your portable music player of choice

Reviving a pretty old thread here. Was wondering if any of you have any feedback on Astell & Kern players? https://www.astellnkern.com/eng/content/main/

 

I'm considering a new player and I'm absolutely sick of apple products. Looked at a few options, Pioneer, Fiio, and Sony (around the $700-$1000 range). 

 

There aren't a lot of places I can go to demo any of these products. I want something that will drive my massive headphones if I need to, something that will sound good (punchy, dynamic) without an added amp... use on my home stereo etc. 

I recently bought an Asus Zenfone 4 Max for £160 during the 25%-off ebay 1-day only sale thingy.

 

Great phone with huge battery and it has an SD card slot so I forked out for a 256gb card.

the fiio looks awesome, I have rlly been thinking of getting one but no moneys...

  On 2/19/2018 at 12:33 AM, Bulk VanderHooj said:

Reviving a pretty old thread here. Was wondering if any of you have any feedback on Astell & Kern players? https://www.astellnkern.com/eng/content/main/

Just looked at the tech specs, apparently it uses this DAC: https://www.cirrus.com/products/cs4398/

Which is the same brand and pretty much the same specs as that used on the Galaxy phone range: https://www.cirrus.com/products/cs47l90/

 

So for the price you could get yourself like a new Samsung S whatever with a high-capacity microSD for your music playback and get a phone thrown in for free :)

i tried the whole seperate music player and phone thing a while back but i just ended up getting annoyed with carrying two devices around. so went back to just using my iphone... i know what you mean about getting fed up of apple products, but at the end of the day they offer high enough quality audio for 99% of situations and it’s really convenient.

been kind of waiting for this thread to emerge.

 

I’m all in with the Apple things.. it’s the full Johnson:

- iPhone X

- AirPods

- Apple Music

- Apple Watch

 

So if you read the above and your reaction is “what a tool” basically just skip reading the rest of this post unless you’re a masochist or something, because there will be praise for Apple things and you will hate yourself for reading it.

 

So this feels pretty future, esp the AirPods headphones. Would immediately get another pair if they get lost/break. They only look stupid if you look stupid imo, and while they might not be the most best sounding headphones you could get for the money, they’re adequate and it’s easily balanced out by what makes them actually good. This is easily the best thing Apple has made in quite a while. You put them in your ears, and you can listen to stuff, and you quickly forget that you even have these things in your ears. I barely use my monitor speakers for listening at home anymore, my room is untreated & frankly the AirPods sound better most of the time, wherever, not only in very narrow sweet spots. Also, have ok AKG phones but never use them anymore except for making music with music hardware.

 

So the phone, yea nothing to say about that, except that Apple Music is on it and it has unlimited music streaming in the data plan. As long as the phone is around, I can listen to whatever anywhere anytime without data volume limit anxiety.

 

Apple Music is flawed, but it’s the thing which works best for me: the UI is mostly structured around your personal library of artists/albums/playlists, it has most things, and if it doesn’t have a thing (bandcamp or whatever) you can just put it into your library with iTunes on the computer, it will upload it, then it will be available on all your devices.

 

Apple Watch is the silly luxury bonus; but tbh it’s also more than that. It’s a decent playback control device for what comes out of the phone, it just shows the playback controls for whatever app is playing audio from your phone rn.

 

The watch can also be a standalone music player, and I’ve started typing this post mostly to write about that, but now I realize it’s complicated... So basically this works very well, with asterisks. If I’m in Germany, I can stream Apple Music over cellular to the watch, and music will come out the AirPods, and the phone is not involved. So I can be naked in nature or something and listen to whatever the fuck I want at any time by raising my wrist and saying “hey Siri play xxx by yyyy” and it’s quite futuristic while at the same time it’s not even there - you don’t really feel either the earphones or the watch. There’s no fkn expensive phone in the pocket (which pocket?) which you could lose. I give this experience an A+++ in theory. In practice, it’s winter in Germany so I’m not naked outside, also I’m not in Germany and the LTE doesn’t work with the watch so I either have the phone or preload music into the watch like a fkn pleb. Also not sure if running around naked in Morocco is a good idea so I haven’t done that, but it’s still good with light clothes.

 

Also, Siri fucking sucks. It’s the one thing about all this which sucks. In theory, controlling your music with Siri could be pretty good, and for basic things it mostly is, like you can say “play something to unwind” and it will play some stuff that’s not too bad like I haven’t listened to the Melvins in a bit and it started with that - cool.

 

But then you say “Play some Autechre” and Siri hears “Play some El Taco” and urrrrrrkkkkk!!!!!!! :( it is fucking stupid.

 

TLDR: I’m listening to music like Jony Ive intended and it’s very good except when you try to use Siri. Reading about people’s old-school music player going’s-ons seems like a very strange echo from a distant past.

if you already have a decent plus smartphone and headphones without ridiculous impedance and sensitivity - you don't need a portable music player. pretty much any smartphone from both apple and samsung in the last 5 years will have a very good headphone output.

 

  Quote

 

They only look stupid if you look stupid

lol. that would make a great marketing slogan for apple.

  On 2/19/2018 at 11:10 AM, mcbpete said:

 

  On 2/19/2018 at 12:33 AM, Bulk VanderHooj said:

Reviving a pretty old thread here. Was wondering if any of you have any feedback on Astell & Kern players? https://www.astellnkern.com/eng/content/main/

Just looked at the tech specs, apparently it uses this DAC: https://www.cirrus.com/products/cs4398/

Which is the same brand and pretty much the same specs as that used on the Galaxy phone range: https://www.cirrus.com/products/cs47l90/

 

So for the price you could get yourself like a new Samsung S whatever with a high-capacity microSD for your music playback and get a phone thrown in for free :)

 

 

Thanks for that, I should have checked the DAC. 

