what mp3 players have the best sound quality?

[AlexBLA]

im saving up for a new mp3 player. what one have the best sound quality and won't brake over time . what would u recomend?

[elcid]

I doubt there'd be much difference in sound quality. I have heard iPods, Zens, and $4000+ music servers that store mp3s and an mp3 sounds like an mp3 across the board.

[darren wilson]

I don't know if anyone has really done head-to-head comparisons with MP3 players. Generally, MP3 files aren't considered high fidelity, and listening to them through good headphones or speakers will make that painfully clear. I'd say most playback devices are pretty much equal in terms of audio quality, providing they have some sort of built-in EQ. So what it really boils down to is the quality (or lack thereof) of your headphones.

[AlexBLA]

ahhh i see. so ill just go with the 20gb ipod.....now! recomendations for headphones. i would prefur the ones that go around your neck NOT the in ear. the in ears always break because i keep them in my pocket. and i would like them to be loud enough to just sit around my neck(not on my ears) and turn it up and be able to hear it. and iwould also like it to have a volume control.

[dreaming_neon_black]

Headphones can completely change the sound of your player. I've had both a Rio Karma (got stolen grrr) and now I have a Sony HD-5 and in both cases the headphones that came with it were just 'ok'. I'm not really into the great big headphone things, but the normal in-ear design makes my ears ache after a while...so I bought the Sony Fontopia headphones that have these plastic buds that mould into your ear (you get a choice of 3 sizes you can change between) and the difference is substantial.

Bass was massively improved (sounded like my old Discman with the MegaBass activated) and it generally made everything fuller and less tinny. So yeah, get good headphones. It's annoying how the ones that come with whatever player you buy are usually cheap and crappy, so it's worth getting decent ones. The Fontopia's come in white as well so you can pretend you have an iPod haha.

As for Mp3 player, that's up to you. Usually what wins it for me is the controls, user interface and how good the software is for moving files from your comp to the player (obviously I want a large capacity player as well).

[microdmitry]

I have Shure e4c. They took some getting used to but now they sound great. They're in-ear phones, though and they go in pretty deep. Trouble is, I can't use them with my laptop (hear the noise floor of my laptop sound card!) and I can hear compression artifacts in low-bitrate compressed audio. They're not for folks who like exaggerated bass, or exaggerated anything for that matter - they'll just play everything as it is without covering up the sound engineer's mistakes.

[JESTER700]

I have Shure e3c phones and agree that these are great listening tools. But I will say that with efficient phones like these, the headphone amps in this kind of gear show their low cost. At lower levels, the background hiss can be annoying. Same goes for my Sony MDR7506 headphones.

When you crank up the volume, it masks this hiss, so a solution is a $5 inline headphone volume control - crank up the control on the player, and turn it down with the external control.

Other than that, the players I've used sounded pretty much the same, though their EQ abilities vary. I will say that MP3 isn't necessarily low fidelity. I use the LAME STANDARD preset (about 200k bitrate) and while it may not be an exact copy of a CD, it is *definitely* "high fidelity". Of course, at the ubiquitous 128k bitrate, it's another story entirely.

[jay ratkowski]

Regardless of the compression type/ratio, MP3s are always going to be a lower quality recording. Also, EVERY portable MP3 player is not going to have enough juice to properly power a nice set of headphones... so spending any large amount of cash on such a venture seems a bit fruitless. I'd probably go to your local Circuit City or any discount electronics store and do side-by-side on what they have there. Just find something that sounds good but is going to sit on your head comfortably while walking/running/doing comando maneuvers, as I'd assume you aren't buying an MP3 player to sit in your livingroom 100% of the time.

[jemsite]

Originally Posted by microdmitry

I have Shure e4c. They took some getting used to but now they sound great. They're in-ear phones, though and they go in pretty deep. Trouble is, I can't use them with my laptop (hear the noise floor of my laptop sound card!) and I can hear compression artifacts in low-bitrate compressed audio. They're not for folks who like exaggerated bass, or exaggerated anything for that matter - they'll just play everything as it is without covering up the sound engineer's mistakes.

did you try a 3>2 grounding plug on the laptop's power cord? alot of times you get a grounding loop...glen

[JESTER700]

Originally Posted by jay ratkowski

Regardless of the compression type/ratio, MP3s are always going to be a lower quality recording.

Yeah, but...there's measurably lower and then there's AUDIBLY lower. The whole purpose is portability, and in that scenario a high bitrate MP3 is damn near indistinguishable from a music CD source. You want perfection, that's fine - but it's hard to jog or cut the lawn with a portable CD player, a headphone amp, and a pair of Sennheiser 580s strapped on.

Also, EVERY portable MP3 player is not going to have enough juice to properly power a nice set of headphones... so spending any large amount of cash on such a venture seems a bit fruitless. I'd probably go to your local Circuit City or any discount electronics store and do side-by-side on what they have there. Just find something that sounds good but is going to sit on your head comfortably while walking/running/doing comando maneuvers, as I'd assume you aren't buying an MP3 player to sit in your livingroom 100% of the time.

