APE Player

[inm0ti0n]

Needs
Plays APE audio files
Good Build + Sound Quality
Good GUI

Optional
Touch Screen
Wi-Fi
Plays Video

My headphones: Etymotic Er6i
No "Budget" but would like to be under $300


I have looked at Cowon D2 and S9 (and many others), but I don't like how they have many bugs that require constant updates to fix... or am I wrong about that part - please correct me if I am!

Thank you so much - I've done a lot of research, but I really would like to see what others think... don't be shy POST! =)

[DAVEYRAVEYGRAVEY]

You might want to buy a rockbox capable device for the APE playback, however there is no WiFi and the interface isn't exceptionally great.

Usually when a company releases a firmware update its more to provide extra features than to fix bugs. I find it more of a bonus to buy a device with frequent FW updates because I know that in the future it will be able to do more than what it did when I bought it.

For example the first Zune 30 which was released YEARS ago can still do everything the newest Zunes can do becasue Microsoft was kind enough to update the firmware over the years to provide new features.

Also I'm sure the D2 is pretty much as bug-less as it gets now but I don't own one so I don't know.

The Samsung P3 and the Cowon S9 seem like good choices, though if you want to spend the cash look at the Sony X100 or the Zune HD coming up.

[a_tumiwa]

Meizu M8

[Olley]

If you don't mind unusual brands, the Latte Espresso (no, it's not coffee) is a 3" touchscreen, supports APE along with MP3, WMA, FLAC, and non-DRM AAC files. For videos it'll do WMV, AVI, RM, RMVB, and FLV. The screen resolution is 420 x 240, however it will play videos that are larger than that in resolution. Do a Googe search for ""Latte Espresso Touchscreen", including quotes. I bought one of those, and am impressed with it's build, looks, and fully-used g-sensor.

[Aevum]

Cowon D2, it slows down to a crawl and probobly consumes twice as much power, but it plays ape with no problem,

[dfkt]

Originally Posted by DAVEYRAVEYGRAVEY

The Samsung P3 and the Cowon S9 seem like good choices, though if you want to spend the cash look at the Sony X100 or the Zune HD coming up.

Not sure if the P3 plays APE - the Sony and Zune definitely don't support it.

To the OP: is there a specific reason you chose APE? Monkey's Audio is a rather inefficient codec concerning processing power (and thus battery life on portable players). It only compresses a tiny bit more than FLAC and has no other advantages. FLAC is comparatively lenient on battery life, and a much more versatile codec in general: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index....mparison_Table

I would convert the APE audio to FLAC, that opens a lot more players for your needs... could be a bit of work, though.

[The DarkSide]

Neither the Zune/Zune HD, nor the X1000 support APE. Sony and Microsoft do not use this codec, and Creative players do not support it as well.

[Aevum]

Rockbox supports some ape, and cowon provide support but the high CPU utilization this codec requires for decoding makes it undesirable for portable use,

if you feel like reencoding it, good,
if you dont, and just want to dump it on the player and listen, the D2 or the S9 are your best bets, they have APE support and a battery large enough to make sure you can listen to your tunes and atleast have some hope of finishing the day before finishing the battery,

[DAVEYRAVEYGRAVEY]

Originally Posted by dfkt

Not sure if the P3 plays APE - the Sony and Zune definitely don't support it.

Oops forgot to suggest to convert your music to FLAC for the reason dfkt just posted. :P

[saratoga]

I think few if any players will decode all APE files. Some require 600-700MHz, or even more just to decode (and still more if the decoder isn't extremely well optimized). Such fast CPUs get poor battery life and are rare on MP3 players.

[inm0ti0n]

Originally Posted by dfkt

Not sure if the P3 plays APE - the Sony and Zune definitely don't support it.

To the OP: is there a specific reason you chose APE? Monkey's Audio is a rather inefficient codec concerning processing power (and thus battery life on portable players). It only compresses a tiny bit more than FLAC and has no other advantages. FLAC is comparatively lenient on battery life, and a much more versatile codec in general: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index....mparison_Table

I would convert the APE audio to FLAC, that opens a lot more players for your needs... could be a bit of work, though.

If no APE - Should I have 256 kpbs Mp3 files on a PMP or Wav or Flac? I'm concerned with space on the PMP being used up....

[gebal]

Flac on a P3
Dont know what is the best codec on the S9, probably flac again. Certainly flac or wav will be better than 256kb mp3, as long as you have good headphones.

[The DarkSide]

And the Sony and M$ (Zune) players don't do FLAC either,......................... The Sony DAP's do WAV, and the Zunes all do WMA Lossless.

[saratoga]

Just use MP3 its good enough for a portable. Keep the APE files on your PC in case you need lossless later on.

[dfkt]

Originally Posted by inm0ti0n

If no APE - Should I have 256 kpbs Mp3 files on a PMP or Wav or Flac? I'm concerned with space on the PMP being used up....

For converting APE to FLAC, use Monkey's Audio to decompress the APE to WAV, then use FLAC Frontend to compress the WAV to FLAC. That's the way I do it. There might be ways to do it in one step instead of two, but I'm not aware of them.

I rarely deal with APE images or files, and the first thing I do is converting them to FLAC this way.

On portable players I personally use LAME -v0 files, because they are exactly the same to my ears as the original CD. No need for me to use anything lossless, I cannot tell the difference.

As for your 256k inquiry: no. Never use CBR for MP3, always use VBR - it saves space, bitrate, and quality.

[inm0ti0n]

Originally Posted by dfkt

For converting APE to FLAC, use Monkey's Audio to decompress the APE to WAV, then use FLAC Frontend to compress the WAV to FLAC. That's the way I do it. There might be ways to do it in one step instead of two, but I'm not aware of them.

I rarely deal with APE images or files, and the first thing I do is converting them to FLAC this way.

On portable players I personally use LAME -v0 files, because they are exactly the same to my ears as the original CD. No need for me to use anything lossless, I cannot tell the difference.

Thanks for your help! I'll now convert APE to FLAC, then keep those FLAC files, but copy them and convert them to Mp3.

QUESTION FOR ALL: How do I convert FLAC to Mp3 and can I select bit rate, I would like to get highest (320 kbps?)

[dfkt]

Good choice, keeping the FLAC files as a backup. They are easy to handle.

For converting them to LAME -v0 I use ALL2LAME, the perfect minimalist no-nonsense frontend. You just enter -v0 in the command line box and off you go.

You do need to get the LAME codec for it to work.

[inm0ti0n]

Using FLAC Frontend, which level of encoding (0-8) should one use?

[dfkt]

I use level 8, even if it is overkill... it uses more processing power but doesn't compress a lot more. But it doesn't matter for archival purposes.

[inm0ti0n]

Out of curiosity, are there advantages to using LAME -v0 file formats? Are they more compressed than Mp3 or are they of higher quality than all possible Mp3 bit rates?