The best sound quality/MP3 player for your buck

I should be getting my mp3 player tomorrow. out of desperation, I shopped around town for some different buds (we don't have much to choose from. only a wallys world, staples, radio shack, and target) I finally decided on some phillips on sale for $25. I'm inpressed. they sound every bit as good as my sony ex51's did (maybe better w/ great bass and crisp high end too) but they are much more efficient. the frequency range is 6 - 23,500 and the sesitivity is 102 db.

I looked at some others too including JVC and skullcandy. the JVC's had the same frequency range but the sensitivity was only 96 db. I passed on the skullcandy's because the frequency range was only 20 - 20 hz. I even looked at some bose but have read to many reviews claiming the bass is overwelming. I'll try some sennheiser's or shure's before I try the bose.

the design quality of the phillips could be better (not as good as the sony mdrex90lp's) but the sound quality blows the 90lp's away (much better bass response).

at least now when I get my mp3 player and if I don't think it sounds very good, I'll know it's not the earphones (not that I doubt you Neph).

I know there are even better buds than these for under $100. I'll continue to research some others such as the shure se10, sennheiser cx-300s, etymotic er6, ultimate ears fi3, and other various models made by denon, v-moda, audio technica etc.

 

Mort81, as far as passing up the Bose because you have too much bass response must be a new phenomenon. In the old days, before kids, I have spent hundreds of dollars more for speakers that can produce 4 Hz instead of 10 Hz. Of course these things are in your head! It is rare to find notes that low in popular music. There are some tuba notes in the Beatles Help and in Black Sabbath’s first song Black Sabbath of their first album Black Sabbath starts out with some thunder. The thunder and rain in that piece sounds amazing on a good system. Neither passage is the same on a 10 Hz system. The human ear does not hear below 20 Hz but the extreme base is dramatic. These days I could pass them up if they cost too much. 6 - 23,500 is plenty good in my book.

I think I need to check out Phillips ear buds! I had heard good reviews from unrelyable sources, kids, but could not find stats like frequency response for them so I passed for something cheap that had good stats.

 

armenix,

I did not know Apple had any good ear phones only extremely over priced accessories. I think the bang for the buck for their accessories is far worse than on the ipods. I would check out the Philips.

 

Neph,

the model no. of these phillips buds is SHE9501. they had them in black and white. I got the white ones because they were on sale and the black ones weren't. I prefer black though. they were normally $30. saved $5.

I'm gonna return the meizu. it does sound good but I don't care for the touch pad or GIU. it's to erratic for me. I even updated it with new f/w.

edit: can't get an rma. item is non-returnable guess I'll just have to get used to it.

 

Great point!

Most extreme bass does not come from electrically synthesised source. Tubas, cannons, kettle drums and thunder.

 

and pipe organs.

 

I live outside DC but used to live in the Philly area. It is not well known, but the largest organs in the US are near Philly (old money). If you live near Philly you might want to visit Longwood Gardens in Dec. It was a Dupont estate. It has the same sized organ as the one in Salt Lake. The difference is you can sit 10 feet from the pipes in LWGs. The entire music room is closer than where you can sit by the pipes in Salt Lake. The gardens are not frequented as much in the winter and they need money to warm the 20-30 acrea under glass so they reconditioned the organ. In Dec the play X-Mass carols. I have been to 2 sing-alongs there. The 100 HP air compressor moves more air than speakers powered by a gigawatt of power. If they pull out all the stops which they often do for Come All Yee Faithful. It is literally a moving experiance. People are singing at the top of there voices and your can't even hear yourself because your body is vibrating with the music. You experiance extreme power witout any distortion so it does not hurt your ears. You get the illusion that you are singing perfectly. They play the organ till Easter but it is rare for them to pull out all the stopps during that period. I did hear Bach's fugue in C minor with all the stopps out, again that was an unforgettable experiance!

An off topic question for the educated ear, now that I have two guys that are at least as picky and as educated as I am. What is your preferred audio file format? I have settled on mp3 VBR at the extream setting with slow analysis using the LAME encoder. I have dropped losless and 320 BR because I don't think I can tell a 200 BR from a 320 BR. I don't want to pay a lot extra for the space for something I can't here. I figure what I have is over kill for my old ears. I don't mind losing information I can't hear. The 320 constant BR and the extream VBR are supposted to be transparent to the trained human ear form the source, both played on extreme equipment. I can't hear the high end. That is why the 200 and 320 sound the same to me. A few places sell FLAC files. If I bought one I would not spend the time to down grade the music but I rip to mp3s not lossless. I still have the CDs but I only play burned CDs these days never the source. Can either of you see a flaw in my reasoning?

 

Mez,

although I have been an audio enthusiast most of my life, I am a complete newbie when it comes to mp3's and players. I know what good sound quality is though. that is one reason I have never retired my David Hafler amps.

now this is gonna sound really stupid and I suppose I was expecting too much, but although the sound quality of my meizu player is good (considering the fact that I'm listening to compressed audio files) it doesn't go very loud. granted I had been listening to mp3's on my laptop through headphones but I expected the decibal level to be similar to that of a portable disc player or portable cassette player.

now I'm reading about headphone amps. are all mp3 players about equil in regards to output power? yeah I know, I'm a real idiot (everybody reading this shaking their heads) but I did mention the fact that I'm a complete newb to the world of mp3 players. I wouldn't care if they were a litte larger but it would be nice to have something that was a little louder.

