Portable digital music player for £500 or less

TTony

bingefeller said:

Fretwired said:

bingefeller said:

As my iPod is on it's last legs I'm after a new non-Apple digital music player for £500 or less.  

Suggestions please

What's wrong with it? You can buy new hard drives, batteries and so forth quite in expensively. I have a second generation iPod still going strong.

the battery is done on it.  Mine is a 4th Generation iPod touch.  

I've done plenty of battery replacements on various iPods, though the touch is a little trickier.

So it'd cost you £29 to get it fixed...
https://www.ipodrepairs.co.uk/fix/ipod-touch-4th-generation

bingefeller

TTony said:

bingefeller said:

Fretwired said:

bingefeller said:

As my iPod is on it's last legs I'm after a new non-Apple digital music player for £500 or less.  

Suggestions please

What's wrong with it? You can buy new hard drives, batteries and so forth quite in expensively. I have a second generation iPod still going strong.

the battery is done on it.  Mine is a 4th Generation iPod touch.  

I've done plenty of battery replacements on various iPods, though the touch is a little trickier.

So it'd cost you £29 to get it fixed...
https://www.ipodrepairs.co.uk/fix/ipod-touch-4th-generation

Yeah but.....a new music player for xmas.......  

Grumpyrocker

bingefeller said:

Grumpyrocker said:

Sansa Clip+ with Rockbox installed and a decent sized MicroSD. Cheap as chips but with excellent sound quality. 

Is this the one you mean?

Yes. Give this a read: http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/sansa-clip-measured.html

bingefeller

Grumpyrocker said:

bingefeller said:

Grumpyrocker said:

Sansa Clip+ with Rockbox installed and a decent sized MicroSD. Cheap as chips but with excellent sound quality. 

Is this the one you mean?

Yes. Give this a read: http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/sansa-clip-measured.html

Cheers!

Freebird

Heartfeltdawn said:

I wouldn't spend £500 on a player if I didn't have speakers or phones on the same level. 

Yep, I fully agree. It's a balancing act, and weak IEMs negate any improvements at the player end. Even with that in mind, the phones have the edge when it comes to the law of diminishing returns, as long as your source audio is "good enough". It also makes it easier to evaluate the various players once you have got a decent set of earphones sorted out.

Wazmeister

I might be able to help you here as I have literally walked this journey for years...

Ive owned and tried em all.

THE best out there is Astell and Kern imho. Amazing sound quality, and one of the very few that is Mac compatible.

Im even thinking of upgrading my superb A&K 100 II for one of the more expensive models.

Oustanding sound reproduction.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00L3NASWI/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Freebird

Wazmeister said:

I might be able to help you here as I have literally walked this journey for years...

Ive owned and tried em all.

THE best out there is Astell and Kern imho. Amazing sound quality, and one of the very few that is Mac compatible.

Im even thinking of upgrading my superb A&K 100 II for one of the more expensive models.

Oustanding sound reproduction.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00L3NASWI/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

As a matter of interest what are you plugging into it?

bingefeller

Wazmeister said:

I might be able to help you here as I have literally walked this journey for years...

Ive owned and tried em all.

THE best out there is Astell and Kern imho. Amazing sound quality, and one of the very few that is Mac compatible.

Im even thinking of upgrading my superb A&K 100 II for one of the more expensive models.

Oustanding sound reproduction.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00L3NASWI/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Is Amazon the best place to buy from?  Richer Sounds are the only local stockist so I will call in and see what they have in stock.  I'm guessing I might be able to get one on Amazon a bit cheaper.

Gagaryn

I've been considering getting one of these too, been pushed even closer to making the leap now that iPhones don't even have headphone sockets. I've not tried any but from my research, and as others have said, Astell&Kern looks like the way to go.

The SR15 looks to been the sweet spot regarding specs vs price  - it's a brand new model (released August) so out specs a lot of the more expensive older models. As well as dual DACS and all that other good stuff for excellent sound, it has a faster processor so the UI runs quicker - sluggishness is a complaint with a lot of the older models.

bingefeller

Gagaryn said:

I've been considering getting one of these too, been pushed even closer to making the leap now that iPhones don't even have headphone sockets. I've not tried any but from my research, and as others have said, Astell&Kern looks like the way to go.

