limit, its simply a manufacturers recomendation to how many fit in 5gigs. To be honest I think 1500 is too many and more than 300 on a 1 gig drive means you are encoding at an extremly low bitrate no matter what format you have. I've seen X5's and H10's going fairly cheap and a psp at $250 is a 0gb player until you jack the cost up to close to $350 with a memory stick, so even a $300 player is cheaper and the PSP is still limited by how much you can carry and many, many people arent happy to only have one or 2 gigs with them like the psp limits you to. And yeah he could look on ebay for a deal, but he can do ther same for an mp3 player and hes said he doesnt want a psp so its pointless argueing it, I won't bother anymore with it.

On a side note a cool combination would be a psp and an X5, due to the usb host connectivity of the X5 you can plug the psp directly into it to access the X5's HD, meaning you have a 20 or 30gb harddrive to put movies and the like on for your psp. Would be nice, if not expensive combination.

[Spielo]

  notuptome2004 said:

Really tho a  PSP would do you well it is an all in 1 system.  With eye-popping graphics, dazzling widescreen LCD, wireless connectivity and the ability to play games, music and movies when and where you want, the PSP gives you the freedom to enjoy entertainment on your terms.

586159473[/snapback]

WHY do you continually suggest getting a PSP when it's so clearly unsuitable for the purpose?!?!? YOU may like the PSP, but it doesn't mean it's the perfect solution for everyone, getting other people to buy a PSP won't change your life in the slightest, so why bother advocating it? Are you expecting an email from Sony saying "we've noticed that you've been doing our advertising for us, so we'd like to send you some free PSP stuff for your trouble..." it's NOT going to happen! So really, why do you choose to do Sony's advertising for them?

As a side note, reading your posts makes my head hurt.

Back to the topic in hand... I'm not sure which player supports the most formats, but iRiver's players generally support quite a few, and they semi-regularly release firmware updates for their players adding support for more formats, which is nice.

[raid517]

Why do you want me to get a PSP so badly? Let me be blunt, I don't want, nor will I ever buy a PSP - I have no interest in it at all. OK? (Well maybe not strictly true as I may buy it as a gift for one or more of my nieces and nephews - but I personally have no interest in it). It doesn't have a big enough capacity, it's bulky and not very practical as a portable media player - which IS what I want.

Let's try and stick to media players only, OK? No more PDA's or handheld gaming systems. I don't even play games any more. (Sad I know, but true).

As for sound quality, I am interested in anything that can offer genuinely lossless sound reproduction - because to be honest I am comparing it to a rather good superior quality home hifi system - and right now at least, the ipod is no where near the mark. (By all accounts though the ER-4P earphones should pretty much completely resolve this issue - or at least you would expect so @ $330).

My main concern is that I do want the best sounding largest capacity media player I can buy - and because most of my stuff is recorded in FLAC and other lossless codecs, I wouldn't mind a player with the widest range of possible support for lossless type codecs.

I also have over 300GB of just music on my PC, so clearly a 1GB device of any description is just not going to cut it.

GJ

[notuptome2004]

  raid517 said:

Why do you want me to get a PSP so badly? Let me be blunt, I don't want, nor will I ever buy a PSP - I have no interest in it at all. OK? (Well maybe not strictly true as I may buy it as a gift for one or more of my nieces and nephews - but I personally have no interest in it). It doesn't have a big enough capacity, it's bulky and not very practical as a portable media player - which IS what I want.

Let's try and stick to media players only, OK? No more PDA's or handheld gaming systems. I don't even play games any more. (Sad I know, but true).

As for sound quality, I am interested in anything that can offer genuinely lossless sound reproduction - because to be honest I am comparing it to a rather good superior quality home hifi system - and right now at least, the ipod is no where near the mark. (By all accounts though the ER-4P earphones should pretty much completely resolve this issue - or at least you would expect so @ $330).

My main concern is that I do want the best sounding largest capacity media player I can buy - and because most of my stuff is recorded in FLAC and other lossless codecs, I wouldn't mind a player with the widest range of possible support for lossless type codecs.

I also have over 300GB of just music on my PC, so clearly a 1GB device of any description is just not going to cut it.

