HELP...need new Walkman Ipod portable players

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by DJ WILBUR, Nov 30, 2015.

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  1. DJ WILBUR

    DJ WILBUR The Cappuccino Kid Thread Starter

    so now that many ipod classics are wearing down, mine are going soon so it sesms, I have two that I cherish, but I'm checking in to see what all you audiobuffs are using in 2015 for portable music players. Looking for ideas for Santa....
     
  2. Linto

    Linto Mayor of Simpleton

    What's the budget?

    What's important to you ?
    Sound Quality ?
    Battery ?
    Storage?
    Interface ?

    I spend half my life on Head-Fi so sure I can help
     
  3. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Do you know of any that do shuffle by album?
     
  4. DJ WILBUR

    DJ WILBUR The Cappuccino Kid Thread Starter

    sound quality and interface would be the two bigger wants of the four...as far as storage goes would be great if it had a slot for expanding storage (128+) ...I had recently tried the ipod touch at 128 gigs, man did I bring that back fast, what has happened to iTunes, really sucky software lately from my experience..

    ideally I'd love to get out of the iTunes universe, easy drag and drop sort of loading would be ideal
     
  5. oldschool

    oldschool I love tape hiss

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
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  6. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    I recently purchased a Sony Walkman NWZ-A17, their newest hi-rez player. I will respond to the fields that Linto included and add a few of my own:
    • Sound Quality: To my ears it sounds pretty good, even with the non-audiofile headphones that I'm using (I haven't found a pair that both sound really good and that I can wear for long periods of time...yet).
    • Battery: According to the Sony Website, it gets 30 hours for hi-rez audio files and 50 hours for MP3 files.
    • Storage: It has 64gb of internal storage, and can handle a 64gb Micro SD memory card. One note about the storage: While accessing your music files the players displays them all together (not separated by location), when you load files on the player you can only access either the memory card or the internal memory, not both at the same time.
    • Interface: Unlike some recent Sony Walkman players (which used Android), this one goes back to the old and well-tested interface. The interface is basically the same as the one on Sony's first MP3 Walkman players, but changes have been made to the interface to improve it (such as shortcuts to some functions, and the ability to scroll via album art). If you've used any Walkman MP3 player since the late 2000s the interface should be very familiar.
    • Software: I'm currently using Media Go with it. While basic, Media Go is fairly easy to use and works very well with my Walkman. It is also supposed allow loading by drag-and-drop but I haven't tried it.
    • Cost: I paid $299 (plus tax) for mine, plus the cost of the memory card.
    I hope this helps. Please feel free to ask if you need more information.
     
  7. DJ WILBUR

    DJ WILBUR The Cappuccino Kid Thread Starter

    I will investigate the players mentioned.

    thanks for comments so far.
     
  8. pscreed

    pscreed Upstanding Member

    Location:
    Land of the Free
    I picked up a Cowon P1 Plenue last month after good experience previously years ago with their S9. The unit has 128GB internal memory which I expanded with an additional 128GB microSD card. It plays hirez audio up to 24/192, all metal construction, audiophile DAC components, great amp, drag and drop, file format agnostic, Linux OS. It doesn't do "apps", only plays music. There's a ton of info on the Cowon site, but this thing was expensive and it has exceeded my expectations in every way.

    I have previously owned many iPods including the 160GB Classic, and a couple generations of the smaller players. I could even be considered an Apple fanboy. I have an iPhone 6s. This thing is in another league, of course that's to be expected.

    I don't think this can be beat for SQ + storage outside of the AKs maybe. But I'm done I love this thing.
     
  9. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    I like the complicity. Does it do shuffle by album? That's what's locking me into the iPod Classic. I can't find anything else that does it.

    Edit: Looking at the user manual, it doesn't.
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2015
  10. Pancat

    Pancat Senior Member

    Location:
    Merry England
    I've just become the owner of the A&K Jnr and it sounds fantastic. Easy drag n drop; 64gb storage expandable to 128 with an SD card; cool look and design; plays any format you fling at it. Not cheap but worth the extra. Recommended.
     
  11. pscreed

    pscreed Upstanding Member

    Location:
    Land of the Free
    Sorry missed that. I'm not much of a shuffler so I guess I didn't notice it. Is "shuffle by album" playing all the songs in an album but in shuffled order? I guess I need to read up.

    Anyway good luck on your search, in my opinion Apple has lost the plot on iTunes and despite my very strong pro-apple bias I am just not going back for music. I just don't think they "get" music lovers any more and I wonder if things would be different if Steve was still around...
     
  12. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Shuffle by album is it picks an album at random and plays the songs in order, picks the next album at random and plays it in order, etc. That's how I listen at work or at home when I'm doing something else, so the majority of my listening. I hate it when I'm in the middle of things and the album ends and I can't take a break to pick a new one. I do it a lot with dedicated listening time too, but not always, because it will frequently will pick an album I wouldn't think of that I haven't heard for a long time. Unless I'm traveling, dedicated listening is not with a portable player though.

