omg why are people bringing back dead threads

and i have one, they are ok, except when they overheat

___________________
"We did not choose to become robots. There was an accident in our studio. We were working on our sampler, and at exactly 9:09 a.m. on September 9, 1999, it exploded. When we regained consciousness, we discovered that we had become robots."

quote:

Originally posted by cheesenip Hey guys, I'm just wondering how much those MP3-CD players are. The ones where you can burn mp3s onto a CD-R and play them in the player so you get 100s of songs. Any idea on how much those things cost? (I'm in the US). Thanks guys.

I bought a Sony DNF420 CD Walkman last September for about $90CAN. It's similar to this one.
I needed something to replace my dead Sony Cassette Walkman for a trip. It displays CD-text and can fast-forward through MP3s, some things that the Panasonics in the same price range can't do. The Panasonics can read the discs faster than the Sony, but the Sony has way better sound.

quote:

Originally posted by trewqy Buy I-river MP3 cd players. They are rated the best mp3 cd players every designed and created. I'm still using one and I bought it like 4 years ago

Oh, definitely. It's just too bad that iRiver decided to discontinue all of their cd-mp3 players in favor of nothing but flash and hard drive mp3 units. Nothing against the hard disk players or anything, but damn, their cd players really are worth the price and the hype. I have the IMP-550 and couldn't be happier. It plays both cd's and mp3 discs very well and the sound quality is phenominal. Maybe it's cause of the 90db signal/noise ratio, I don't know, but combine this player with the Sony MDR-7506 headphones and you've got yourself some very rich portable audio.

Sony, Samsung, Philips, and all of those other brands in no way can compare to the build quality and audio performance of iRiver. Plus, it sure is sexy as hell too.

___________________
"...the major problem in the past was to locate the settings of the ancient plastic city. referring to our latest findings plastic city wasn't a city built of stone or metal but more kind of built out of ideas.... (PLASTIC CITY) can't be found by our archaeologists. we will have to examine the ideas and then try to re-construct plastic city in out minds..." (EXCERPT FROM "SCIENTIST REPORT NETWORK" #12.587, YEAR 2495)

I'm selling the MP3 Head Unit and the rest of my stereo system in my sig

btw, I PM'd guy earlier today, not realizing he created this thread 5 years ago

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Intrigue Oh, definitely. It's just too bad that iRiver decided to discontinue all of their cd-mp3 players in favor of nothing but flash and hard drive mp3 units. Nothing against the hard disk players or anything, but damn, their cd players really are worth the price and the hype. I have the IMP-550 and couldn't be happier. It plays both cd's and mp3 discs very well and the sound quality is phenominal. Maybe it's cause of the 90db signal/noise ratio, I don't know, but combine this player with the Sony MDR-7506 headphones and you've got yourself some very rich portable audio. Sony, Samsung, Philips, and all of those other brands in no way can compare to the build quality and audio performance of iRiver. Plus, it sure is sexy as hell too.

Well-said. I have that model, as well as their iMP-150 & iMP-900 and they're all built great. I have been holding out on buyging an HDD unit and using iRiver's stuff for 3.5 years, but as I walk & jog a good deal, I got tired of skipping every time the unit starts reading again and I happen to not be standing still for 2 minutes while the buffer fills up again. They have features no other CD player has. Sony's are good, Panasonics are TERRIBLE (can't FF/REW in MP3!!!), but they still don't compare to iRiver's pre-2005 line-up.

They skimp even on their HDD units now. I recently picked up an iRiver H140 off ebay for 260 USD + 30 for remote and can't be much happier with my purchase - especially since Rockbox is out for it and I can upgrade the drive to 80 GB very soon...

I still dream of a audio-only slim portable DVD (or even a BD player) player that does even half of what iRiver stuff does, but I doubt it's going to happen now thanks to the whole HDD thing.

PS: That unit pictured above is their last good CD unit - my iMP-900 shipped with a terrible firmware bug (file skipping) that didn't get fixed until I bugged them over & over for a whole year. I regret spending 200 USD on that unit. It doesn't have as big (iMP-900 has 16 MiB, iMP-550 has 32 MiB) a ESP buffer as the iMP-550, and is even pickier with media (and I use all Taiyo Yuden these days).

PPS: How easy are them 7506s to drive? Are they good to buy for walkmans? I have a headphone amp (www.electric-avenues.com) in case I need it, but I'd rather not need it ;-).

quote:

Originally posted by ali92 They skimp even on their HDD units now. I recently picked up an iRiver H140 off ebay for 260 USD + 30 for remote and can't be much happier with my purchase - especially since Rockbox is out for it and I can upgrade the drive to 80 GB very soon...

