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[Sapagrino]

Would love to leave ALAC and the FLAC-less iPod behind. 

Can anything challenge the 160GB iPod for mobile capacity in a similar size and price ($249)?

[syndromeofadown]

The FiiO X3 portable player has 8GB for 200 dollars and can take a 128GB microSD for around 100 dollars.
It costs a little more money for little less space but:
- It has line out
- It has digital out
- It will play almost anything
- It has built in headphone amp
- It can be used as a DAC with your PC
- It uses a USB cable for charging instead of a proprietary cable
- There is no internal hard drive
- It plays 24/192
- It doesn't need a proprietary software to transfer music to it.

Way out of your price range but worth noting is the FiiO X5 for 400 dollars:
- It will take 2 microSD cards up to 512 GB each
- It is an asynchronous DAC
- It supports DSD

[Sapagrino]

Thanks so much for your detailed post about the FiiO X3 and X5.  Definitely something I am going to look into further.  I haven't found much in the way of either 256 or 512 GB cards yet, but good to know it will support them.  Would be nice if 256GB were common/affordable as that exceeds the Classic's capacity.

If I am going the way of flash cards, I suppose I will need to compare FiiO to the Pono for overall sound, even though the FiiO will clearly have the edge on overall feature set and DSD.

Thanks again.

[InflatableMouse]

Streaming.

I know its not exactly mobile capacity but depending on the mobile data rates and coverage of your area, for the price of an ipod or fiio, you could have several years of mobile data added to your card.

[Sapagrino]

Definitely a place for streaming in my mobile solutions.  Following would be great:
1) entire collection streams in either lossless or high quality mp3 to my iPhone, depending on coverage.
2) entire collection also with me on a separate portable device(s), with Flash cards as necessary.

As of now, I can't even get a reliable stream during my commute using either Pandora/Rhapsody, so do need #2.

How do you stream?  From your MC library / NAS somehow, and from MC playlists?  Lossless?  Tag (or at least rate) remotely?  Thanks.

[JimH]

Take a look at the wiki topic on Media Network.

MC can serve files to JRemote.  You need to turn on Media Network.  The router needs to allow access (wiki topic on Network Access).

[BigJ]

My phone is close:

HTC One M8: 32GB + SDCARD: 64GB + Thumb Drive: 64GB (required a $4 usb cable).

And I use the n7player app which handles FLAC fine.

Plus, you could have multiple SDCARDs and/or multiple Thumbdrives (or even larger 128GB drives) if you wanted.

[Jettgod]

Hi, I have also been looking around for a large hard drive/Flash MP3 player to store my FLAC collection. I currently have the Cowon X7 which is also a 160Gb device, - brilliant sound but a quirky device! Sadly this, like the iPod Classic (as of today) is also no longer being made.

Cowon have announced in the last few months a new high quality player called the "Plenu 1"  with 128Gb onboard memory and capacity for a further 128Gb of Flash memory........... no idea when this will hit the streets, or at what price!!

Other than this you would be looking at the brilliant and very very HQ Astell and Kern devices, (these in one guise or another) have the capacity you and I want, but at prices from about £600 - £2200.

Not sure I can justify that for a mobile player, but would love to hear one!!

Jettgod

[fauxfreshness]

It was pretty funny seeing some of the replies, as they seemed "reasonable" and nobody attacked.  I've been on hardware geek sites for a bit and nobody would mention anything like streaming, and the use of a phone would also "require" the use of 18 different DAC, amp, and headphone combinations.  :-)

As for me, I've had to give up on conventional portable devices because the best, and most reliable sound I've found has been my Galaxy Note 3 using a FiiO E18 Kunlun DAC/Amp with AKG Q701 or (shocker!) Bose QC15 headphones.  I've been slowly re-ripping my library and replacing oxidized and damaged discs with new ones.  I was going to use straight AIFF files for all my normal CDs, since my music production and DJ software supports those files natively, but I'm going to FLAC since Android is a bit "dim" about AIF/AIFF files.

Since I got the E18, I've been really, really happy with the build quality of it, and figured I'd go for the X5 myself.  This will let me leave some "basic" playlists on my phone along with more videos, and let me review stuff I'm working on with the X5.  Plus it's WAY more consistent to sync with the cards using readers than the different Android devices "interpreting" the inbound sync traffic and taking a few passes before getting the playlists right.  Plus with Google not being big fans of directly removable storage on their own devices, and the vendors taking FOREVER to make 64 GB devices widely available (much less go to 128 GB or more built-in) I think I'll just stick to fast microSDXC cards that I can use in just about anything else with an X5.

[syndromeofadown]

Can anything challenge the 160GB iPod for mobile capacity in a similar size and price ($249)?

I just dug out some old sansa players: Clip, Clip Zip, e200, Fuze.
They all have Rockbox firmware on them and can handle a 64GB SD card.
I don't have a 128GB to test but have read that they work too.
These players can still be picked up for under 50 dollars and with a 128GB SD card you would have a >$150 ipod replacement.
Building the database may be quite time consuming though.

