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Topic: Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB (Read 16660 times) previous topic - next topic
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Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Hello, I'm looking for a good portable FLAC player as I have all my library in this lossless codec and it's a bit annoying needing to convert each album to V2 whenever I like to pass it to my MP3 player.

I'd like it to be around 32GB/64GB in size (~100/200 albums, more than enough for my needs) and I'm planning to use my Sennheiser CX400 II on it.

I currently have the Zune HD Player 32GB (first gen) but it doesn't support FLAC (and set me off $299 at that time).

Thanks a bunch.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #1 –
Your best bet with out-of-the-box FLAC support would probably be Sansa Fuze. If you don't mind using Rockbox, any 32+ GB player supported by it will play your FLACs perfectly fine.
Infrasonic Quartet + Sennheiser HD650 + Microlab Solo 2 mk3. 

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #2 –
Thanks moozooh, I never heard of Rockbox. It looks great! I'll consider Rockbox options as well.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #3 –
Pretty much every Cowon player supports flac too, even the ones without Rockbox.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #4 –
I installed Rockbox on my Fuze some time ago and I have been delighted with it - I much prefer it to the stock firmware.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #5 –
+1 for the Rockboxed Sansa Fuze. Only trouble is a 32gig expansion card will cost as much as the player. Worth a look though

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #6 –
Quote
Hello, I'm looking for a good portable FLAC player as I have all my library in this lossless codec and it's a bit annoying needing to convert each album to V2 whenever I like to pass it to my MP3 player.


Cowon 02 is the way to go it comes in 16 and 32 GB models. The 16 GB has a SDHC expansion slot for an extra 16 GB! It supports almost every open source codec out there including MP3 and AAC and has some other cool features out-of-the box.
budding I.T professional

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #7 –
Cowon S9 or J3. 

They support FLAC, have renowned audio quality, good build quality and reasonable UI.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #8 –
Quote from: HotshotGG on
Quote
Hello, I'm looking for a good portable FLAC player as I have all my library in this lossless codec and it's a bit annoying needing to convert each album to V2 whenever I like to pass it to my MP3 player.


Cowon 02 is the way to go it comes in 16 and 32 GB models. The 16 GB has a SDHC expansion slot for an extra 16 GB! It supports almost every open source codec out there including MP3 and AAC and has some other cool features out-of-the box.

The UI on the O2 looks really miserable... Does it even have gapless playback?

I'd go for Sansa Fuze or Cowon S9, OP. I'd also reconsider the time it takes to transcode, because flac sucks up A LOT more battery life !

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Chef on
Quote from: HotshotGG on
Quote
Hello, I'm looking for a good portable FLAC player as I have all my library in this lossless codec and it's a bit annoying needing to convert each album to V2 whenever I like to pass it to my MP3 player.


Cowon 02 is the way to go it comes in 16 and 32 GB models. The 16 GB has a SDHC expansion slot for an extra 16 GB! It supports almost every open source codec out there including MP3 and AAC and has some other cool features out-of-the box.

The UI on the O2 looks really miserable... Does it even have gapless playback?

I'd go for Sansa Fuze or Cowon S9, OP. I'd also reconsider the time it takes to transcode, because flac sucks up A LOT more battery life !



FWIW if you use Rockbox, the FLAC decoder is one of the most efficient.  On the D2 it takes just 9 MHz for realtime decoding.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #10 –
Quote
I'd go for Sansa Fuze or Cowon S9, OP. I'd also reconsider the time it takes to transcode, because flac sucks up A LOT more battery life !


I disagree here. The Fuze is not bad it support Vorbis and FLAC in a a firmware upgrade or am I thinking of the Clip!?. The S9 is nothing special doesn't support as many codecs as the D2 or 02 does!

Quote
The UI on the O2 looks really miserable... Does it even have gapless playback?


To adress your first concern I disagree. It's an X11 interface and it's very easy to design apps for it's not as pretty as Android, etc but it get's the job done if I wanted something fancier I would "hire" an interior decorator  . To your answer your second question the answer is "no". Gapless can probably be addressed by Cowon in a firmware update though looking at the documentation that comes with the player. Finally the only thing I agree with you here is the battery life, which is probably related to the decoder itself as mentioned above. FLAC takes up a lot of computational power if it's not implemented effciently of course myself and the original poster are both fools for carrying around lossless files on a portable though many would argue haha (It would be easier to transcode to Vorbis and Tremor I would conjecture takes up less decoding power as well) so you would be saving battery life. My friend always asks "Why do you carry lossless files on your player?" my response it always "I am too lazy to transcode I will do it eventually" haha.
budding I.T professional

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #11 –
Not exactly an answer to the original question, but a later step: why not convert all to Apple lossless (ALAC) once and get an iPod? The touch or classic should be fine and have a great UI (for my taste).

