Advice for High Quality Portable Music Player...

[rockp5233]

Hi everyone,

Please I need your comments and suggestion... I want to buy a very good portable music player and my choices are, for now :

FiiO X3 or XUELIN IHIFI770

Budget +/- $ 200 USD and I absolutely need FLAC reading capability...

Thank you in advance for your help !!!

[pierrelebel]

I recommend you visit a store in your area where you can see and hear prior to purchasing and paying.

[recped]

I'm in the same situation! The FiiO has a lot of great reviews.

I've looked at a few others (HiFiMan) that are really nice but way out of your price range (and mine as well).

One thing for sure....I am not at all excited about Neil's Pono player.

Please post back when you make a decision.

My big problem with a high end player is that it will drive me to wanting an equally high end pair of phones to go with it!

On a related subject, what are you using as a media player for your desktop? I was using Monkey Audio for a few years but as my collection of digital tracks has grown (now at almost 150,000 tracks) the performance has become quite dismal. I've tried a few others (VLC, Foobar) but the interface on those is not as appealing.

[recped]

---

@pierrelebel wrote:

I recommend you visit a store in your area where you can see and hear prior to purchasing and paying.

---

Unfortunately the selection at retail is generally very limited, most stores carry iPods, cheap clones and not much else.

There are quite a few options if you want to spend $500 - $1500 but in the $200 range it's a bit limited.

[rockp5233]

Hi Recped,

Yes I will post when ''THE'' decision will be make... About review, for what I can find and read on www, Fiio X3 have the best reviews exept for the control buttons, the previous model and the X5 have a more ''friendly user'' design !... But all other caracteristics are really at the top of the list, compare to XUELIN, QLS and others.

About the earphone, I have a friend working at Sennheiser so the choice (and price) should not be a problem !

... I look around for the Pono and it seems to me another gadget to sell music under another format... And the price is not attractive at all !

... Select a good Media Player will be my weekend goal this week ! 

[bigscotty]

---

@recped wrote:

On a related subject, what are you using as a media player for your desktop? I was using Monkey Audio for a few years but as my collection of digital tracks has grown (now at almost 150,000 tracks) the performance has become quite dismal. I've tried a few others (VLC, Foobar) but the interface on those is not as appealing.

I used Monkey Audio for a few years but kept on having issues. I finally bit the bullet and purchased (yes, you have to purchase this) J River Media Centre. 

I have since paid for 3 upgrades, because it is really that good. If fact, it's really the only competition to Apple based software available. 

The sound is superior to every other PC based player available and it plays every format I know of for a PC based machine.

I use a very high quality sound card, (a couple of choices are available for under $250) and headphones. Or, I run the media through JRiver and my sound card, to a receiver Dac and speakers (were about $1000, but cleared on eBay for about US $200.

I want to upgrade my DAC, but I can find much, below US $350. And, if I'm spending that much, I may spend more. The one caveat I have, and I have yet to hear it, is the AudioQuest DragonFly, which is very inexpensive, and get's fantastic professional reviews.

If you decide on something, drop me a note. please.

Google JRiver Media Player & AudioQuest DragonFly for a lot more information.

Cheers;

Scott

 

[reallynicestamps]

And then there is the old saying:

You can have it good.

You can have it fast.

You can have it cheap.

But you can only pick two.

[recped]

I'll settle for good! I haven't bought any new quality audio gear since the mid-70's and my hearing is too damaged to warrant the really big bucks........

Did some window shopping last night, the Fiio X1 looks pretty nice and has been getting very good reviews. It's at a price that I think I might be able to get one without fear of disappointment. Any deficiencies it might have can be attributed to it's "cheap" price.

One thing bothers me, if I get a quality player I`ll feel forced to upgrade my buds, the price range on those is as bad as with the players and to make matters worse there are literally hundreds to choose from.

@bigscotty

Thanks for the suggestions, I`ll check them out.

[rockp5233]

Hi Recped... Finally my decision was made today and I go with the Fiio X3... 🙂

My offer of $ 155 was accepted few minutes ago... I'm really happy

Also I will probably go with the JR River ($ 50) as media manager.

Have a nice evening !

[recped]

Well I went for the X1 as I am "frugal".

It's a giant step up for me, I'm quite happy so far (48 hours). Only issue is the screen size, very difficult for my old tired eyes.

JRiver seems good as well after an short spin. It used a lot of resources to build the initial Library (130k tracks) but it recovered well and seems to be running with very modest RAM usage.