Need New Player for Mac User

[MusiKon]

First off, hello everyone! Glad to find a community like this that supports finding new audio players other than iPods.

With that out of the way, I've been looking for a new player as well, as my current one (while still working) has a horribly cracked screen. The most difficult thing, it seems, is finding a player that is Mac friendly, considering that's what I use most and where all my music is.

Other things I'm looking for in a player:
At least 16-32GB capacity
ID3 Support
Custom EQ
Gapless Playback
Moderately large battery life
Album Art Display
Dedicated Volume
UMS/MSC preferred
Optional (but not deal breakers): FM tuner, Mic for recording, Built-in speaker, touch screen

So what would you guys think best suits my needs?

Previous players I've had: iRiver H10 20GB, Sony PSP (temporary), Sansa View 32GB, Samsung P3 32GB (current)

[CrowdAds]

[Jeven]

What's wrong with an iPod?

Plenty people on here own them.

[MusiKon]

Custom EQ has become a big deal breaker for me. Almost all the presets on iPods sound muffled or off balanced to me. I need to be able to tweak the sound exactly how I want to.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by MusiKon

Custom EQ has become a big deal breaker for me. Almost all the presets on iPods sound muffled or off balanced to me. I need to be able to tweak the sound exactly how I want to.

An iPod Touch would give you everything you are looking for except FM tuner and MSC. There are a plethora of equalizer apps available that allow all the sound tweaking you could possibly want. It only comes in 8, 32, and 64GB sizes....I had the 32GB model for a year and a half and it is a great device.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

An iPod Touch would give you everything you are looking for except FM tuner and MSC. There are a plethora of equalizer apps available that allow all the sound tweaking you could possibly want. It only comes in 8, 32, and 64GB sizes....I had the 32GB model for a year and a half and it is a great device.

Did I see you working in that white store in the mall

[Tapeworm]

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

An iPod Touch would give you everything you are looking for except FM tuner and MSC. There are a plethora of equalizer apps available that allow all the sound tweaking you could possibly want. It only comes in 8, 32, and 64GB sizes....I had the 32GB model for a year and a half and it is a great device.

Originally Posted by WalkGood

Did I see you working in that white store in the mall

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

Did I see you working in that white store in the mall

Well, given that the OP has a Mac for a computer, that limits their options somewhat....

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

Well, given that the OP has a Mac for a computer, that limits their options somewhat....

Any MSC device should work just fine. BTW I hope you know I was just jk'in

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

Any MSC device should work just fine. BTW I hope you know I was just jk'in

I did know you were joking, yes.
In theory, yes, any MSC device should work just fine.
But we've read about various troubles with certain Cowon devices and Macs, and even Sansa players can have issues....something to do with Macs inserting little ghost files in there that confuse the players.

[mamamia88]

Any rock box capable sansa or any android device should work fine. Everyone I've tried works on my Linux machine perfectly

[JK98]

Originally Posted by Jeven

What's wrong with an iPod?

Plenty people on here own them.

ipods are too expensive and lack a card slot. They also require itunes.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by JK98

ipods are too expensive and lack a card slot. They also require itunes.

While I'm not big on ipods, now there's a few programs that you can use to sync with ipods. For example mediamonkey works fine on many of them, not sure about the newer ipod models though since I don't use one.

[steinburger1109]

Well, MediaMonkey is pretty good at updating their software pretty quickly after Apple releases updates that break compatibility. I'd assume all models are supported at this point. There may be a dark spot a few days after Apple's release, though. However most people don't want to go through the hassle of being forced to use a software at all, iTunes or otherwise.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by steinburger1109

... However most people don't want to go through the hassle of being forced to use a software at all, iTunes or otherwise.

Personally I don't care as all my players connect in msc mode and I only drag & drop. I still have a very old ipod stick, iirc it's like 512 but I rarely use it.

[MusiKon]

After much thought, I decided to start investing in the Samsung Galaxy Player 5.0. Has about everything I need in there, I can shove a 32GB microSD in there, and put on whatever android player I see best fitting.

Would be cool if there was some way to sync up my playlists from iTunes, but I can do without.

[steinburger1109]

You can use this app, called Double Twist to migrate your things over from iTunes. I've never used it, but other friends who had iPods and got Android phones say it works pretty well.