what's you favourite mp3 player

[directhex]

Ah...I feel like such a sleaze...all my music's encoded in *waits for rotten tomato* WMA...

stone him!

[TooNice]

I am wondering when the 6G iPod is going to be released. Earlier iPods did not impress me, but they've come a long way. I particularly like the fact that they tend to be one of the better players when it comes to size/capacity and they include a decent line-out. SQ is subjective, but I put the 5G on par to the iAudio X5 (and slightly above the M:Vision). Good interface, and I also like the fact they support a lossless codec by default (although not FLAC - which is the one I use - but Rockbox fixes that anyway).

Still, it's been a year since I did some testing of DAP. I've not tried the 5.5G iPod (but I hear they've finally implemented gapless without the need for 3rd party firmware).

iRiver, AFAIK, moved back a few steps. For some reason they decided to remove the optical line in their players. Something that differentiated them from most competition.

[finlay666]

Archos AV500-100gb

Only thing out there at the time that could fit my entire music collection in 160-192kbit MP3 and still have room to grow. Installing in windows as a mass storage device is a massive bonus too, i use it instead on USB pen drives.

Mine was my Archos AV480, love it and still keep loads of uni work on it aswell as music and a few tv def dvd ripped films

[timread]

My iRiver H340 with Rockbox and the KOSH experimental H340 build.

The only bad things are my decreasing battery life - I'm back on the original battery after my 2200mAh one started expanding in the case and the fact it's a bit big these days!

I think I'll run it until it dies. I love it, nothing else comes close!

[Howard]

I have a Creative Zen Xtra. The lack of FLAC support and I think gapless is the only drawback in my use, and the battery life could be better. other than that it's great to use, and the quality is superb, one of my main reasons for purchase.

I'll only upgrade if one exists that supports all the decent formats, gapless, and has at least a 60GB hard drive. That's not so easy I found

[Whiternoise]

First choice would have to be a sony NW-A3000 got a computer devoted just for the software, and at the time it was a better deal at £150 for 20gb, 2nd choice would have to be an iPod mini the things nearly indestructible.

I have an NWA-3000, which i love..

It looks the business, a 20gb hard drive is enough for me and the sound quality surpasses many of my friend's iPods (using my headphones in both cases). Plus, providing you use Sony's format (which is stupid i admit), the battery lasts forever - plus it comes with a USB charger, so you can rejuice wherever there's a pc near.

I have never intalled the software for it though - i just use SonicStage. Connect is supposed to be a pain in the ass, so i never took the chance.

My only gripe is that it takes a bit longer than it should to display the artist/album lists (probably because it's HDD rather than flash memory).

[BEANFro Elite]

I have a nice Creative ZEN Vision: M, I bought it mainly for the mp3 playback of course and also the video playback.

I researched it for about three weeks prior to purchasing and I can only say the downsides are that it has an embedded battery (well you can change it whilst voiding the warrenty) and you can't put a larger capacity hard-drive in it.

Other than that, its practically perfect in my opnion

[Mike Fishcake]

oceanzone - apologies if I'm way off the mark here, but are you bumping up your post count so you can post links, or do you just like asking questions? :-)

[pr0p4g4nd4]

80gb Black iPod 5.5th gen, with Etymotics ER-6i earphones.

[MadduckUK]

closest was my Rio Carbon with the Developers cut firmware. but thats partly dead and has been reduced to being a 5gig NAS drive.

currently got a Zen V Plus, and while sound quality is great and getting around it is good, the fact it cant just be a mass storage like the carbon could is annoying (yes i know you can partition and use a bit of it for mass storage, but you ant play from it and it really doesnt have the capacity to go doing partitions on it).

so for now.. no perfect player.

[daza]

I have an NWA-3000, which i love..

It looks the business, a 20gb hard drive is enough for me and the sound quality surpasses many of my friend's iPods (using my headphones in both cases). Plus, providing you use Sony's format (which is stupid i admit), the battery lasts forever - plus it comes with a USB charger, so you can rejuice wherever there's a pc near.

I have never intalled the software for it though - i just use SonicStage. Connect is supposed to be a pain in the ass, so i never took the chance.

My only gripe is that it takes a bit longer than it should to display the artist/album lists (probably because it's HDD rather than flash memory).

Gotta agree with you on the looks, yeh I've got sonicstage installed still find its a bit slow at times but its ok I use acc on all my mp3 players and it still sounds better on the sony with the same song.

[Theo]

Mine's a Dell Axim x51v 624Mhz. Had it just over a year now and it's been fantastic. I use TCPMP for playing mp3s and divx files... while playing Solitaire.

[Agent]

My iRiver H340 with Rockbox and the KOSH experimental H340 build.

The only bad things are my decreasing battery life - I'm back on the original battery after my 2200mAh one started expanding in the case and the fact it's a bit big these days!

I think I'll run it until it dies. I love it, nothing else comes close!

Oh yes
H3x0 series from iRiver are probbaly the best MP3 players I have come across. Rockbox only helps matters

[g8ina]

another iRiver H120 here, 3 years old and still great !

[spiral out]

My sony NW-HD1 is still going strong after 2 and half years and the battery life is still near perfect. Don't have a problem with sonicstage either.

[abeacock]

I have Rockbox running on my Archos Jukebox Recorder 20 - bought in 2002 and still going strong.