Best Sound Quality portable player for Shure SE535 earphones

[98aallen]

Hi i just brought some shure se535 earphones from my local store and was wondering what portable player you guys recommend to go with these?
i am looking only for the best sound quality nothing else oh and obv has to play flac files or some other similar sort of non lossless audio format
thanks people

 

[Berties]

Don't snub your nose at lossy tracks, I'm using Q6 Vorbis and it's great (high end phones and IEMS) For portable audio I wouldn't bother with lossless, it just takes up too much space. I highly recommend Rockbox, I'd make a choice on supported Rockbox supported players. Although stock firmware is pretty well supported features on the sandisc (vorbis, flac, replygain) Rockbox is a bit better, and a lot better if on a crappy stock firmware (ie Samsung YH) If stock firmware was rubbish (say no flac, vorbis, replygain, gapless support) It would make even more sense.

And you'll be fit around 4.5 times as much on your DAP, considering storage is now on small capacity flash rather than hard drives, that is a important thing to think about.

The new Ibasso DX100 looks a high end machine, shame it's full touchscreen. Got the Sabre ESS DAC, and apparently will be higher end than a ibasso USB DAC/headphone amp combo.

 

[Steven]

I think it is possible to detect SQ differences. I did with my Clip+ and Westone UM2 combo comparing flac vs lame MP3 320kbps. but the differences were that slight in practical terms it was not going to matter in an outdoor environment, so the compression of lossy to fit more tracks on wins. Home listening sure, but that is the beauty of lossless having that archival aspect to it

 

[Berties]

Obviously for home, should go lossless. But when you said you notice 320kps lame and flac, did you also try vorbis? I can easily tell the difference between 320kps lame vbr mp3 and flac, but really hard to notice- between 320kps vbr vorbis and flac.

 

[Steven]

No, because vorbis is not supported by the majority of devices out there making it instantly impracticable. Each to their own and if you are confident in your purchase of portable device and/or potentially having to transcode all over again in the future then go for whatever you want

 

[Berties]

Both of my DAP's support Vorbis out of the box (and both DAP's support Rockbox) So I have flac library on the HTPC, and encode to Q6 Vorbis collection on one DAP, and Q2 on the other DAP

 

[Ekso]

Cowon s9.
i have the i9.
Fab sound and love it !

 

[probedb]

I think it is possible to detect SQ differences. I did with my Clip+ and Westone UM2 combo comparing flac vs lame MP3 320kbps. but the differences were that slight in practical terms it was not going to matter in an outdoor environment, so the compression of lossy to fit more tracks on wins. Home listening sure, but that is the beauty of lossless having that archival aspect to it

Whereas I'm the opposite and can't detect any difference between FLAC and LAME -V 0 with a Clip+ and my Westone UM3x

 

[Steven]

Required multiple takes to determine the differences. So have no hesitation in recommending properly encoded lossy files so long as your dap/phone's dac and headphone combo is of adequate quality. Think people overplay lossless files in a portable use context