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #12 –
just to chime in about battery life on rockbox, i did a battery benchmark on my sansa clip. i got 15h20m playing ogg @ q5. and then i got exactly 1 hour less playing flac level 5. (same album on repeat, volume @ -14db, no eq, all settings stock)

i only did the test out of curiosity. i think lossless on a device with such a tiny capacity is a criminal waste of space.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #13 –
Quote from: KFal on
Not exactly an answer to the original question, but a later step: why not convert all to Apple lossless (ALAC) once and get an iPod? The touch or classic should be fine and have a great UI (for my taste).

It's not an answer at all, and not very useful either. To answer the question "why not", I can think of a couple of possible reasons:
* The OP may prefer to use a free / open-source format such as FLAC, rather than a proprietary one like ALAC.
* Similarly, they may want a player that supports syncing via mass storage or MTP, rather than Apple's proprietary method.
* As for the hardware itself, I quite like my 5.5G iPod and have very little knowledge of other players, but since we're talking about Apple I can offer one interpretation: because their products get more expensive each generation, and they increasingly reward the extra investment with gimmicks, not functionality.

I'm not being anti-Apple for its own sake; I just don't like their newer stuff's emphasis on shiny-shiny, and the way a lot of people go mad over it without questioning anything, e.g. the omission of copy-and-paste. Full disclosure: My MacBook's battery did die a while back.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #14 –
Another vote for the Cowon S9.

Having said that, I have my archive in FLAC but never use FLAC on my S9 since in MTP mode you can transcode on the fly using any number of applications (I use MediaMonkey). You just use your FLAC archive files as the source and your MTP mode player as the destination and you get more music (and possibly battery life) on your portable.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #15 –
Get a Sansa Clip+ + a µSD card.

1. you get proper firmware
2. it's ridiculously cheap
3. the 8GB model + 16GB µSD are probably more than enough
4. when bigger µSD cards come out, you can upgrade the space on the device
5. for the money saved you can buy a proper CPU for your PC that converting to MP3/Vorbis will be lightning quick.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #16 –
My Cowon D2 plays it well. uses an SDHC card so you can go 32GB.
Signature

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #17 –
I finally grabbed the iPod Video 5G 80GB from my girlfriend and installed iPodloader 2.6 along with Rockbox 3.5.1, running like a charm. I'm thinking about expanding the HDD though, I see it contains a 1.8" SATA HDD, could I install a "generic" 250GB one (it's 129€ in my country) or a 500GB one it's released?

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #18 –
Quote from: flacfloc on
I finally grabbed the iPod Video 5G 80GB from my girlfriend and installed iPodloader 2.6 along with Rockbox 3.5.1, running like a charm. I'm thinking about expanding the HDD though, I see it contains a 1.8" SATA HDD, could I install a "generic" 250GB one (it's 129€ in my country) or a 500GB one it's released?

Rockbox:
Not with that bootloader and that release of Rockbox.
Use the official Rockbox bootloader and the current release of Rockbox and you can use those large drives.

Apple OS:
I don't know.

Creature of habit.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #19 –
Quote from: Kohlrabi on
Get a Sansa Clip+ + a µSD card.

1. you get proper firmware
2. it's ridiculously cheap
3. the 8GB model + 16GB µSD are probably more than enough
4. when bigger µSD cards come out, you can upgrade the space on the device
5. for the money saved you can buy a proper CPU for your PC that converting to MP3/Vorbis will be lightning quick.
This is what I came to this thread to suggest.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #20 –
+1 to Sansa Clip+ 8GB + Trascend MicroSD 16GB Class 6

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #21 –
Just got hold if an iPod Video 30GB and swapped out the 30GB 1.8" HDD for an CF to ZIF adapter with a 32GB CF card in it. Restored the iPod with iTunes then installed Rockbox - plays like a charm....

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #22 –
Aye, I put rockbox on my ipod video to play lossless, too bad a good chunk of my music is in APE format and skips on rockbox.  In any case, I've been converting to lossy for use with it. it's only out of laziness that I've done otherwise.

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #23 –
I use TCPMP to play FLAC format music on a Windows Mobile PDA.
Discontinued but free and it works!
 

Portable FLAC player with 32GB/64GB

Reply #24 –
Quote from: marc2003 on
just to chime in about battery life on rockbox, i did a battery benchmark on my sansa clip. i got 15h20m playing ogg @ q5. and then i got exactly 1 hour less playing flac level 5. (same album on repeat, volume @ -14db, no eq, all settings stock)

i only did the test out of curiosity. i think lossless on a device with such a tiny capacity is a criminal waste of space.


That's interesting. On my phone (N79) FLAC uses way less CPU than OGG Vorbis and even slightly less than MP3 (but very close). I thought it was common knowledge that the more compressed something is the more decoding power it needs. But I guess it can vary from device to device..