On the clip/clip+ there are alternative firmwares available... like Rockbox... sadly Sandisk discontinued the old fuze and the E200 series and the new fuze isn't as good as the old one.
Ha! I was just going to post this. Rockbox is awesome and the E200 series players are so small you can put them in the change pocket of your jeans. Too bad I bought a refurb off ebay and it eventually failed 
Also you can get some nice MME headphones for $20. I’m no expert but they sound good to me and have great reviews.
I have a clip,fuze and e250 here ;-) The e200s were the last with user exchangeable batteries and every good mp3 player should be able to play doom ;-)
I think you meant MEE, not MME correct? The MEE phones sound great for the money, don’t they?
The M9s are great at their $30 SRP, but Amazon has them for about $19!
Darnit, this thread got me curious about the new MEElectronics CW31 (which SRP $50, but Amazon sells for $25). Reviews compare them to the more costly Brainwavz M1 and SoundMAGIC E10 phones. Like flashlights, one can never have too many headphones, right? :bigsmile:
Yeah MEE M9s are what I have. Sound good to me 
Discontinued smart phones. You don’t have to activate them and you get full wifi access and you can get all the apps, etc. Much more useful than a standard mp3/4 player and tons cheaper than ipod touch. I gave my kids Palm pixi pluses which I picked up for $25 each. Coudn’t get any mp3 player that were as well built with as much functionality anywhere near that price.
This is not a bad idea. My cousin does this with her kids, since her brother in law gets a new smart phone every year it seems.
+1 for the Sansa Clip if you are after just a no-frills audio player. I have had a 4G for 3-4 years. FLAC, and MP3 support and its very good sounding too… just in case hes a very discriminating listener.
I have an 18 year old nephew with severe autism (think Dustin Hoffman - Rainman). He HAS to wear sound-isolating headphones with peter/paul/Mary and Simon & Garfunkle to drown out ambient noise. Being mentally handicapped he is very rough with things, not unlike a little kid. I recommended a Sansa clip 2-3 years ago to my sister-in law and they are still on their first one. They usually go through headphones and MP3 players 1-2 a year. He wears the player everywhere on a neck lanyard.
Side note… I won an ipod shuffle at a company raffle 2-3 years ago. Its the last one they made with no buttons (ANYWHERE). Its a total POS user interface.
Another vote for the Sansa clip+.
It is a good quality bit of kit. The sound quality you can get out of it with some decent ’phones is astonishing. Upgrade the storage as you need to.
So should your digital camera :-). I played Doom on my Kodak DC290 once or twice back in the day….
One more vote for the Sansa Clip+
Forget Sony, it an expensive crap to me! I have had Sony NWZ-S544 (Total waste of money - for something about 250usd sound quality is missing low tones and has very limited output volume), Sandisk SDMX, Sansa Clip/Clip+, C200, E200, Express Multichannel Labs HD800, iRiver H300/H100/H10, Creative Zen Stone plus, some RockChip based players and some others that I can’t remember at home. Trust me - if the construction is OK for you, get the Sansa Clip/Clip+/Clip Zip for its great sound quality, ability to install open source firmware (RockBox), memory extension, lightweight design. The only con might be the small display, but that may solve the Clip Zip. I’m almost sure that you will be happy with it, everybody should.
I really like my old sandisk too. Very good until I threw it against the wall. I wouldn’t recommend HD zune cuz it corrupts mp3 infomation and files. Anything that takes SD micro is good.
I have had this Coby one for a couple years except mines the 8gig. It’s super small the same size as a typical flash drive. The big plus for me is if you have a Sony head unit you can plug it into the USB port on the front and control it with the head unit and it also powers the unit so the battery lasts forever and displays the artists name and song on the head units display. Another big plus is no special software is required to load music onto it and it holds a ton of music. It also has several equalizer settings and you can pick music by genre which is nice. Mine have been abused to all hell and it’s basically unbreakable as far as I can tell. Very simple, cheap, tough and it does the job.
i have a sansa clip 8g. great little player. exc. sound, micro sd expandable, cheap so far reliable.
Mp3 player dont matter too much. Its really the headphones that matter.
I strongly disagree.... the best headphones are useless when the output of the MP3 player is crap. Most (ultra-)cheap android phones have poor 3.5 mm output quality. Also I like physical buttons on a player better than touchscreens. I can "blindly" operate the sansa in my pocket. Too bad Sandisk messed up the latest fuze+... the previous model was pure excellence... and easily outperformed any ipod or creative player I handled at a fraction of their price. No propriety software like itunes needed. The only players that are better than the Sansas are the Cowons, but they cost substantially more and also started that touch-nonsense.
By the way if someone is thinking about getting a Sandisk clip+. This ebay seller is a good source, he states that his device are "refurbished", but I think that's just mentioned because Samsung doesn't want to destroy the retail prices. I bought 5 Sandisk Sansas from him and all were brand new, just the retail packaging was missing.
clip+ 4GB with 8 GB card = 12 GB ....32.70 €
clip+ 4GB without card ....27.20 €
Sorry that is completely wrong. A good $30 MP3 Player with $30 headphones will sound significantly better than a poor MP3 player with $500 headphones
There are several phases involved in the MP3 Player that are crucial - namely D/A conversion and amplification. In any audio system, your sound quality is only as good as the weakest link. That weak link could be anything from the quality of the source recording all the way to the speakers (headphones) and everything in between. EX. You can’t drive $120,000 Wilson Audio speakers with a Kinyo amplifier and expect the sound to improve substantially compared to driving the Kinyo speakers that were previously connected - it just isn’t going to happen. A $300 T-AMP —> NHT Superzero combo will sound better than your $120,005 dollar Kinyo—>Wilson combo.
- Matt -
Mine is several years old....works perfect, every time.
Got it directly from Creative Zen's website; they sell refurbished units...cheap!
Agree with: upgraded earphones, if you have $ leftover.
This can’t be farther from the truth. Headphone output sound quality varies _greatly _from player to player. Some sound surprisingly good while others can sound horridly bad. A “good sounding” headphone can not make a bad sounding player sound good.
With all types of audio, the “whole” is only as good as the weakest link.
Been to the gym tonight, Sansa clip, Koss KSC75 Soundgarden = :heart_eyes: