iPod Classic Is Gone, Which Portable MP3 Player Do You Suggest?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by oneslip17, Nov 16, 2014.

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  1. dnuggett

    dnuggett Forum Resident

    Location:
    DFW Texas
    I went with a Sony A17. Good little player. It doesn't go ear bleeding loud, but plenty sufficient for me. I also use an ALO Continental tube amp with it. Sounds fantastic for the amount of money outlayed.
     
    Brother_Rael likes this.
  2. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic

    I don't know if the Touch is the same but my iPhone 6 with ios8.1.1 on it shows the albumS under each artist in reverse chronological order- which is not necessarily the best order, but it is an order of sorts!
     
  3. larryk

    larryk Senior Member

    Location:
    Central PA
    I second a previous poster's info re: FiiO. I have one of these and it works beautifully (using a female to female adapter easily obtained at Wally World or Rat Shack).

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003UCESP8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    Supposedly the SQ is a little better coming out of this end of the iPod/iPad.

    A downside is that it bypasses the volume control on the iPod, so it might not be the best bet for you, unless you have an in-line volume control on your headphones. It does not bypass the EQ, however.
     
    Master_It_Right likes this.
  4. superstar19

    superstar19 Authentic By Nature

    Location:
    Canton, MI, USA
    I think I got it now. So it looks like the current iOS player is sorting the albums by the "Year" tag. I've tagged all of my albums with the release year at the beginning of the title because I like my albums sorted in chronological order and most players sorted albums alphabetically. I was wondering why my 1972 Grateful Dead shows were showing up out of order and that's because I have the year tagged as 2011 since that's when the box came out. Thanks!
     
  5. hellion

    hellion Forum Resident


    I got a Fiio X1 a couple of weeks ago and its simple and easy to use. Not expensive and sounds great
     
    ShallowMemory and stereoptic like this.
  6. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Does it shuffle by album?
     
  7. hellion

    hellion Forum Resident

    it has a shuffle mode, I don't use it though because I listen mostly to live boots
     
  8. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Shuffle by album is pick a random album, play all the tracks in order, repeat. That's how I listen on my iPod. I hate song shuffle.
     
  9. kinkling

    kinkling Forum Resident

    My iPod works just fine, but I would like a 24/96 capable player. Currently I am waffling between the Fiio X1 and the Sony A17. Gapless would be lovely but isn't necessarily a dealbreaker.
     
  10. Master_It_Right

    Master_It_Right Forum Resident

    I know the X1 does gapless. Not sure about the Sony. I have both the X1 and X3, they are both awesome.
     
  11. Tom H

    Tom H Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kapolei, Hawaii
    Just bought a FiiO X3, which is en route as a Christmas present. So I have some time to convert music to FLAC from CD while waiting. Up until now, I have always used an iPod 160gb Classic and AAC files at 256 kbps. I have EAC and FLAC software to convert my CDs to FLAC files, but what settings would be appropriate? I don't know that much about the conversion process.

    Any suggestions would be appreciated.
     
    ShallowMemory likes this.
  12. Abbey Road

    Abbey Road Well-Known Member

    I have a beat up but working perfectly 160gb on eBay right now, with a starting bid of $1. No bids yet!
     
  13. puddin

    puddin Forum Resident

    Cool gig being a sound tech on a cruise ship. Did you get the Blue Man Group's autographs?
     
  14. kinkling

    kinkling Forum Resident

    FLAC has levels between 1 and 8, with 8 being the smallest file size. Many programs split the difference by defaulting to level 5. If you are going to have a ton of songs, using 8 will take up less room.
    http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/if-flac-is-lossless-why-does-encoding-level-matter.140499/
     
  15. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    With EAC just let EAC go through its Configuration Wizard and it will get itself set up to rip to FLAC. The Configuration Wizard is in the EAC menu.

    I find CUERipper to be easier to use and easier to figure out how to use. CUERipper is free. It does AccurateRip. It will rip directly to FLAC. It has better tagging lookup than EAC.
    Info is here: http://www.cuetools.net/wiki/CUERipper
    Download is here: http://www.cuetools.net/wiki/CUETools_Download
    It doesn't have an installer. The download is a ZIP file. Extract to a directory and manually create shortcuts to cuetools.exe and cueripper.exe
     
  16. Sax-son

    Sax-son Forum Resident

    Location:
    Three Rivers, CA
    I have an Ipod classic and it has been one PITA. I have had to repair everything on it. I would never recommend it.
     
  17. ad180

    ad180 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
  18. There was no comparison, I kept them both for a month but only used them simultaneously for a week. The X1 is no doubt a great value, for what it does, but it doesn't have the SQ of the Pono. Ironically, it is harder to tell with higher res files 24/96 and 24/192 actually sound very good on both.

    Where is is very easy to tell the difference are on 16/44 cd-rips. The pono just kills it. Never listened to anything lower on either.
     
  19. Kim Olesen

    Kim Olesen Gently weeping guitarist.

    Location:
    Odense Denmark.
    I had an 128gb ssd installed in one of my classics. And a new battery. So it will last me many years :)
     
    ad180 likes this.
  20. Jack Flannery

    Jack Flannery Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    How about Hifiman?
     
  21. timind

    timind phorum rezident

    Just bought a used classic from a seller on this forum. Couldn't be happier.
     
  22. anthontherun

    anthontherun Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    After about 7 years of service, my 80GB Zune seems to have given up on me. (It's not dead, because it turns on and connects to the computer, and there don't appear to be any issues with the media, but the operation is completely wonky at best. I can't get it to play anything because it won't even scroll properly.) I need something that can play WMA files (and preferably can import Windows Media playlists, although that's not essential), and since I was creeping up on maximum storage anyway, bigger capacity than 80GB...with a price tag of < $200. I did some research and I believe the best fit is the FiiO X1. It has great reviews, supports 128GB of storage, meets the WMA requirement, and is just over $100.

    My only concern: there's no built-in storage; it's all on a SD card. My music library is stored on an older computer that doesn't have any SD card slots. If I have the card inside the player and connect that to my computer via USB, would I be able to transfer my music? Or does the card need to go directly into a computer? If anyone has familiarity with this player, or has a recommendation for something better that fits the necessary criteria, please let me know!
     
  23. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    I don't have experience with the FiiO, but I have experience with SD cards and interoperability between devices.

    With that in mind, it should work fine with a USB-based SD slot, just make sure the USB device is at least USB 2.0 for speed reasons (these days that's probably a given, but you never know). Also, assuming your PC is Windows 7 or Windows 8, check and make sure what file system the FiiO supports - if it's only FAT32, you need to keep that in mind as Win7/8 may only allow formatting the SD card as exFAT or NTFS. There are 3rd party tools (and command line within Windows) to get around this, but it's probably good to know in advance in case you format it and then the FiiO can't read it.
     
  24. anthontherun

    anthontherun Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    It's USB 2.0, although I'll have to double-check about the file system. According to the questions and answers at Amazon, the card can be formatted in the player so it shouldn't be an issue. Thanks!
     
    Gaslight likes this.
  25. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    Even better then! Btw, FAT32-formatted cards are supported in Win7/Win8 (if that's what the FiiO device uses). The main issue with FAT32 that I know of is a 4GB file size limitation, but with music files that's probably not going to be a problem.
     
    anthontherun likes this.
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