recommend me an mp3 player?

Any specific recommendations? (Looking online, a lot of players seem to get bad reviews).

The Sony Walkman model I bought about 6 years ago was way too quiet. I googled it and noticed loads of other people complaining about the same thing. I don't know if they sorted out the volume issue yet but they are still way too pricey for what you get imo. I used to browse anythingbutipod.com for reviews but the site has been dormant since 2013. But I will always be grateful to them for introducing me to the nice and cheap Sansa range which I'm into 4 life.

Sansa 4 sure. Easy, inexpensive, light as a feather

lol are we really buying sandisks now? shit's bleak

i'm still on my last gen iPod... fearing having to enter the future once it stops working

anyone try those bizarrely cheap $2 mp3 SD players from eBay?

My main MP3 player is an ibasso dx90 but Sandisks are great for the gym, jogging, throwing in a bag, etc. xp

There seems to have been an explosion in relatively high end MP3 players recently - Oppo, Fiio, Astell & Kern, Hidizs, Lotoo, Colorfly, new Cowons, etc.

Idk if any of them are worth $500+

200gb micro sd cards are less than 100 dollars now so players that use micro sd are the way to go for sure. The sansa clip zip and clip + are both great but both discontinued and not cheap secondhand, and the current Sansa clips are by all accounts not as good.

Fiio makes a little 50 dollar micro sd based player, the M3, and it has very good sound, but the way it displays folders is buggy.

If you can swing about 250 bucks the Walkman at that price level uses micro sd, has super long battery life, is almost as small as a Sansa, and has fantastic sound.

I'm wondering if the volume issue with the Sony range was just a Euro issue and not a thing on the US market, I seem to remember reading some comment saying as much.

But I'd be tempted to buy a micro slot expandable Sony with decent volume.

I still have an iAudio7 for connection to the external audio jack in the car. It is still fkn ace.

Thanks all.

Never heard of Fiio before. Anyone use one of these? http://www.ea-audio.co.uk/fiio_x1.html

i'm still on my last gen iPod... fearing having to enter the future once it stops working

same. still downloading podcasts and putting them on my ipod classic.

I still have an iAudio7 for connection to the external audio jack in the car. It is still fkn ace.

I have an iAudio as well, has lasted me years. The audio quality difference btwn it and my phone is night and day.

Xposts I have a fiio x5 I got used. I think the x1 is similar in sound, so it should sound great. It's only around 100 bucks too. Tuomas uses an X1 iirc. I mainly got the Walkman for the longer battery life (fiio X1 and x5 full charge can be used up in one long day of listening ime, Walkman takes days to exhaust).

good deal (today only) on this fiio headphone amp http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1023110-REG/fiio_kunlun_e18_portable_usb.html

Went for the Fiio X1. Having some issues ... possibly due to being the kind of idiot that struggles to download firmware.

I have the X1 and I'm quite happy with it... What sort of issues have you had?

Do mp3 players ever have anything like bass boost/dsgx?

Yup, both cheap Sansas and iPods have eq

ffs my Sansa Clip+ broke, no sound on right channel... it's a common mechanical issue, I'm not sure I'm handy enough to fix it though... my second Clip+ with this issue...

anyway, prices on second hand Clip+'s are insane!

recommend me another cheap player that syncs without using software like iTunes, has folder view (I can see files by folder instead of artist etc.) and supports flac?

tried the clip jam already, not a fan - don't like the buttons and interface is clumsy/slow compared to Clip+

The fiio M3 is something like 50 bucks, you can run a 200gb micro sd in it, management is regular folder no special software needed. Dimensions are roughly the size of a pack of trident. Sound is up to Sansa + level IMO. Display is ugly and UI is clunky but usable. Phenomenal battery life something like 21 hours. Its big weakness is a quirk of the way it sequences files - when you go into a folder it displays the files in the order in which they were written to the disk, not file name order. You have to periodically zap your micro sd card with a utility like DriveSort (if you're on Windows) so that write order matches file name order. I can't seem to find a matching utility for
Mac except one that you have to use Terminal to run and I don't understand Terminal.

Supports flac, I meant to mention.

