Survey - how do you keep your portable music available to you??

This thread has jinxed my faithful iPod 160Gb!

It has been spluttering for a while but after multiple attempts at resuscitation yesterday it is definitely defunct.

Looks like I need a new player. I have a Fio x5 as a spare that I find very underwhelming. I shall do some research.

Bruce

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

This thread has jinxed my faithful iPod 160Gb!

It has been spluttering for a while but after multiple attempts at resuscitation yesterday it is definitely defunct.

Looks like I need a new player. I have a Fio x5 as a spare that I find very underwhelming. I shall do some research.

Bruce

Apparently, they can be fixed! Maybe worth a try: https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...63#73230012007976063

Thanks for that

I will look it into it but I have my doubts, it has been failing in a variety of ways for some time (locking up, powering down suddenly etc) and now appears dead. I suspect leaving it in the car to get frozen overnight each winter does not help. I think it is a 5th gen model so pretty old (positively paleolithic) and I'm not sure I want to throw too much money at it.

My head is being turned a bit by an Astell + Kern AK70 too. Nice shiny toy! Anyone using one?

Bruce

I’m amazed and impressed that so many can be bothered to faff around with getting their own collection mobile. Mine is is on a Unitiserve and Readynas Duo (backup and hi res) but beyond my four walls it’s Tidal on an iPhone with an Audioquest Dragonfly DAC B&W headphones.

Keith

Bruce, yes, I have an AK70.  It's nice - very nice, but like so many of the current crop of DAPs the sound is very good but lacks just something that keeps it from being my favourite (have or had Sony ZX2, Plenue 1, AK100 II as well). Overall I find the Pono Player still much the most satisfying to listen to - very natural and easy listening but in a good way.  In other ways the Pono is a mixed bag, but Charlie Hansen of Ayre Acoustics really did something special with the sound of the Pono, IMHO.  A real shame he has now gone.

However, for car use it's still the iPod that reigns supreme.  My 80GB Video 5.5g is still going strong, but I have a late 4G Photo that I'm tempted to have fitted with a multi micro SD card carrier and new battery. With four 200GB cards it could have up to 800GB!

Richard thanks (as ever).

Despite not really being into portable audio I somehow have an iPod 160gb, an iPod touch and a FiioX5. I have one in the car and others around the house, when doing fitness at home etc. I uses Klipsch  X10 in-ear 'phones which are ridiculously comfortable.  I think they also sound pretty good but not tried many alternatives

I'll look at repairing my Ipod but if not will just load up favourites into the iPod Touch or Fiio for car use and maybe have a better quality player for use around the home. The WiFi option of the AK70 appeals around the home so I can stream high res from the NAS archive store of music rather than spend ages loading it up. Even with additional memory of 256Gb it could not take all my music anyway.

In my Volvo the iPod integrates really well with steering wheel controls etc for scrolling and searching. Have you used your AK70 in the car? Does it link via Bluetooth or the line-out (I have an AUX socket and a USB port in the vehicle)? The Fiio integrates OK via the AUX and its flat sound performance (in my view) is OK in the car.

How about the wireless function at home? Do you use that as I described above? Easy to set up? I have a fear of PC networks and permissions etc. All seems ridiculously over-complicated to me

Cheers

Bruce

I am always amazed that some people want their entire music collection to be available when mobile.

My current car has built-in storage (8gb I think) that has all of my 5-star music in FLAC. It also has a 16gb USB stick plugged in that has a random selection in MP3. Sensibly there is no difference between FLAC and MP3 in the car because outside noise intrudes and the music never gets my full attention anyway.

For walking I still have my iBasso player that has a random selection of 8gb of FLAC files. I can easily tell the difference between FLAC and MP3 when walking.

What does random mean? I use MediaMonkey as my music organiser and I use playlists. A playlist that has a selection of tracks that are new (from the last 90 days) and a playlist that is truly random.

I refresh both the USB stick and iBasso player whenever I feel like it - roughly once a month - by plugging them into MediaMonkey and it couldn't be simpler.

KRM posted:

I’m amazed and impressed that so many can be bothered to faff around with getting their own collection mobile. Mine is is on a Unitiserve and Readynas Duo (backup and hi res) but beyond my four walls it’s Tidal on an iPhone with an Audioquest Dragonfly DAC B&W headphones.

Keith

I have neither reliable mobile reception nor sufficient broadband speed to make Tidal etc even remotely relevant.

Still need hardware with storage I'm afraid.

As for storing it all on my mobile device (in AAC format anyway) I always found it simple to just back up my whole iTunes to the iPod rather than selecting and filtering favourites as they come and go. Of course nobody needs to have all their collection mobile but it is nice if you can. I considered it yet another layer of back up from my PC and NAS stores too.

Bruce

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

Despite not really being into portable audio I somehow have an iPod 160gb, an iPod touch and a FiioX5. I have one in the car and others around the house, when doing fitness at home etc. I uses Klipsch  X10 in-ear 'phones which are ridiculously comfortable.  I think they also sound pretty good but not tried many alternatives

I'll look at repairing my Ipod but if not will just load up favourites into the iPod Touch or Fiio for car use and maybe have a better quality player for use around the home. The WiFi option of the AK70 appeals around the home so I can stream high res from the NAS archive store of music rather than spend ages loading it up. Even with additional memory of 256Gb it could not take all my music anyway.

In my Volvo the iPod integrates really well with steering wheel controls etc for scrolling and searching. Have you used your AK70 in the car? Does it link via Bluetooth or the line-out (I have an AUX socket and a USB port in the vehicle)? The Fiio integrates OK via the AUX and its flat sound performance (in my view) is OK in the car.

How about the wireless function at home? Do you use that as I described above? Easy to set up? I have a fear of PC networks and permissions etc. All seems ridiculously over-complicated to me

 

If you use a portable at home, I find my Sony works very well with UPnP built in, and will see and play from a NAS over WiFi. No setup or configuration required. I think maybe some A&K players can do this too?

The one I was looking at has WiFi connection which should do this-I was just curious to ask Richard how well it worked and how easy to set up.

I  use Itunes for the car ONLY must add, spend a large amount of my business week in the car so having Ipod touch 28K is really usefull

all of my music files are stored on NAS so I use dBpoweramp to convert to MP3, into I tunes - very easy to use - also like to listen to a lot of Podcasts also so great for that also

I use an AK70. Store a selection of FLAC files on the internal and SD cards (128 + 64). I also use a portable router with a 3TB USB HDD attached and built-in UPnP server. I can stream my entire music library (Flac) to my AK70 and when we do family trips, we can stream movies to I-Pad's.

I use the same setup to backup my pictures/video when I am travelling.

Thanks Manu

Bruce

An AK sp1000 or sony wm1z with new 512gb are the best solution, AK can stream Tidal as well, these are very good DAPs 

or an android based dap with a Tidal stream and download capability 

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

The one I was looking at has WiFi connection which should do this-I was just curious to ask Richard how well it worked and how easy to set up.

Sorry Bruce, I have only used it with an SD card so couldn't say, but it looks like Manu has given you an answer on this.

i was using plex, but recently i took out a Tidal subscription. My plex will be cancelled, and Tidal will be used. It isn't exactly my own music, but i can use playlists etc