I want something to cover a few different situations. Need hi res for listening at home with headphones (must support FLAC) but also want to be able to use it in the car, preferably via USB but Bluetooth would be helpful. I like the look of the Fiio players but their lineup is very confusing. There seem to be some decent Sony players out there too. Are these two brands the only decent options out there?
MP3 players (again). Help please.
I think Fiio is still the best bet (and no I am not under commission from Steve) and the choice very much depends on your budget. I have an M11 Pro which was their top end model a few years ago and it’s very good (especially with the Fiio earbuds which were almost as expensive as the player). Not looked at their lineup for a while but I think anything in the M series is good – just pick the model that suits your budget. Steve can probably advise better.
I also have a Sony and whilst the sound quality is good, I find they tend to put on too much proprietary interface stuff which makes it a little more cumbersome to use / load with files.
There are other brands but I don’t know much about. If I recall there was a group test in one of the Hi-Fi magazines recently – I’ll see if I can find.
Here you go…..
https://www.whathifi.com/best-buys/portable/best-portable-music-players
Unless you have snowflake ears, buy an Android phone, stick a big SSD in the slot (you can get up to a terrabyte, I think, whatever that is), download Musicolet (totally free, no ads, no nothing) which turns your device into a dedicated fully-featured mp3 player. Buy a pair of RealMe airbuds 2.
Is the right answer except the RealMe which I bought on your rec and returned – maybe I have weird ears but they just didn’t fit and consequently were devoid of bass.
OTOH I took the saucy route and found them marvelous. Nyah nah na na nah, so there! You should see a specialist old chum. Obvious case of oddlugtitis.
Twang’s ears look like fungus on a rotting log.
About as much use too. Musicolet is excellent though. They were not alone though – I have been through about 10 sets of headphones and not found any I like.
A shame. The RealMe buds have cleverly shaped their tiny metal grille thingies (that the rubber grommets cover) oval, which is actually the profile of a normal ear canal, and I find them so comfortable as to be unnoticeable. This, coupled with a phenomenal bass (tweakable within the app) and three-level noise cancelling makes them the best music/lughole interface I’ve ever had.
You’re making me want to try them again.
Remember to put the round, soft ends in your ears this time, not the end with the bluetooth gubbins in it.
OK. At £33 I thought they would be worth a try.
Very good sound and noise cancelling for not much outlay.
What’s not to like.
If you have a Samsung phone you may want to activate Dolby Atmos, which boosts the whole thing to eleven.
Dolby Atmos is clever – it knows what kit you’re listening with and ‘renders’ the appropriate mix.
Headphones or the full Atmos setup get an enveloping soundfield including height info, a 5.1 setup gets ordinary surround sound, and stereo speakers gets a proper 2.0 mix (without any of the usual phasey weirdness from multichannel fold-down).
So you could, in theory, just get everything in Atmos format (if you have deep enough pockets).
I listened to a Sound On Sound podcst with a bloke from Dolby Atmos, it is something to do with Vectors. I had a flashback to A-level Maths.
Thank God. I’ve always wished I could be sure I’m listening to music at the correct height.
I didn’t explain that very well – it was early morning. What I meant was the Atmos file contains all the individual master tracks and the panning information for each playback scenario.
So for a stereo mix, there’s one pan ‘knob’ per track (instrument, vocal, effect) – either left or right.
For 5.1 there are two pans per track – left/right and front/back. So by adjusting both you can make things circle around you.
For Atmos playback there are three pans – left/right, front/back and up/down. So sounds can move in a hemisphere – above you as well.
I once (15+ years ago) went to an AES conference on this stuff and it was pretty amazing.
I remember reading about the height thing somewhere, I just couldn’t resist a silly comment.
It’s amazing to think we can figure out the ‘z’ (you sure about this?) vector of where a sound is coming from using horizontal earholes though, as you say.
Most of the Fiio models (bar the bottom-of-the-range units) run Android, so you can make the User Interface whatever you want. You don’t have to run the Fiio music player app.
About half of the Fiio range had AKM audio converters fitted until a year ago, then the AKM factory burned down. They have had to redesign the range to use other audio chips. That’s probably why it seems a bit confusing – a mix of old and new models.
The audio stages and headphone amplifier are the main reasons to buy a DAP rather than a phone. If you use Bluetooth headphones, you could buy an Android phone instead.
Make sure you get one with an up-to-date version of Bluetooth (at minimum AptX, or the latest version 5.1 which can support hi-res lossless).
I’m around all day, post here or PM me if you need further help.
PS I do not work for Fiio and never have – I got out of that game before Fiio arrived – but they are brilliant (better and cheaper than anything I ever designed).
I have the same Fiio model as chrisf above. Whilst it sounds aceballs I’ve experienced issues with playlist ease of use, even with tools that work brilliantly on a desktop machine, like MediaMonkey (for the built-in software the paylist functionality is frankly very poor).
I installed and used the MediaMonkey Android App. It’s not nearly as good as the desktop version.
Can’t remember the last time I played music on my phone actually, but maybe I’ll try out Musicolet.
You really can’t go wrong with Musicolet. It’s free, not linked to the internet, no ads, and the only drawback is it has too many features (at least, for me), and the equaliser is a waste of space. But it’s easy to navigate, displays the album art well, and really does turn your phone into everything the iPod thought it was. As a decades-long iPod snob, this is quite a change for me.
And if you don’t like it, scrap it!