That's interesting to hear that they skimp out on their hard disk players, cause I've been looking around at some mp3 players (iRiver included) and haven't been too impressed with what's out there at this point. Is the H140 discontinued too, because I can't find it on their website at all and judging briefly from what I've seen of it, it looks interesting. Also, what do you think of it so far, and would you recommend it?

quote:

PPS: How easy are them 7506s to drive? Are they good to buy for walkmans? I have a headphone amp (www.electric-avenues.com) in case I need it, but I'd rather not need it ;-).

Actually, they are fairly easy to drive believe it or not. They are rated at 24 ohms, which is quite low for a nice set of headphones like this. I've noticed the volume levels on the iRiver players don't go as loud as other brands tend to, and even with that, I've had no major problems other than times when certain cd's have had softer recording volumes.

The sound is crisp and very detailed and all frequencies appear to be well balanced and uncolored as well. There's so many reviews out around the internet on the 7506's, and all of them are for the most part praise-worthy, so you can read up on some of those if you want. I think there's been many discussions in the DJ Booth forum on here that should give some good opinions too.

As far as using them for walkman's or other portable devices, yeah, they are great. They are more of a studio headphone and that definitely shows when you listen to them, so they may not sound as well on a shoddy cd/mp3/whatever player though. They are however a great buy and aren't too terribly pricy at $99.

___________________
"...the major problem in the past was to locate the settings of the ancient plastic city. referring to our latest findings plastic city wasn't a city built of stone or metal but more kind of built out of ideas.... (PLASTIC CITY) can't be found by our archaeologists. we will have to examine the ideas and then try to re-construct plastic city in out minds..." (EXCERPT FROM "SCIENTIST REPORT NETWORK" #12.587, YEAR 2495)

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Intrigue That's interesting to hear that they skimp out on their hard disk players, cause I've been looking around at some mp3 players (iRiver included) and haven't been too impressed with what's out there at this point. Is the H140 discontinued too, because I can't find it on their website at all and judging briefly from what I've seen of it, it looks interesting. Also, what do you think of it so far, and would you recommend it? Actually, they are fairly easy to drive believe it or not. They are rated at 24 ohms, which is quite low for a nice set of headphones like this. I've noticed the volume levels on the iRiver players don't go as loud as other brands tend to, and even with that, I've had no major problems other than times when certain cd's have had softer recording volumes. The sound is crisp and very detailed and all frequencies appear to be well balanced and uncolored as well. There's so many reviews out around the internet on the 7506's, and all of them are for the most part praise-worthy, so you can read up on some of those if you want. I think there's been many discussions in the DJ Booth forum on here that should give some good opinions too. As far as using them for walkman's or other portable devices, yeah, they are great. They are more of a studio headphone and that definitely shows when you listen to them, so they may not sound as well on a shoddy cd/mp3/whatever player though. They are however a great buy and aren't too terribly pricy at $99.

Their H140 is their best-sounding unit and has been discontinued about 2 years ago. MisticRiver.net / iriver.us forum - people talk a lot about it on there. I would suggest to get it, but make sure you get the remote too (I need one). Most of the units on eBay have no remote & you need to buy separate.

This unit has optical out AND in. You can record from 5 sources (internal & external mic, FM radio, line-in, and optical-in) all on the unit, though I suggest waiting till Rockbox 3.0 is released this month before getting really deep on recording, as times are limited and RB has better control.

I bought the unit to serve as a device to play my most-listened to material (I have 400+ GB of music), though 40 GB isn't really enough for me (80 would be just right and the drive is just about out now). I may upgrade the battery in it too (I have a 3rd-party AA battery pack from Portable Power Supplies UK (Type X is needed for this unit) too).

I'm very happy with my purchase and I do admit, I bought it for the upcoming Rockbox release (where you can use the unit [and play FLAC & Ogg Vorbis gaplessly!] even if you're blind via talking menus in many languages, play games on it, etc)...

www.Rockbox.org for all info about Rockbox.

PS: I may end up buying them headphones, as I've been eyeing them for a while online and want a new 'earmuff' kind for winter (must be circumaural - completely covers ears) and home listening.

PPS: I wonder why iRiver decided to skimp on all of their new units by incorporating DRM and tag-based browsing left & right (I NEED FILETREE BROWSING!), as well as cutting down in sound quality...

PPPS: iRiver's iMP-550 is their only MP3 CD player with an optical out.