    I'm thinking I might have to create my own with Raspberry Pi. It would end up being more luggable than portable though. It would be ideal though 2GB+, playback software I write so it works the way I want. Probably have to wait until I retire in a couple of years though.
     
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  13. bleachershane

    bleachershane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Glasgow, Scotland
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  14. billnunan

    billnunan Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    What about the new 128gb iTouch? That gets pretty close to the 160gb Classic in capacity.

    I bought the Sony Walkman NW-ZX2 and I find it a pain to use. It holds 256gb with the additional 128Gb sd card, but the Apple products are much easier to use.

    The real decider for me though, is I like the sound of the iTouch through my Oppo HA-2 DAC better than the Walkman on its own.

    When my Classic dies, I will grab a 128 gb iTouch and use it, along with my 64gb iTouch. That Walkman is just gonna gather dust.
     
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  15. BayouTiger

    BayouTiger Forum Resident

    I like my Pono a lot! I do wish loading was faster though
     
  16. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    My thoughts exactly. Unless one really audio beyond 48khz (a limitation on these older players), I'm A-OK with keeping my old player running with a new battery / SSD / SD card.
     
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  17. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    If you don't mind spending some, the Pono is an amazing piece of technology and sound for the money.

    Don't get the new Sansa players-lots of negative comments about the menus.

    And do consider SSDing your Classic. OR there is now an iPod touch (solid state storage, say that ten times fast) with 128 GB which is quite a lot of storage. $399 and you can get it in colors!
     
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  18. Lord Summerisle

    Lord Summerisle Forum Resident

    I've been looking into picking up another portable player to replace my iPod Classic. I want something that plays hires. The Fiio seems to have no internal storage? So I'll have to immediately fork out for a micro SD?
     
  19. ShallowMemory

    ShallowMemory Classical Princess

    Location:
    GB
    The replacement for the Sansa's will be the upcoming in North America Fiio M3 (Just out over here) lossy and Flac to 96/24; capacity upto 64gb micro sd with 8gb internal. See Fiios website for more.
     
  20. ShallowMemory

    ShallowMemory Classical Princess

    Location:
    GB
    Yes but at least in Blighty a decent 64gb micro sd card will be GBP16.99 which ain't much.
     
  21. bleachershane

    bleachershane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Glasgow, Scotland
    I have the dual SD card board and a 128GB card which I've not yet fitted. I'veI've been running Rockbox as the player's software for the last few months to get used to it and I'll be purchasing one more 128GB card to get it up to 256GB (before formatting of course) and that way I should be able to get most of my collection in my iPod Classic (160GB) without having to be brutally selective.
    It may not be the route for everyone, but if anyone is thinking they need to ditch their Classics, it's not the only option. And if you are, get them listed on eBay as someone will take it off your hands (even faulty ones) and give it new life!
     
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  22. Bubba Boy Sam

    Bubba Boy Sam Forum Resident

    I second the idea of rebuilding the iPod Classic with a solid state drive. While I was doing that, I added a new high capacity battery. It works great.
     
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  23. DJ WILBUR

    DJ WILBUR The Cappuccino Kid Thread Starter

    thanks for the advice so far, been doing research and its nice to find more than I was expecting available.....
     
  24. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    I took a look at the NW-ZX2 and a negative for me is its touch screen. I have an NWZ-X1051 (the first Walkman series with a touchscreen) and while the player sounded very good, I found the interface needed to be improved to accommodate the touch screen (many of the items were difficult to use with a touch, it was very difficult to go back to a previous song [hitting the back button would only take you back to the beginning of the current song {although I eventually figured out that I had to pause the player first}] and it took a very long time to scroll through a long list of items). I ended up getting a new Walkman with tactile controls (an NWZ-E465) that is much easier to use.

    One of the things I like best about my NWZ-A17 Walkman is that it has tactile controls rather than a touch screen. Although touch screens are fine for some uses, when it comes to audio players I've found that tactile controls are much easier to use. The interface on my A17 is extremely easy to use (despite having 1,000s of files on my player I can still easily get to any song quickly). While its interface is proprietary, it has been refined for years and it is now even more usable.

    I have an iPod Classic and while it is easy to use there are some aspects of the interface that make it difficult to use. As an example, I find it very difficult to get to a specific item on a list with the scroll wheel. Often I will have to keep to scrolling and scrolling the list (while the alphabetic shortcut does pop up sometimes it often disappears before I can use it). It would be easier to use if they used a Walkman-like method where you hit the next button to jump the first item beginning with the next letter (if you are in the Bs and you hit the next button you go to the first item starting with "C").
     
  25. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    Regardless of what you choose, I personally like the idea of something with an external microSD slot (this includes the iPod mods being mentioned as you do an SD mod + microSD adapter for that).

    Two reasons for that....first, it's easily expandable since microSD is an industry standard and storage will continue to rise / prices will drop. The only limitation will be your device's firmware. And second is that, if you do expand the drive or even retire the device one day, that microSD card can be re-used in other devices.
     
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