FIIO now has an X1 player which will take a 128GB SD card.
I just ordered one as a gift for someone for $109.
I should be able to try it out around Christmas and give an opinion on it.
It's twice as much as a sansa but looks likes its 10 times as nice.
 

[kstuart]

Well, once someone allowed a separate DAC/Amp, then separate small boxes are allowed, and...

... my WD 2TB external hard drive is smaller than my phone, and connects to it using a USB-ToGo cable.  You could listen to the 2TB of music (and video) on the phone using a high quality music player like Neutron, or you could add a third box for a DAC/Amp...

[Ferdi]

Check the Echobox - releases sometime soon apparently. Streams and supposedly will support micro sd
http://www.head-fi.org/t/749496/echobox-the-unveiling-ces-2015

[kstuart]

Check the Echobox - releases sometime soon apparently. Streams and supposedly will support micro sd
http://www.head-fi.org/t/749496/echobox-the-unveiling-ces-2015

The marketing-speak from that post was very creepy.

[beats_works]

Check the Echobox - releases sometime soon apparently. Streams and supposedly will support micro sd
http://www.head-fi.org/t/749496/echobox-the-unveiling-ces-2015

"Right now the 64GB model sits at $450, but that's not quite official yet. We're also planning on offering a combo deal with our all-titanium earphones (retail $199, all-silver cable, too, which everyone at CES is loving for its awesome flexibility; looks and sounds pretty sexy, too, very balanced with just a hint of v-shape without sacrificing transparency or detail in the mids) for $549, basically a $100 discount."

+ The Flask form factor

Thanks but I'll stick with X5.2

 

[timwtheov]

"You could listen to the 2TB of music (and video) on the phone using a high quality music player like Neutron, or you could add a third box for a DAC/Amp..."


Regarding kstuart's post from July: how would you connect both of these (i.e., external hdd + amp/DAC) to a smartphone? Wouldn't both require the USB input on the phone? I ask because if I could use the 2 TB WD Passport + one of the Fiio headphone amps/DACs (or something equivalent pricewise), I'd be very happy, I think. 

[beats_works]

Well you would have to use a USB hub.   Getting a HUB, DAC & Hardrive to work on one USB OTG connection?  Good luck with that.

If you MUST have 2tb on the go then Consider X5.2 which supports OTG (to connect external drive), has high quality DAC built in, and can line out to amp of your choice.

My current setup is X5.2 wit 2x 128gb SD cards out to Fiio E12 (Mont Blanc) > Aurisonics 2.5 (with spinfits tips). 

[timwtheov]

Thanks, beats_works.  I might try that.  I was looking at the X5.2, too, along with the Pono, and even the godawfully expensive Cowon Pleneu 1.  2 TB wouldn't be absolutely necessary, but I do have a lot of hi-res classical files, and those take up some space.  Anyway, thanks again. 

[blgentry]

My current setup is X5.2 wit 2x 128gb SD cards out to Fiio E12 (Mont Blanc) > Aurisonics 2.5 (with spinfits tips). 

How is the X5's build and user interface?  I have the X1.  It's build quality, at first glace, is superb, especially at it's price point ($100).  But after using it for a month or two (very low use) the spinner wheel became increasingly in accurate.  Now (and for many months leading up to now) the spinner is so bad that it's almost not usable.  It tends to go the opposite way when spinning it slowly.  So you'll be scrolling *down* a list, and as you slow down it will start scrolling the other way.  The center "click" button is also horribly inaccurate and causes the spinner to move one direction or the other most of the time.  I usually have to click at least 2 if not 3 or 4 times to actually get it to "click".

The UI is questionable.  I've learned it's weirdness, but it's really not very good.  I give it something like a 6 out of 10.  Where I give an ipod classic more like a 9.5.

I'm guessing the X5 is built WAY better based on price alone.  But I don't know as I've never seen or used one.  I see seemingly a lot of satisfied people with X5s.  I'm just asking because of my very mixed experience with the X1.  If I could do it again, I'd buy something that I knew would be more reliable.  Not that it's terrible.  I'd just rather spend twice as much if it would keep me from having the issues I'm having now.

Brian.

[beats_works]

The x5.2 UI is definetly not as polished as Ipod but on the other hand I haven't found a single file that I had to convert/resample to get it to play on X5 which was always the case with Ipod  FLAC>ALAC and resample higher rates or IPOD would choke.

Haven't had any issues with build quality - most common complaints seem to be a bit of lag displaying cover art and tweaking file names to get them to display logically.  You can find an answer to just about any question on X5.2 here http://www.head-fi.org/t/765943/fiio-x5-2nd-gen-impressions-and-discussion-thread

In short, no regrets here shelving my Ipod Classic - If someone wants a deal on an Ipod Classic Bundle (after I just critized it) let me know :-0  (I will list on Head-Fi Classifieds when I get off my duff ....)

Ipod Classic 160gb
FIIO Line Out Adapter
Hyundai Car adapter USB/Line-Out
Leather Case
Assorted chargers
Original Box