 

Go to the settings most of these babies have a parental lock device so their kids can't blow out their hears (like mine)! It is usually set half way. Crank it up to 100% That ought to hurt your ears at full blast unless your ears are as bad as mine. I still don't crank mine up all the way. There is also software that can made the file louder. If you have not checked out Media Monkey you ought to. That will allow you you to make all your files the same loudness. It also has an equalizer. It may not be the best for sound fidelity. I have heard some confused persons claim MM sounds a bit different. It uses less expensive encoders than my ripper. MM gold (the most expensive) costs about $20. My ripper costs $30 a year for all the leasing agreements. The difference to me is I have a less than minimal sound system on my computer. They are going to sound poor no matter what. The stuff I rip is played on the car stereo, ipod and sometimes on my HiFi as well as on my computer. I want the best for ripping. PowerAmp has a professional ripper. Like in the video world, the tools make all the difference in the world if you know what to use when. You can use garbage CDs for audio while you pay big time using garbage in the video world.

 

Neph,

no biggie my friend. everytime I try to select a song or menu item with the touch pad it erratically picks whatever it wants. may be a song or it may go to another menu item. sometimes when I try to change the volume it starts the song over or goes to the menu again.

I am hard of hearing but 15 is no where near loud enough for me. I need 35 - 38 for it even to be enjoyable.

I put it on ebay along with the sony mdrex90lp headphones as a combo deal. I would be happy getting $50 for the two. no worries mate. don't let it get you down ok.

 

Mort,

Before you sell a good player because the interface sucks, I will put in my nickel. I don’t think a select a tune to play in a year. I either play random or play for the player or random play for a play list. It is too much work to figure out what I am going to hear next. I live and die with play lists. Mine run 150 -250 tunes so I can burn them to a CD to be played on an MP3 CD player. I include the approximate size at the end of the play list name. Like 10 = 100 Megs. I have a little 4 g nano. Because my audio manager has a fantastic sync utility, I swap out play lists weekly/every other week. The sync shows all my play lists and the checked ones are on the player. I swap out one or two play lists by toggling the check boxes. That is where the size at the end of the name becomes handy. I try to keep the player filled. Normally, I just turn my player on and off. Some times I am the mood for a certain kind of music so I play that play list until I get tired of listening to that kind of music. Even the small play lists are 10 hrs so you never play them through. Ipods have a no repeat setting so even though the stuff is played randomly it is not allowed to repeat. The player stops if it completes the play list or all the tunes on the player. Now that my play lists are bigger I never ‘use up’ a play list.

If you can import and remove play lists easily from your player that MIGHT work for you. It sure makes for easy listening.

If you can hear the difference between the compressed file and the source you really ought to learn how to do it right! I know your sterio is a good one. Haffler made specialty store quality equipment for an affordable price. I have a Haffler Preamp. It replaced a Heath Kit knock off of the Phase Linear pre amp. The Phase Linear amp and preamp went for a grand apiece. That was serious money back then since a Mercedes went for about 3. They were the monsters of their time when good stuff was very powerful. You should not be able to hear the difference between VBR MP3s set to the extream mode and your source whether it is vinyl or CD play on an extream HiFi like yours. The VBRs can be as small as 10% of the raw file, appx 50 meg for a 3.5 min file. The other high qualty modes as constant bit rate at 320 BR about 4:1 compression and FLAC files which are losless compression at 2:1. For VRB, the compression is variable the settings are quality settings not compression settings. I have noticed symphony music does not compress as well as R&R. The music is more complicated. VBRs remove the violin sounds during a symbol clash. You can't hear them anyway why would you want them on your recording? The constant BRs mainly cut out high frequency sounds along with the losless compression. FLAC only comptresses with losless compression.

Vinyl stores everything. CDs cut out a HUGE amount but still store massive amounts information for tones only a dog can hear. 20 KHz holds 20 times the peakes of a a 1Khz tone. However, to faithfully capture the tone, the data needed increases logrythmicly. Since I rip music for me not my dog, I would gladly give up tones beyond the human ear if the file was half the size. Realisticlly, I can't hear the difference between 200 and 300 BR. I store the extra data for overkill and pride. I use extream setting in the VBR even though I can't hear the difference between that and the next best setting. I don't mind spending a meg on pride but 20 megs per file is crazy as far as I am concerned. That really adds up if you have a serious collection.

 

update: I sold my meizu and sony earbuds on ebay and in return purchased a sony NWZA816WHI. it is everything I was looking for and more. excellent GUI and awesome sound quality. even the earbuds that came with it sound good although still not quite as good as the phillips earbuds.

 

Thanks for completing the story and that your search for excellence was rewarded. For a true music lover, the extra effort is well worth it.

I will need to check out those phillips earbuds to see if with the ipod and my ears I can tell the difference. On paper, they edge out my Koss plugs. Still, the Koss plugs range beyond the hearing of a young undamaged ear. The question is, can I feel the difference and will I like the difference if I can.

 

Interesting little bit of info there fellas.

I have the older version of the Koss Plug and they're great.. They've been tough as nails and deliver some great bass.... I upgraded to some Skull Candy "cheapies" when I got my Zune but I still use the Koss Plugs at work....

I'm looking at getting some new ear buds and giving the Skull Candy buds to the little wifey...

Here's what I'm looking at .... link to Maximo iM-390 buds

What do you guys think and have you ever heard of Maximo??

tia......

....gm

 

They look real nice but lacks the bass responce of the two cheaper buds mentioned here. 18-22,000
I can't hear 20,000 so the better trebble doesn't mean much to me or anyone over 25. By 25 humans can't hear above 20,000 Hz. In fact, there are police mob control devices that target students. It produces random noise above 20,000 Hz.