[swollenstream]

Hi everyone. I can see that this group is devoted to "home audio", but
it still looked like the best place to ask my question, as far as I can
tell... I've been mulling over which hard-drive MP3 player to buy for
a while now, my main concern being getting the best possible sound
quality. I don't care that much about "style", or video playback, etc.
I see that the folks at headphone.com (makers of high quality
headphone amps, etc.) like the ipod, but then I came accross an
interesting (subjective) comparison at cnet from last year that found
the 4th gen ipod to be at the bottom of the pack in terms of sound
quality (http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11297_7...html?tag=lnav).
They did some pretty thorough tests too, both subjective and objective
(using an Audio Precision ATS-2A audio analyzer to measure distortion,
signal to noise ratio, etc.). These tests put the Sony NW-HD5 at the
top of that list.

However, this was a year ago, and now I can't find the NW-HD5 anywhere.
There've been some new players released like the Creative Zen
Vision:M, and I can't find a similar more up-to-date comparison out
there. Anyone heard of one, of have you own personal opinion about
which is best? I recently invested in a pretty nice pair of Sennheiser
headphones, and most of my music is ripped to 256 or higher MP3s,
although I am experimenting with lossless formats. I know most
players (except for Cowon) don't support flac and ogg, etc. Thanks!

[impossiblevoices]

Hi,

The NWHD5 has been discontinued for a while now. Sony replaced it with the
NWA3000 - 20Gb hard disc Walkman.

Its a bit larger in physical size than the HD5 and personally, I liked the
shape of the HD5 better as well.
If you go for the Sony, make sure you buy one with Sonicstage software
rather than the Connect software that the earlier releases came bundled
with. Alternatively, you can download sonicstage from
http://www.connect-europe.com for free with a valid email.

As far as headphones go, I use Sony's MDREX71's. They are the best in-ear
headphones I have ever owned!

IV

"swollenstream" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi everyone. I can see that this group is devoted to "home audio", but
it still looked like the best place to ask my question, as far as I can
tell... I've been mulling over which hard-drive MP3 player to buy for
a while now, my main concern being getting the best possible sound
quality. I don't care that much about "style", or video playback, etc.
I see that the folks at headphone.com (makers of high quality
headphone amps, etc.) like the ipod, but then I came accross an
interesting (subjective) comparison at cnet from last year that found
the 4th gen ipod to be at the bottom of the pack in terms of sound
quality (http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11297_7...html?tag=lnav).
They did some pretty thorough tests too, both subjective and objective
(using an Audio Precision ATS-2A audio analyzer to measure distortion,
signal to noise ratio, etc.). These tests put the Sony NW-HD5 at the
top of that list.

However, this was a year ago, and now I can't find the NW-HD5 anywhere.
There've been some new players released like the Creative Zen
Vision:M, and I can't find a similar more up-to-date comparison out
there. Anyone heard of one, of have you own personal opinion about
which is best? I recently invested in a pretty nice pair of Sennheiser
headphones, and most of my music is ripped to 256 or higher MP3s,
although I am experimenting with lossless formats. I know most
players (except for Cowon) don't support flac and ogg, etc. Thanks!