GJ

586160712[/snapback]

well it is a media player and is the size or about the size of a ipod reguler dude . but then since that is out of the question and so on just get an Ipod a 60gig Ipod Iphoto or so then cause really ipod is what si most of the market now well from apples prospective they have around 90% of the MP3 market so get an Ipod i have used a mini and found is simple and easy to use and great sound quality the best i have heard for a portable ( Well this was at a Bose store with Bose hedphones) anyways sorry for the PSP rant geta Ipod i reocmmend it over others. Edite also look at aiwa they rhave great products and make MP3 players as well and ther soud quality prolly is close if not better then Ipods . ( Owns the only 16bit DAC portable CD based MP3 player from aiwa ) most others use 1bit DAC converters so aiwas MP3s HDD players should be awsome as well. As for them headphones i would sudjest these http://www.bose.com/controller?event=VIEW_...dsets/index.jsp

or These http://www.bose.com/controller?event=VIEW_...dsets/index.jsp

Edited July 4, 2005 by notuptome2004

[raid517]

Mmm.. does anyone else want to point this out to this guy or not? Dude read what I said, I already have a 60GB Iphoto Ipod - but I wanted to know if there was anything better in terms of sound quality and in the number of codecs it supported (particularly lossless codecs).

And yes you did rant on about the PSP a bit - but hey, if it's good enough for you, then fair enough. All I want to do this is have an audiophile setup I can listen to on the move.

GJ

[Smigit]

although I find I keep going back to it (sorry if I sound like a fanboy of this thing, I dont even own it) but there is a 60Gb iAudio x5 in the works, with them having very good sound quality and it supports Flac. I dont know if you were loooking for another 60gb player or if size wasn't a factor here. Creative and iRiver sound better than an ipod, although I'm unsure if either actually supports lossless codecs. The rio carbon apparently sounds good and is the only gapless player on the market as I've read around the place, I think I heard it also supports flac but I would suggest you look into that. heck theres even the sony HD1 and newer products, which I think dont support many formats (they only just caught onto mp3 really) but their sound quality is quite high. Unfortunatly ud probably be required to use their software to convert all ur tracks when putting them onto the device and I hear the software is rather craptacular (according to a readers review in the review section)

Well they all support wma (except sony i think) which I vouch for at high bitrates, although others will disagree. A few also support ogg which is supposedly good, never really touched it.

Since Im borred I looked at some sites

iRiver H10 - WMA , MP3 , ASF (I've heard off the record WAV works unofficially)

iRiver 3XX - MP3, WMA, ASF and OGG + some video, probably wmv

iAudio X5 - MP3, OGG, WMA, ASF, FLAC, WAV, MPEG4*

Rio Carbon - MP3, WMA & Audible

Nomad Zen - MP3, WMA and WAV format

Well that roundup was taken from sites, looks like the iAudio is the only one with a true lossless format, although if you encode at higher bitrates you may never notice. ANyway hope thats of some assistance, that was all copied and pasted off the companies sites so if it's wrong dont bite my hand off.

[Jesse Carlton]

pick your codec, convert everything to that (or have one lossy and one lossless) and then get one that uses those 2 codecs.

more codecs is useless.

[raid517]

So do you want to sit for weeks on end to convert 300GB+ between codecs? (Trust me, I bought a Sony player that only really used ATRAC - and required that you convert everything to this format before it would play on the player. It told me it would take 21 days to convert everything I have. Needless to say, I took it back the next day). And anyway, converting from a lossy codec to a lossless codec is impossible. The data you loose during compression to a lossy codec is lost forever - and can't be recovered.

I'm considering installing Ipod Linux on my Ipod, as it's possible I think to get Flac playback this way.

GJ

[notuptome2004]

  raid517 said:

Mmm.. does anyone else want to point this out to this guy or not? Dude read what I said, I already have a 60GB Iphoto Ipod - but I wanted to know if there was anything better in terms of sound quality and in the number of codecs it supported (particularly lossless codecs).

And yes you did rant on about the PSP a bit - but hey, if it's good enough for you, then fair enough. All I want to do this is have an audiophile setup I can listen to on the move.