The SR15 looks to been the sweet spot regarding specs vs price  - it's a brand new model (released August) so out specs a lot of the more expensive older models. As well as dual DACS and all that other good stuff for excellent sound, it has a faster processor so the UI runs quicker - sluggishness is a complaint with a lot of the older models.

Yeah that one looks good, I was reading the review on whathifi.com and it got a sterling review.  

Gagaryn

Well today I bit the bullet.

I took a wander round to Richer Sounds after work to have a proper look. They didn't have a SR15 in stock but they did have an AK70 MkII in so I had a listen to that with my Shure SE535s.

I was completely blown away! It's now clear that the iPhone has not been driving the Shures particularly well. I had expected the Astell&Kern to sound better than the iPhone (obv) but I really didn't expect such a huge difference.

Richer Sounds have the AK70 at £529 just now but that's not cheap enough when the brand new SR15 is £599. They said they could get a SR15 in by the end of the week, but being one for instant gratification I was tempted just to pull the trigger with Amazon for delivery tomorrow; I mentioned that and they instantly offered me £50 off the SR15 if I ordered with them - I jumped at that.

Looking forward to getting it - in the meantime I've ordered a balanced cable for my SE535s; not sure how much difference that will make over the fitted unbalanced cable but the discount more than paid for it - and my current cable is pretty grotty! 

Johnnyseven

Does anyone have any experience of the Fiio players? I'm particularly interested in the M7 or M9.

digitalscream

Well, if anyone else is considering something somewhat cheaper, this is a bargain:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SANDISK-SANSA-CLIP-8gb-MP3-Player-WITH-RADIO-Black/113233277069?hash=item1a5d3ab08d:g:OgEAAOSwfOJbjrmg:rk:4:pf:0

8GB Clip v1, with Rockbox already installed.

Still my absolute favourite portable audio thingy.

Rocker

Congrats @Gagaryn on your purchase.  You have or will have soon a very fine sounding system for way less than £1K.  You did well haggling but now is the time to enjoy your kit.  

A lot of people think spending £1K on a portable music system is crazy.  I don't.  As Oscar Wilde wrote "a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing".  Over time you will find that you got great kit dirt cheap as you bought good and thus you only bought once.  

duotone

@Rocker ;

Think you will appreciate the first 2mins30 of this video

https://youtu.be/7PveOboMyw4

Gagaryn

Rocker said:

Congrats @Gagaryn on your purchase.  You have or will have soon a very fine sounding system for way less than £1K.  You did well haggling but now is the time to enjoy your kit.  

A lot of people think spending £1K on a portable music system is crazy.  I don't.  As Oscar Wilde wrote "a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing".  Over time you will find that you got great kit dirt cheap as you bought good and thus you only bought once.  

Not all that mush less - just added a 400GB card to my purchases. So £269, for the headphones, £550 for the player, £118 for the card and a probably wasted £34 on a balanced mmcx cable - £971. I feel sick! That said - I'm saving money by not having bought a new phone since the iPhone 6S - that's my mental justification.

Grumpyrocker

I've spent quite a bit of money of the years on players. I have a Cowon S9 and a Cowon J3, both several hundred pounds at the time.

Neither sounds better than my Sansa Clip. 

bingefeller

@Gagaryn the AK70 would come highly recommend by you then?  I wonder if Richer Sounds would do a deal for some SE535s for me as well, the same ones you have?

@Digitalscream Why do so many people use it as a firmware replacement?  What advantages does it have over stock firmwares?

digitalscream

bingefeller said:

@Digitalscream Why do so many people use it as a firmware replacement?  What advantages does it have over stock firmwares?

Well, in the old days a lot of it was to do with the fact that it supported all file formats (including FLAC), which a lot of players didn't. On top of that, there's a very good EQ function (both graphic and parametric) and a decent compressor (at least, there was in the beta version I installed ages ago before my Clip ended up in the washing machine). ReplayGain is another good feature, along with gapless playback.

Basically, it takes the very basic Clip firmware, and gives it features that only occur in much more expensive units.

Grumpyrocker

The Clip's original firmware has quite a low file limit for its database. That was my main reason for installing Rockbox, but as Digitalscream says there are other good functions in there too. I like the crossfeed options too.

It's quite funny using such a small player attached to my AKG 712 Pro phones.