Best portable CD player?

[zagisrule!]

I am looking to get a portable CD player and have been looking for something under $200 which seems to leave me alot of options.

Sony has some nice units in the $150-$200 range that are made of aluminum or magnesium and seem to be upper-level.

I don't really see any competitive products in this price range, especially since I want sound quality not battery life or silly features. I want a more durable unit that is not made out of flimsy plastic if possible, I am going to college soon and I don't want to have to buy another portable anytime soon after this.

I had a Panasonic unit that was alright, nothing spectacular soundwise but it was broken in under a year because of the cheap plastic body wearing out.


Any reccomendations?





-Matt

[NITRO]

Hi Matt;
You must check IRIVER IMP-550.About 200$, magnesium housing, upgradable software and looks stylish.Sound is also good but you must change the headphones.Sound quality of the headphones given with the cdplayer is below average.



-Türker

[motherone]

This might be an obvious question, but have you thought about an MP3 player that can play back loss-less compressed audio? Far more convenient, and usually smaller than a CD player.

[zagisrule!]

The iRiver units look great...problem is where can I get the 550?

I can find the 350 and someplaces the 400 but where can I get the 550 or 900?

As far as normal MP3 player, it would actually be less convinient because I would prefer to just be able to toss a CD in there from my collection rather than have to connect to PC and download songs.

And with a CD player that has also MP3 capability I still have the option of putting higher bitrate MP3's on it.

Size is not really an issue, I just want decent sound quality, so I would prefer a line out (the iRiver units have them) to bypass the internal headphone amp as I already have a good headamp (BB 627 and 634).

Also have good phones already...

That is something most puzzling to me? Even the most expensive players almost always come with crappy headphones or earbuds...what is the logic behind that?


-Matt

[motherone]

I would guess all the money goes into the player and they throw in the headphones so you can listen to your new toy out of the box.

For what it's worth, I have a Creative Zen Touch 40GB and have my entire CD collection (more than 200 CD's) ripped at 320kbps. I still have about 15 or 20 gigs free on the player.

With lossless WMA or one of the other compression schemes, you're looking at about 300-350 megs/CD, so you could fit 120 or so on a 40 gig device. There's something fantastically convenient about being able to carry your entire CD collection with you...

Also, my creative sounds pretty good with my Pimeta and PPA headphone amps. No line out, but still sounds pretty nice.

[planet10]

Originally posted by motherone
With lossless WMA or one of the other compression schemes, you're looking at about 300-350 megs/CD, so you could fit 120 or so on a 40 gig device. There's something fantastically convenient about being able to carry your entire CD collection with you...

I ripped my entire CD collection -- about a 100 -- into my dedicated iMac, they took just under 30 GB in Apple Lossless format.

dave

[motherone]

Was it a direct WAV? Or was it lossless compression?

[planet10]

Originally posted by motherone
Was it a direct WAV? Or was it lossless compression?

Apple Lossless ... almost doubles your capacity with no loss of quality.

dave

[zagisrule!]

I'm going to look into the HD based players.

Who makes the best units sound quality wise?

iRiver and Creative have some neat ones...




-Matt

[NITRO]

Do you think really lossless?
MP3-320Kbps, WMA, ATRAC or APPLE software looks good on papers but they can't give such a quality in practical.I tried many times to rip cd even with the highest bitrate but still feel the difference from an audio cd.So if i got cd anywhere near to me i choose cd to listen, if i haven't then MP3.



Türker