I was sold until you described the files quirk, that sounds really like a fatal pain in the arse to me. But otherwise I would almost be tempted to try one.

i would've gotten a fiio ages ago except i keep hearing that the ui is super flaky. i have a music library of over 30,000 songs (yes i need them all with me in my pocket, shut up, no i can't just subscribe to spotify because spotify doesn't have the live/studio mix of "guess i'm falling in love" or foefur's earth, wind, and fire megamix). a flaky ui just won't cut it with me. :(

I have a fiio x5 and the UI is rock solid as long as I'm navigating by folder not by database. Database navigation is not satisfactory. But that's ok for the way I listen.

i'm definitely a database-driven listener- spent too long on the ipod to know how to organize my tunes into folders. :(

anyway, prices on second hand Clip+'s are insane!

lol, I bought a used Clip+ on ebay for $14 a couple weeks ago, but I got lucky because the buyer was a naïf who billed it as a "Sandisc Sansa portable Player" without specifying the model name. oddly it came preloaded with 3+ gigabytes of voice recordings because its previous owner had apparently carried it around in his breast pocket during his doctor's appointments and attorney-client meetings.

prices do tend to be pretty steep, but you don't have to dig too hard to find something decent in the $30-$40 range (like this one).

the major limitation of the Clip+ is that its database can only hold roughly 8000 tracks — if you have much more than that, you'll have no choice but to navigate by folder. I'm not sure if installing Rockbox will remove this limitation.

(er, the seller was a naïf)

Sony nwz a17 handles database well. Also has long battery life. When you switch the micro sd card to a different one, it does take it awhile to rebuild the new database. So if you're someone who likes to hop around between cards like they were CDs, that's a shortcoming. Also: not cheap (250 to 300 bucks)

I'm not sure if installing Rockbox will remove this limitation.

It does.

good to know!

I might be tempted to try one next then. I haven't used Rockbox before but it looks like a simple enough process to install the firmware.

Sony nwz a17 handles database well. Also has long battery life. When you switch the micro sd card to a different one, it does take it awhile to rebuild the new database. So if you're someone who likes to hop around between cards like they were CDs, that's a shortcoming. Also: not cheap (250 to 300 bucks)

― his eye is on despair-o (Jon not Jon)

yeah for the price of those things i could get, you know, a cell phone. even if sony does have a good dac, the overwhelming impression i get from sony's stuff is "sharper image".

For me this awz is a more than fine iPod classic replacement. Whose capacity can get larger every time sandisk manages to cram another 100gb onto their micro sd cards. I can't bear smartphones as music players, there has to be a physical pause, volume, skip interface I can find when the thing's in my jacket pocket.

Meant to say nwz lol

I noticed on ebay some sellers have the fiio M3 bundled with some headphone amp attached, is that because it has low volume issues?

hmm i am probably the wrong person to ask. I guess maybe, compared to my NWZ, fiio X5 and my ipod classic. This has probably been covered in the long M3 thread on head-fi if you have the time to root through that.

I can't bear smartphones as music players, there has to be a physical pause, volume, skip interface I can find when the thing's in my jacket pocket.

so otm

Thanks for info on the fiio Jon, perhaps I'll give it a go

Regarding Sansa pricing, think they're a fair bit more expensive in Europe than US, judging from amazon offers

Do they not make them anymore? I'm on my 3rd or 4th I think.

Sansa Clip+ is, unfortunately, discontinued

Oh no!!!!!!!!!!

Why, Lord? Why?

Maybe an issue with the factory or delivery of some of the parts... It's the best player I ever had :'(

I feel your pain. I should take better care of the one I've got. Cherish it.

Totally...
Always weird when a company follows a product up with an inferior version... Maybe they just got lucky with the Clip+

Not luck, the clip zip was also great.

I think I read that the devolution from clip + to its successors was because of some key component no longer being made by the sub suppliers

I still think for twenty odd quid's worth of expandable mp3 player the latest Sport/Jam models still represent value. My Clip + still works, but perversely I have relegated it for audiobooks only use. With my damaged hearing I'm not so sensitive to the drop offs in sound quality in the latest models tbh.

The sport/jam supposedly have much longer battery life

It doesn't seem any better or worse to me, but it's not like I go on trips to the southern hemisphere - but definitely no complaints about the battery life.