GJ

586161249[/snapback]

ok i siad 60gig or so Ipod i didnt say BUY it

(but then since that is out of the question and so on just get an Ipod a 60gig Ipod Iphoto or so) does that say Buy it it is ther as well geta 60gig or so i dont care what you get just get one if you get an ipod or somthing like it. and you know it seems mroe liek your unrealstic to what you want. can you define MEdia player what types of media just music and or video. or what

[raid517]

Music. I think I made that plenty clear already.

GJ

[notuptome2004]

  raid517 said:

Music. I think I made that plenty clear already.

GJ

586163017[/snapback]

ok then i would say you have it alredy coverd then if you alredy own an Ipod 60 gig cause i would say almost 98% of the hardware in each player is the same except maby for the sound DAcs and really just use 128k reguler MP3 quality isant that good enough for you .. i used the latest Itunes and took crap that wasant MP3 format and made them MP3.

[Linkinfamous]

  notuptome2004 said:

ok then i would say  you have it alredy  coverd then if you alredy own an Ipod 60 gig  cause i would  say almost  98% of the  hardware  in each player is the same  except  maby for the sound DAcs

586163048[/snapback]

Err, wanna run that by us again?

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main...dwareComponents

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main...dwareComponents

http://www.ipodlinux.org/Generations

[Smigit]

  notuptome2004 said:

ok then i would say  you have it alredy  coverd then if you alredy own an Ipod 60 gig  cause i would  say almost  98% of the  hardware  in each player is the same  except  maby for the sound DAcs and  really  just  use 128k reguler  MP3 quality isant that good enough for you .. i used  the  latest  Itunes and  took crap that wasant  MP3 format and made them MP3.

586163048[/snapback]

certainly don't have the same hardware or someone would be getting sued bigtime. Anyway as he wanted audiophillia compareable sound, 128mp3 is probably the worse choice, maybe only second to 64bit mp3 lol. It's fine for most, however 128 isn't exactly all that great, even 96kbs wma sounds better than it (for a much smaller filesize too). Ideally youd use high bitrates of any format, probably avoiding mp3 (its old tech really) but any of them in figher bitrates are usually fine. By high I mean 190 +, some ppl would consider that low even.

[raid517]

Personally I think 320Kbs is a bit low. Which is why I would welcome the 600Kbs that FLAC can often bring to the table.

And if you can't tell the difference between 120Kbs and 320Kbs (or even 600) then this is quite frankly down to your hardware. Try playing files encoded at 120Kbs on my $16,000 home stereo system and comparing those encoded at 600Kbs - and you will soon notice the difference.

GJ

[Spielo]

  notuptome2004 said:

ok  i siad  60gig or so  Ipod i didnt say BUY it

(but then since that is out of the question and so on just get an Ipod a 60gig Ipod Iphoto or so)  does that say  Buy it  it is ther as well geta  60gig  or so i dont care what you get  just get one if you get an ipod or somthing like it. and you know it seems  mroe liek your unrealstic to what you want. can you define  MEdia player  what  types  of media just music  and or video. or what

586162965[/snapback]

Trying to make sense of what you have written makes my head hurt :(

[Enrickey]

I think that you should go for the iAudio X5, it is nice, small, and supports a lot of formats. The only downside to it in my eyes is the fact that it isn't gapless (at least it makes a better attempt than the iPod though), it uses menu structure rather than an ID3 database, and FLAC wise, it only supports compression levels 1-3, or at least that is what I have read.

[raid517]

  Quote

I think that you should go for the iAudio X5, it is nice, small, and supports a lot of formats. The only downside to it in my eyes is the fact that it isn't gapless (at least it makes a better attempt than the iPod though), it uses menu structure rather than an ID3 database, and FLAC wise, it only supports compression levels 1-3, or at least that is what I have read.

Although, if you don't mind getting down and dirty, I would recommend buying a Rio Karma, which has full FLAC support, along with many other codecs for $180 from http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=...pf=1&sp=1&mp=85, then you can open it up, remove the hard drive, thin out the borders by 1mm with a dremel, and replace the drive with a compatible 60GB drive from http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetai...iliate=shopping for $135, making it a 60GB MP3 player for $315 + S&H.

Erm, why the edit? You are talking as if you know that this is a project that can be done. It might well be interesting to try that - but obviously not if it isn't going to work.

GJ