OK, but many audiophiles swear by canalphones, and some of these (the Shures mentioned, as well as 2 of the Etymotic models) are efficient enough to be driven well by portable devices. Have you LISTENED to these? Because as a portable solution they are damn fine, and make my portable listening a LOT better than the standard supplied crap phones. If someone listens a lot on the go, who's to say what the dollar value is? I use a cheap player myself because I don't need a 4GB library. But I certainly understand the popularity of those units.

[Ferrous Lepidoptera]

Check this site:
http://home.comcast.net/~machrone/pl...playertest.htm

It has oscilloscope graphs and everything.

It looks at:
# iPod Shuffle
# Zen Micro
# Dell DJ 20GB
# 15GB iPod (3rd Generation)
# iPod Mini

Bass performance is typically where they're going to suck.
Out of Apple's line, the ipod mini is the loser. (Drat, I have the ipod mini. And now I notice this particular suckage.) Well, they say the 6Gb mini is improved, but it still can't really even drive the included earbuds.

[jay ratkowski]

Originally Posted by JESTER700

Yeah, but...there's measurably lower and then there's AUDIBLY lower. The whole purpose is portability, and in that scenario a high bitrate MP3 is damn near indistinguishable from a music CD source. You want perfection, that's fine - but it's hard to jog or cut the lawn with a portable CD player, a headphone amp, and a pair of Sennheiser 580s strapped on.


OK, but many audiophiles swear by canalphones, and some of these (the Shures mentioned, as well as 2 of the Etymotic models) are efficient enough to be driven well by portable devices. Have you LISTENED to these? Because as a portable solution they are damn fine, and make my portable listening a LOT better than the standard supplied crap phones. If someone listens a lot on the go, who's to say what the dollar value is? I use a cheap player myself because I don't need a 4GB library. But I certainly understand the popularity of those units.

If those little Shures are good, then I think it's a great idea.

My point is still that fretting over the difference in sound quality between different MP3 players is fruitless. I have a Dell DJ because... well, it had decent battery life and could go on the Dell card for deferred payemnts. Whether plugged into my Sennheiser HD265's, the Dell junkers, or through the RCA connection in my car... I cannot discern a difference between the Dell and my g/f's iPod. The only real noteable difference in sound is that each company has a slight variation on what a "pop" or "jazz" EQ curve might be. Big deal.

For worrying about headphone quality... as I said, if the Shures are really that great, then buy them. Otherwise, you are typically not going to get anything too spectacular from a headphone while still remaining portable. As you hinted, it's not too practical to strap on a tube amp and a pair of Grados while pumping iron at the gym.

Hence, go for what suits you best for price/portability/sound in that order. While you're at it, get a good RCA connection (don't waste time with that FM Modulation crap) for listening in the car.

[jemsite]

how do you RCA connect to a car with older stereo?

Jay is right in that unless your mp3 player is a CLUNKER of a design, the sound quality between devices is marginal given the source material and listening environment.

That said i think 9 out of 10 listeners could not discern 192kb MP3s from cd audio played thru a quality in-home stereo. Maybe even 99 out of 100. At the same time $200-300 headphones for a $199 mp3 player is not going to allow those phones to work to their capacity... glen

[red5]

Originally Posted by jemsite

how do you RCA connect to a car with older stereo?

Jay is right in that unless your mp3 player is a CLUNKER of a design, the sound quality between devices is marginal given the source material and listening environment.

That said i think 9 out of 10 listeners could not discern 192kb MP3s from cd audio played thru a quality in-home stereo. Maybe even 99 out of 100. At the same time $200-300 headphones for a $199 mp3 player is not going to allow those phones to work to their capacity... glen

You can buy RCA to 1/8" and plug a cassette adapter or a radio transmitter into the 1/8".

I think there are basically two grades of mp3 players as you said - real cheapos that are designed to be cheap and sound it, and good players which I imagine give about the same quality as said before. I have not seen a hifi mp3 player that costs $1000+ mainly for it's D/A convertor, but for what most people use a mp3 player for (portability, car, etc) it would serve no purpose.

I'd put my money on 1 of 1000 listeners being able to tell the difference between 192/160 kbps mp3s and an audio cd AB'd through the same unit. In fact I did a listening test once with 128, 160 and 192 kbps mp3s to see if going higher quality would pay off. I found that using the Lame encoder,
there was a large noticable difference going from 128 to 160, but the difference between 160 and 192 was marginal, so I rip all my CDs at 160. I tried it with other encoders too for the hell of it and I found that on most other encoders, I needed 192 kbps so I did not lose my highs and sound like 160 on Lame and the difference was not as marginal between 160 and 192 (so I have used Lame ever since)

[jemsite]

What did you search user posts this afternoon?

Originally Posted by red5

You can buy RCA to 1/8" and plug a cassette adapter or a radio transmitter into the 1/8".

That's not RCA as Jay mentioned.

It would be cool if every new car came with 1/8" miniplug inputs to their stereo... glen