Best sounding 'old' mp3/lossless portable player?

[freeak]

Hi everybody, I'm looking to buy a new device to keep all my most loved music tracks on.

i want the best sounding portable player that I can afford, that has either a lot of storage or memory expansion capabilities (hard drive swap out is fine).

hoping for recommendations. I'm thinking probably a dedicated unit would be great, but not opposed to phones.

it needs to be cheap, so i am thinking it will probably be an older device. I don't think I am the sort to carry around a DAC with me, just thought I'd mention that.

[yamamoto2002]

This is mine from Year 2000 ( last century 😀)

It has 2.5 inch IDE 6GB hard drive, technically it is swappable with a screwdriver.

 

Sound is great, user interface is cumbersome

 

[freeak]

Haha classic looking machine! Sounds good huh? Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll check it out. What do you think? Better sounding than an iPod classic? 
 

By the way, I should mention I’d prefer cheap, but would spend up to $500 for an ideal solution. 

[jcbenten]

Find a Zune HD.  I think the sound is stellar. Much better than iPods or the Sony units I also used.  Only drawback is that for lossless you have to use WMA as it does not do FLAC (might do Wav...I forget).  Of course it does do mp3.

[freeak]

Many thanks 

[kumakuma]

I suggest modern players such as the ones sold by companies like FiiO and astell&kern 

[audiobomber]

I'll put in a good word for the LG phones with Dual Quad DAC. I recently compared my G8 ThinQ to an Astell & Kern AK300 DAP, using three headphones; Sennheiser HD1, Grado GH4, Beyerdynamic DT 1990. I preferred the sound of the G8 with all of the headphones.

 

The ThinQ had punchier sound, the AK300 was looser and darker, despite having a more powerful amp. Volume was maxed out at times on the phone when using the 250-ohm DT 1990, but the dual DAC still had more finesse. In addition, the phone supports a 1TB SD card, vs. only 256GB for the DAP.

 

I found the operating system of the AK somewhat limited and clumsy, whereas the phone is not tied to one program. I have a choice of several music software programs, and use three different ones regularly.

 

Lastly, I do not want to carry two devices, and who goes anywhere without their mobile phone?

[freeak]

Thanks for your insights. 

 

I just want a separate device which will be dedicated to purely playing music. I can have my phone be a 'do everything' device where I have a library of music which isn't curates,and then another device to be a curated library. 

 

My research has ended up with me looking at the LG phones. The g8 seems to be pretty expensive. So I'm looking at the v series. 

 

From what I understand, in terms of sound quality, the heirachy goes this way:

 

1. G8

2. V50

3. V40

4. V20/10

5. V30

 

Look about right?

 

 

[audiobomber]

Sorry, I don't know the hierarchy of LG phones, and I've never seen anyone comment on this.

[freeak]

I'll share what I've read. 

 

The v40 saw a change in the company that tuned the audio from B&O to the company that invented DVD audio (forget it's name), and apparently that meant smoother sound. And it seems from that point on, the audio got better with each revision. Guess the opposite happened with B&O with the v30. Apparently the V10 and 20 are the same audio exactly. 

[audiobomber]

3 hours ago, freeak said:

The v40 saw a change in the company that tuned the audio from B&O to the company that invented DVD audio (forget it's name)

My G8 manual says "tuned by Meridian". I don't know about DVD Audio, but they were seminal in the digital revolution in the eighties.