I'm doing some travelling in Thailand at the moment, and sorely missing my music collection and nice rig which is gathering dust back at home. One thing going for Thailand is cheap CD's, though 
Can't buy precision gear and lug it around in a backpack and need to buy some music, so I think I will buy an iRiver H140 which has optical in, and find a portable CD player with optical out.
I've read that the H series has a comparable if not superior DAC (I've never found a spec, though heard mention of an Armadeus DAC?) to the iPod (and clones), and it does on the fly ripping of CDs to MP3 (no computer needed - requirement!. It also has decent a decent sound from the headphone out socket.
There are new iRiver models coming out soon but none have stated they have optical IO. Also looking at the Nomad Jukebox 3, which is advertised as having 'audiophile' sound quality and low SNR.
I assume that by using a CD player with opt out and the iRiver with opt in I'll get as good an MP3 as I'll find. Hopefully it lets me rip to .wav or something though!
Any suggestions for a (cheap?) portable cd player with optical out that will fit in my backpack? Is jitter an issue with this kind of pure digital transfer or is jitter only a playback issue?
Can't buy precision gear and lug it around in a backpack and need to buy some music, so I think I will buy an iRiver H140 which has optical in, and find a portable CD player with optical out.
I've read that the H series has a comparable if not superior DAC (I've never found a spec, though heard mention of an Armadeus DAC?) to the iPod (and clones), and it does on the fly ripping of CDs to MP3 (no computer needed - requirement!
. It also has decent a decent sound from the headphone out socket. There are new iRiver models coming out soon but none have stated they have optical IO. Also looking at the Nomad Jukebox 3, which is advertised as having 'audiophile' sound quality and low SNR.
I assume that by using a CD player with opt out and the iRiver with opt in I'll get as good an MP3 as I'll find. Hopefully it lets me rip to .wav or something though!
Any suggestions for a (cheap?) portable cd player with optical out that will fit in my backpack? Is jitter an issue with this kind of pure digital transfer or is jitter only a playback issue?