Best Portable MP3 Sound Quality

A

Applejuice

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 3, 2004
Messages
65
I was reading alot of reviews on MP3 players, and very few of them give any productive comments on the sound quality. I really think most people have low standards on sound quality as every last review I read, even on like 30 dollar mp3 players, say "excellent sound quality!" Anyways, I was wondering which mp3 player on the market really DOES have the best sound quality. Capatcity is pretty irrelevant to me as long as it sounds good. One of the main problems I've come into in the past is that I can't turn em up loud enough.
 
The Rio units are very good on sound quality. The ipods have pretty good quality too.

I've heard that the Rio Karma is excellent, all around.
 
Do you care about size? If not, the Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 (the PCDP sized one) wipes the floor with all other DAP's, including the Karma. It hate this debate though, since most people just end up using crappy earbuds or headphones and the standard 192mbps MP3 file.

Remember, your setup is only as good as it's weakest link :) For example, my portable setup is an iHP-120 -> Canare mini-mini -> Xin Super Mini -> Etymotic ER4S. When I switched to Uber-quality mp3's, I realized how much of a difference the encoding can make. Make sure you cover ALL the small details:)
 
frankly, i prefer MusicMatch's WMA files as opposed to Napsters. Your sound quality has a lot to do with that...anyhow, i digress.

cheers,

dave
 
Some people will say looking for better sound quality when playing MP3s is a waste of time. I think that if you don't have to spend more to get better quality you might as well, you're handicapped enough by using a compressed audio format at least make sure you decode it well. Just like in imaging some programs do a better job of decoding jpeg files, some players decode and process sound better than others. The iRiver and Zen models are very good, the iPod is ok but certainly not the best. The Karma is also nice, and some support some other formats than just mp3 like mentioned already.
 
Is the only thing you are considering the sound quality?
What bit rate mp3's do you listen to?
What headphones will you use?
 
The BenQ Joybee 110 is not bad as I have it myself. One of the reasons I bought it was because of it's built-in recharable li-ion battery--very convienient
 
dragon5oul said:
The BenQ Joybee 110 is not bad as I have it myself. One of the reasons I bought it was because of it's built-in recharable li-ion battery--very convienient
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??? They all pretty much have that.
 
Applejuice said:
I was reading alot of reviews on MP3 players, and very few of them give any productive comments on the sound quality. I really think most people have low standards on sound quality as every last review I read, even on like 30 dollar mp3 players, say "excellent sound quality!" Anyways, I was wondering which mp3 player on the market really DOES have the best sound quality. Capatcity is pretty irrelevant to me as long as it sounds good. One of the main problems I've come into in the past is that I can't turn em up loud enough.
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The reason most don't mention sound quality is that the differences in quality between players are often negligible when you compare them to the vast differences in quality between the type of headphones you might use or the encoding, simple as that.

As long as the player has enough juice to drive some decent headphones most will sound pretty nice, but they'll ALL sound like utter crap with a cheap pair of headphones (and they all come with a very cheap pair of headphones no matter what the reviews say).
 
Impulse said:
The reason most don't mention sound quality is that the differences in quality between players are often negligible when you compare them to the vast differences in quality between the type of headphones you might use or the encoding, simple as that.

As long as the player has enough juice to drive some decent headphones most will sound pretty nice, but they'll ALL sound like utter crap with a cheap pair of headphones (and they all come with a very cheap pair of headphones no matter what the reviews say).
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That's why most people here, including myself, don't judge any MP3 player based on how it sounds using the stock headphones. Reviews that do talk about sound quality often point out what headphones they're using so you can judge the impact they have on sound quality versus the source.
 
I know, that's why I said that to the original poster... My point is that when buying a player, as long as you're getting a decent quality one, there are a lot more things to look at before sound quality, becuase the differences in that area aren't large enough. Player controls are one of my biggest priorities in a portable imo, nothing worse than fumbling for minutes in your pocket just to switch song or change volume.
 
Impulse said:
I know, that's why I said that to the original poster... My point is that when buying a player, as long as you're getting a decent quality one, there are a lot more things to look at before sound quality, becuase the differences in that area aren't large enough. Player controls are one of my biggest priorities in a portable imo, nothing worst than fumbling for minutes in your pocket just to switch song or change volume.
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Well I'd disagree that the differences in playback quality aren't that large, I think there are notable differences in playback quality, but maybe that's just me. :p
 
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