 

Maybe I'll go down this route then. 

my lg v30 has a quad dac and sounds very very nice...

Need to buy a standalone MP3 player with no broadcast capabilities (no Wi-Fi/Bluetooth). Can't take my phone into work area so no streaming anymore.

Needs some cash though - for now it's an iPod nano the missus got for free a couple of years ago. Quite shite.

Mmm, having a standalone player sounds really nice. I think the last time I had one was 10 years ago, this little 8GB Sony thing, but I ran it through the wash. Nothing fancy at all but it sounded great.

 

I don't know anything about the high end stuff, honestly half-surprised there's still a market out there. 

the fiio is nice but most days i just use my brain

 

  On 2/20/2018 at 4:04 AM, sweepstakes said:

Mmm, having a standalone player sounds really nice. I think the last time I had one was 10 years ago, this little 8GB Sony thing, but I ran it through the wash. Nothing fancy at all but it sounded great.

 

I don't know anything about the high end stuff, honestly half-surprised there's still a market out there.

I don’t need a high-end player. Something like what you’re describing sounds good.

Any Sandisk Clip except for the Sport Plus, which I think has Bluetooth, should do.

 

Since the foobar2000 mobile app took off I've been using the phone on my commute, but it doesn't sound any better to me than the Clip Sport, maybe worse, and isn't anywhere near as portable.

  On 2/19/2018 at 12:33 AM, Bulk VanderHooj said:

Reviving a pretty old thread here. Was wondering if any of you have any feedback on Astell & Kern players? https://www.astellnkern.com/eng/content/main/

 

I'm considering a new player and I'm absolutely sick of apple products. Looked at a few options, Pioneer, Fiio, and Sony (around the $700-$1000 range). 

 

There aren't a lot of places I can go to demo any of these products. I want something that will drive my massive headphones if I need to, something that will sound good (punchy, dynamic) without an added amp... use on my home stereo etc. 

i got an ak70 because I wanted something with buttons that could play flac

its pretty good, i'm not convinced it sounds much better than an iphone but it can drive most headphones - it doesn't work well with sennheiser hd650s but not much thats portable does

 

the interface is sensible and pretty easy

pricy though, it amazes me how much they can charge for these things especially considering you could get quite a decent smartphone for the same price (which I contemplated but hardly any of them have physical buttons )

  On 2/20/2018 at 12:43 PM, manmower said:

Any Sandisk Clip except for the Sport Plus, which I think has Bluetooth, should do.

 

Since the foobar2000 mobile app took off I've been using the phone on my commute, but it doesn't sound any better to me than the Clip Sport, maybe worse, and isn't anywhere near as portable.

 

I've been using foobar as well, does everything I need it to.

Thanks, will look into them.

 

i use this badboy. 8gb, 15.99 when i got it. you can only scroll through tracks one at a time, you cant see the track titles, you cant choose the order of the albums, you cant shuffle, you cant see how long a tune is. i love it. interestingly having no idea what you are actually listening to has really helped me get to know my new music much better. 

Edited February 20, 2018 by messiaen

  On 2/20/2018 at 12:53 PM, Sally Vingoe said:

 

  On 2/19/2018 at 12:33 AM, Bulk VanderHooj said:

Reviving a pretty old thread here. Was wondering if any of you have any feedback on Astell & Kern players? https://www.astellnkern.com/eng/content/main/

 

I'm considering a new player and I'm absolutely sick of apple products. Looked at a few options, Pioneer, Fiio, and Sony (around the $700-$1000 range). 

 

There aren't a lot of places I can go to demo any of these products. I want something that will drive my massive headphones if I need to, something that will sound good (punchy, dynamic) without an added amp... use on my home stereo etc. 

i got an ak70 because I wanted something with buttons that could play flac

its pretty good, i'm not convinced it sounds much better than an iphone but it can drive most headphones - it doesn't work well with sennheiser hd650s but not much thats portable does

 

the interface is sensible and pretty easy

pricy though, it amazes me how much they can charge for these things especially considering you could get quite a decent smartphone for the same price (which I contemplated but hardly any of them have physical buttons )

 

Hmm, maybe a tad on the overpriced side then? (the ak70 I mean).

 

I think I'll look into some smartphones, at least I can demo those pretty much anywhere. From there I guess I've just got to jump in and try something.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Bulk VanderHooj

The other thing to think about when buying a smartphone is whether it actually has a headphone jack or not.  A lot of the new phones have ditched them in favour of bluetooth connectivity.

^ good call yeah, I'll have to watch out for that. 

 

Do most smartphones these days support lossless, at least 512gb of storage?

I have my iPhone/Spotify and a Sony HD player for stuff that's not available on Spotify (or shit I want to listen to in flac). Two gadgets isn't maybe the best way forward but I don't mind, in fact I quite like having the two. The Sony is brim-full of IDM.

 

Headphones for home are Bose QC and for out and about top-end Shure earphones (I have no desire to walk about in public with a huge pair of cans on my head. ever)

Edited February 20, 2018 by beerwolf

  On 2/20/2018 at 4:42 PM, Bulk VanderHooj said:

Do most smartphones these days support lossless, at least 512gb of storage?

Yes to the first, no to the second - Look for one that features a microSD slot for expansibility (is that a word?) but 512Gb for flash memory is still pretty whopping, it'll set you back (currently) around £200

I still use my Creative Zen that must be almost 10 years old by now. The main reasons are:

1. I listen to music when I'm traveling and outside the reach of internet connections so no streaming available.
2. I also travel outside the reach of the electricity grid and I want to save my phone battery for actually making phone calls and sending text messages. For emergencies or whatever.
3. When I go running it's much more light weight and less bulky than my phone and I can just leave my phone at home.