Head-Direct HiFiMan HM-801 Audio Player

http://www.wired.com/reviews/product/pr_...Stories+2%29%29

It has a couple of cool features like the USB and coaxial connectivity that you do not see on most players. It is very much a niche product that is focused on music playback. I wish it had a lower price tag. Too expensive IMO for what it does.

iPod's are overpriced as well.

Yeah, for as long as they've been on the market, the prices have remained a tad high. But they keep getting away with it, so why would they reduce it?

When will they do one with reasonable storage space (1-2Tb)?

You call 1-2Tb reasonable for a small handheld device?

You are correct. People will continue to buy iPods along with the Bose iPod dock along with 3rd party iPod branded cables with a Monster of a price tag. Apple is not the only product brand with inflated MSRP on its products. Its a part of the marketplace.

Ignorance is bliss. I never said consumers were well informed. Most of the time they purchase goods on incomplete information and hype or clever marketing. I would say the iPod fits all 3 of those categories. Good for them, Bose has been doing it for years, along with the Monster.

Yes. It would be enough for my needs. I don't need more.

I've followed the threads on Headfi on this player. Too expensive for me. My iPhone and iPods work fine for me w/ a great set headphones.

The battery life on the HiFiMan is terrible @ 8 hrs. Its a niche product, nothing more. I would never buy it either. Waaaay to expensive.

I agree with you, the headphones will make the most difference in sound quality regardless of the portable device being used.

Agreed!

I feel badly for people who can't adjust their expectations of audio clarity to fit the setting. The only place I'm touchy about how my music sounds is in front of my Axioms. If I had to divide my attention across multiple fronts -- cars, office, portable audio, etc. -- I'd go crazy or run our of money, or both.

It's funny, because I've never thought of the Ipod as overpriced. It really is one of those things that I believe is such a great and amazing thing to have--my entire friggin' music library with me at all times--that I've never blinked an eye at the price. It may be that Apple really are geniuses, and found a price point where they are overpriced but are still in a range where dopes like me don't hesitate because we want one. I mean, every now and again I'm still amazed at the darn thing (especially when packing for vacation, and not needing to pick out the tapes or CDs I want to take).

$800, on the other hand, is real money. I couldn't see spending that.

I've never had an ipod, or mp3 player of any kind. Can I copy my CD library to it somehow?

With the majority of MP3 players it is as simple as "drag and drop" the files from your computer into a specific folder. Others use proprietary software likes Apples iTunes which is encouraged to use with iPods for transferring music or any other media to the device.

Well, I never would have figured out how to copy the CD library to the Ipod by myself. But, my wife set everything up and then taught me how, and now I can do it all by myself. I even recently learned how to download music from ITunes (that quickly became an expensive event).

So, I rip my CD to the computer using Window's Media Player, then I drag and drop the CD files to the MP3 player?

With the majority of MP3 players on the market (non Apple and a few other exceptions) it would be as easy as that. The great thing here is that you can use any number of software programs of your preference to rip CD's to the specific file format you want on the computer (FLAC, WMA, MP3 etc). Then drag and drop into the folder for the device. Windows Media Player would work great for most file formats, it is very easy to use and will automatically apply cover art (I don't think you can rip FLAC files on WMP though).

[quote=Dr.House(I don't think you can rip FLAC files on WMP though).[/quote]

You can, but WMP needs to have the codec applied to it.

Very cool jakewash. Didn't know that. Do you know if WMP will apply album art with FLAC?

Not sure on that one as I never needed to utilize that feature when I used WMP. I only ripped to flac for use on my NAS for playback on the 3808. If memory serves it will still get the album art but I could be confusing it with some of the other software out there. I have moved on to winamp which does get album art as do many of the other software rippers out there, mediamonkey etc.

Man you guys really have great senses of humor; funny, very funny.

I must have missed the joke?

I can imagine my life without my 80 gb ipod (state prison, siberia, ...) albeit, it's definitely enhances life.

regarding codecs, Apple's implementation of it's aac codec reproduces sound
significanlty better than windows media wma lossless.

All Software music players do just about the same thing, excepting each vendor will tweak published algorithms or write their own using playback code using industry guidlines

I guess what I'm getting at is I play alot of music played at home is from my computer using itunes and many movies are played from disk to home theater using Cyberlink UltaDVD10. Windows implementation of codecs don't sound as rich and ppowerful to mee.




that is comparing windows media player 11 + wma codecs
with itunes + apples version of aac

I dislike being strapped to Apple's

Ahem! You might want to have a second look at the definition of "lossless"...