Good portable music. Are there any options out there?
Posted: 2007-02-09 17:19
It’s a little bit quiet on the forum now, so I thought I should start a tread about portable music. In the 1980’ies the only portable sound was the cassette player, mostly the Walkman series from Sony. I myself had (and still have) the best one, A Sony Walkman WM-D6C. When recording from a good source (such as a good LP12) it’s still the best portable music you can have, IMHO. (Flat Response thought it was better than the Nakamichi Dragon!)
I have always hated the MP3 players of the modern era, crap! I actually don’t think it is the compression that is the biggest problem. Music in DVD-films can be really good, even though it's compressed. (I think it’s encoded with MP3 or?) But one day I stumbled upon a player that I didn’t want to turn off imidiately. It’s the most musical player I have heard for compressed music. It’s the Sandisk Sansa M250, 2 GB player. Good enough to use for hours, and can double as a cheap source in small simple systems. Better than most cheap CD players. Very cheap for a 2 Gb player (in Sweden) at about $90. The headphones are unfortunately not as good as the player itself. After some serious searching in a lot of shops, a friend of mine found a pair of good portable headphones in the AKG K24P. A portable and foldable “on ear” type, very similar to the inferior Koss Porta Pro that is still popular among some people. The K24P are sold for about $50 in Sweden. The AKG’s require a lot of burn in before it is really good. So put it on a tuner for about a week or two before using it. I had a pair of Sony MDR WM-20 headphones for 20 years that was better than the K24P. Unfortunately the broke down about a year ago. I also heard a more expensive Sony 15-20 years ago that was even better, I think it was called MDR-50. But sadly, they are no longer on the market. (Like the LP12…) My AKG 501 are better than the K24P, but not very portable! (And require lots of power to sound good.)
So my position when it comes to good portable music is: (For all tunedem’ers out there)
1: Sony Walkman WM-D6C with AKG K24P (Requires a good source, LP12, Unidisk etc.)
2: Sandisk Sansa M250 with AKG K24P (Requires a standard PC!)
3: I see no point in a #3 since #2 is so cheap!
Future:
Will we ever see a really good portable player from Linn or Lejonklou? The “Pocket Kivor Index” sounds good to me! An Asian product, modified by Linn or Lejonklou, with 40-80 Gb HD, made in Asia and sold for less than £700? Possible or not?
I have always hated the MP3 players of the modern era, crap! I actually don’t think it is the compression that is the biggest problem. Music in DVD-films can be really good, even though it's compressed. (I think it’s encoded with MP3 or?) But one day I stumbled upon a player that I didn’t want to turn off imidiately. It’s the most musical player I have heard for compressed music. It’s the Sandisk Sansa M250, 2 GB player. Good enough to use for hours, and can double as a cheap source in small simple systems. Better than most cheap CD players. Very cheap for a 2 Gb player (in Sweden) at about $90. The headphones are unfortunately not as good as the player itself. After some serious searching in a lot of shops, a friend of mine found a pair of good portable headphones in the AKG K24P. A portable and foldable “on ear” type, very similar to the inferior Koss Porta Pro that is still popular among some people. The K24P are sold for about $50 in Sweden. The AKG’s require a lot of burn in before it is really good. So put it on a tuner for about a week or two before using it. I had a pair of Sony MDR WM-20 headphones for 20 years that was better than the K24P. Unfortunately the broke down about a year ago. I also heard a more expensive Sony 15-20 years ago that was even better, I think it was called MDR-50. But sadly, they are no longer on the market. (Like the LP12…) My AKG 501 are better than the K24P, but not very portable! (And require lots of power to sound good.)
So my position when it comes to good portable music is: (For all tunedem’ers out there)
1: Sony Walkman WM-D6C with AKG K24P (Requires a good source, LP12, Unidisk etc.)
2: Sandisk Sansa M250 with AKG K24P (Requires a standard PC!)
3: I see no point in a #3 since #2 is so cheap!
Future:
Will we ever see a really good portable player from Linn or Lejonklou? The “Pocket Kivor Index” sounds good to me! An Asian product, modified by Linn or Lejonklou, with 40-80 Gb HD, made in Asia and sold for less than £700? Possible or not?