I have a Fiio (crappy early version m100), but rarely use it. Android smart phone is fine for me (Pixel 4a)
(I also have an iPod that still works)
I have a classic iPod that I cherish but am aware that some day I will have to move with the times, sniff.
I have an iPhone too. No one seems to be able to tell me how many songs I can store on it. Anyone…?
I’m about to flog a brand new still shink wrapped Classic iPod if you want a backup. I bought it as a backup but I don’t need it anymore.
Depends how much memory the iPhone has and the quality of your music files
As Dai says, it all come down to memory size and file bit rate.
Files encoded at 256kbps take 115MB per hour.
A 4-minute track is just under 8MB, so that’s 128 tracks per GB.
Classic iPods are still available, not much more expensive than when they were new. You’re not the only one who’s a fan.
I still have mine, and it’s a nice object, but for sheer convenience, capacity and features (especially searching) – with no discernible lack in sound quality – my phone makes it a museum object. Also, I’m a bluetooth convert. Hate earbuds with those damn cables.
No love here for Astell & Kern? I have an AK7 and it’s brill.
A mate lent me an A&K – it was wonderful. Well out of my price range though.
The fellas at What Hi-Fi? certainly like them. 6 or 7 of the top 10 up there are A&K.
I’m liking the Fiio M7 but there’s also a thing called the Surfans F20 that looks interesting.
The M7 is not Android based, if that bothers you – Hobson’s choice of apps.
The Surfans thing, with its jog-wheel and small screen, looks like something I designed 20 years ago.
I’m not looking to stream with it just play from local storage. I’ve read that the M7 interface isn’t intuitive at first but you do adapt. It seems very well priced for what you get.
Indeed it is – 25 quid less than I paid for my old X3 II.
I don’t have a problem with the UI – I play albums or folders in full. I don’t have a whizzy smartphone to compare it with, though.
Any idea if it plays nicely if used via USB in a car? Be nice that it works directly although bluetooth may be fine. I think the car I’m getting supports hi-res bluetooth. I do wonder though if it’s even relevant given road and wind noise in the vehicle.
I have no idea about USB operation, sadly, and there are many variables.
I do find having a device which can play everything a real bonus. Other mp3 players I have known would only play mp3 files, and not the Flacs I ripped from CD, or the m4a files I grabbed with get-iPlayer. Having to transcode in order to play them on the move was a faff.
My car is so old (>5 years) it still have a multi-pin iPod dock. I have never owned an iPod.
Recreate the iPod experience by carrying a brick in your pocket, tying your hands to it, and sticking your fingers in your ears.
When you combine the “mobile phones are horrid” thread with this one, it’s sort of a portal into a parallel universe.
Guilty as charged, Bob.
BT are going to turn off their 3G service this year, so I will be forced to accept my lad’s hand-me-down iPhone 7, or buy myself another SIM-free noddy handset which supports 4G.
You can take my 3G phone, but you’ll have to wrestle the Fiio from my cold, dead, hand.
Haha yes. I think phones are amazing and I use mine for all kinds of useful stuff, especially listening to music. To my ears it sounds better than anything else I ever heard and I love it. I dreamed of this when I was a teenager.
And there was me, dreaming of Emma Peel.
“I use mine for all kinds of useful stuff, especially listening to music” – this has kept me awake all night. So many possibilities, so many of them -frankly – unedifying.
You can keep that in your imagination…
and to HP above: YOUR MUM.
Oh I say.
Thanks to all for the advice. I’ve ordered an M7 and a 256 GB card.
KERCHING! Another 5% for fents….
256GB!? *snorts derisively*
Ha! I was going to go 128 but would never dare have told anyone here!
Actually, I’ve fallen into a terrible place now. About 5 or 6 years ago I ripped our entire CD collection to FLAC. Did 500 or so and they’re all on a WD drive on our home network. Since then we’ve only bought a couple of used CDs and I never got round to ripping them. I started to wonder about cutting out the ripping bit and just buying the files.
I started investigating ‘Hi Res audio’. Oh dear.
Last night I visited HD Tracks and downloaded 1 album just to compare it to what I ripped from the CD. I think it’s better. What have I done!!
500 CDs?! *snorts derisively*
I went through this a year ago ie I have so far relied on iPods and iTunes (including refurbished ones) but they aren’t going to last forever so perhaps I should look at alternatives. So did lots of online research and decided to treat my self to the recently released AK SR25. It sounded good, better than the ipod (well you would hope so), but transferring music to it was not at all straightforward and the only way I could see to use playlists was to create them on the device. I spent hours trying to get it to work for me, I even posted on here! I downloaded various 3rd party softwares. In the end I admitted defeat and it lay round unused until, after 6 months the back of the player spontaneously came off and I returned it.
So am back to the ipods but if anyone has positive experience with managing music libraries with other devices, and can point me in the right direction, I am game up for another try!
Drag and drop your albums direct onto your Android phone, play through Musicolet (which does everything you can ask of a music player). If you have a Mac, download Macdroid (free) to make it talk to your phone.
I am certainly going to try this. The problem with using a phone is that you cant click on to the next track with it in your pocket like you can with music players. Small things but it is how i use my iPod!
Yes you can – see bigstevie’s comment below. You can also pause, and adjust the noise cancelling.
Excellent. I shall investigate. Thank you.
Samsung phone and realme air2 buds here. To skip to next track, tap the bud twice. It’s like magic!