Portable Players

[Ali Tait]

Are there any Ipod-like devices that will play 24/96 FLAC?

[Stratmangler]

You're going to struggle with 24/96 files. Just too big for a portable.
These guys do a flac player http://www.cowonglobal.com/product_wide/iAUDIO9/product_page_5.php

[Krisbee]

If roxbox firmware loads onto the digital audio player of your choice, you'll get FLAC but not necessarily at 24/96.

The makers of Little Dot haedphone amps have this device in the pipe line:

http://www.littledot.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=941&sid=f2fea68a4f1f68f1f50eeac817e6e096

With an ARM processor and up to 32GD SD I would have thought this has the potential to play 24/96 files. But I don't suppose it will be cheap.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Didn't headfi or the other headphone forum come up with something that played flacs ... Not sure if high Rez though... It did look quite cool though I seem to remember that it was modular so bits could be upgraded or something...
Why do you want portable high rez?

[Ali Tait]

No particular reason.I hadn't seen anything about so wondered if anyone else had.What about car head units then?

[The Vinyl Adventure]

I expect naim/bently ones do
http://germancarscene.com/wp-content/uploads/bentley-stereo-20-3-08.jpg
although I don't know what head units they use... It would be a bit daft If they went to all that expense but couldn't

[Ali Tait]

I would be interested in a FLAC compatible car head unit.I'd have thought there would be a potential market there.

[horace]

For a cheap in-car solution, try a Sansa Fuze connected to an auxiliary input on a standard head unit.

The Fuze can be Rockboxed and plays FLAC (but not hi-res) very well indeed. I love mine.

Not a huge choice when it comes to portable FLAC players (I don't know of any that will do 24/96), but my favourite is still the Iriver H120 or H140. Getting on a bit now (and not the smallest), but has optical input and output (oh yes!) and can record direct to WAV or MP3 via line or microphone inputs. One of those beauties into a portable DAC/T-Amp combo would give you one hell of a moveable box of tunes...

Martin

[Ali Tait]

Cheers Martin I'll have a look

[Beechwoods]

My Cowon iAudio X5L with Rockbox plays 24/96 FLAC fine. My old M5L wouldn't, properly - it takes a half-decent processor to handle on-the-fly FLAC decoding. A lot of the old machines that Rockbox loads on to may not be up to the job, so if you're going the Rockbox route (and it's great firmware) be careful about your hardware choice :)

[trailer]

http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html

There's plenty of info on what plays FLACs there but not so much Hi-Res info.

[technobear]

The Samsung YP-P3 plays FLAC files and sounds fine but it doesn't recognise FLAC tags so selecting your tunes is abysmal - avoid.

I use a Sansa Clip+ 8GB with a 16GB uSDHC card giving me 24GB of FLAC or about 60 albums. Sounds great plugged into the car head unit and recognises the tags so browsing is painless. The supplied phones are better than most but I would still recommend an upgrade to some nice Sonys or Sennheisers.

[Beechwoods]

Does the Sansa do gapless playback Chris?

[technobear]

Does the Sansa do gapless playback Chris?

Yes it does :)

To be honest I'm astonished that something the size of a matchbox can hold 60 albums and sound as good as this does (using a pair of Sony EX71 earbuds that I've had for years now).

Sansa Clip - £45, 16GB uSDHC - £30, Sony earbuds - £30'ish

So for around £100 I'm delighted with the results.

[Ali Tait]

Just come across this-

http://hifiman.us/sale/

Not cheap!

[Batty]

Creative labs Zen X-Fi 2 plays FLAC

[Ali Tait]

What about hi rez flac?

[Batty]

can't find resolution just yet