Your portable audio history

[dura_]

Recently I was in thread started by DSP and he asked me which players I owned.

I found it was fun to write down, and wondered what other peoples history was.

So I thought I started a new subject. In which you describe in your own words what you had and what you thought of it.

Here is my story, ripped from DSPs threat, slightly editted:

I used walkmans for almost as long as they exist, starting in the early eighties, when I was a poor student.

Had some cassetteplayers, a simple nameless one that died fast and that I used as a HD for those days computers (a Sinclair Spectrum).

Then I got an Aiwa with integrated radio which had a nice sound, lasted for two years.

I found cassetteplayers to large, they broke down very fast unless you had the real ones by Sony (ver expensive) and the batterylife was horrible.

So I switched to little radios. had a beautiful little yellow Sony, waterproof that worked on 2 AAA-batteries. My father still uses it occasionally, more then 30 years later! After I gave it to him I had severeal other models, especially by Aiwa; they had great bass and very good headphones.

In the early nineties, PCDPs came up. After some trial and error I had a large but beautiful all metal Philips which had a great sound. Two years later, PCDPs were much smaller and I sold it and bought a technisch; little round black plastic thing that had excellent sound and I used for 7 years untill it broke down. I used it with Aiwa earbuds I still have and occiasionally use, they have great deep bass and a pleasant slightly papery sound that reminded me of vintage tannoy speakers.

I still used radios too, especially on biketrips.

After the technics st the end of the 90s I had a very compact round all metal screen-in-RC Sony, which was beautifull but I didn't like the sound very much, to sharp and digital.

The first ipod came out but they were vulnerable and expensive and had very short batterylife so I went over to MD, that was in its prime (though never really popular in the netherlands) a Sony player (forgot the type) that lacked treble but had a nice full sound, especially combined with the sony MDR70.

And it worked on one penlight, for weeks.

Then about 3 years ago, DAPs became interesting, and portable audio became much more interesting to me.

First I tried a ipod mini, which had an unpleasantly flat and sharp sound to my ears, and turned me into a neurotic batterylevel watcher.

Trying friend's ipods, they all seem to sound like that to my ears; probably something to do with the bass rollof from the headphone-out, that apple uses to disguise the limits of their amps. Pity, I would love to have a 8 gb nano 2G, they look nice.

Then I tried an iRiver 799, 1GB flasplayer that costed e450, 3 years ago. The sound was nice but too dynamic to my ears. Use normal level and the percussion would be too prominent compared to the rest, turn it up and proportions became normal but the sound then was simply too loud for my ears.

Finally Sony came with the NW-HD1.

Bingo!

I think I had the first one sold in the netherlands, according to Sony Overtoom. Very good sound, the best I heart yet form a portable.

And beautifully made and good batterylife. Iused it first with a Sony MDR71, too sharp, then with Shure E2, slightly muddled but nice, E3 okay but needed equalising and finally Shure E4, no real criticism for my ears and my favorite phone right now.

Last year I also bought a A3000, which together with the Shure e4 is my daily combo, with which I´m very happy, so I sold the NW-HD1 last month.

I´m still interested in a flash player, an 7xx or that new one perhaps...

I wish Sony would make a 16Gb flashplayer working on a AA battery. I would buy it, no matter what it would cost.

So that was my story, long because 'm in my forties, what is yours?

[DSP]

well dura,

I also think that it´s fun to go back in history and describe all those DAP´s and gadgets you´ve owned. it brings back old memories, not only of the DAP´s themselve but (in my case) also from the time, period and situations I used them in. It just brings back old memories of those good times.

I started My portable audio in the Mid-ninties. It was a Sony Cassette player. Dunno the type, but I still have it and it still works. Great device.

Sound was okay for the time, it was my first portable audio player so I was not too critical. Worked on 2AA batteries and lasted for days. (daily use).

When I noticed that I liked music on the go I bought a Philips Cassette player. Nice design, good sound but it was with this player that I began to notice the flaws of cassette players.

So I got a PCDP, a sony Discman. Dunno the type, but that too is still working. The sound was a bit muffled and too ´´distant´´ to my ears but it was a huge improvement to the Cassette players. It had this ´´groove´´ function wich I used occasionally, It modified the sound, but It didn´t work for all music.

the big Flaws of this player were the battery compartment: it had a little clip for some special sony accu pack. Due to this clip or bump the batteries (2 x AA) wouldn´t stay in place and just pop out. Verry annoying. The second flaw was that it had no ESP. So it skipped very often.

For this reason I bought a cheap Tom-Tec (philips insides) PDCP with ESP and DBB. DBB was very nice, it didn´t really muffle the bas as much as the sony did.

ESP was very relax. It never skipped on me again. I could use it anywhere and that´s when I began t roll in t the world of Portable Audio. The sound was okay, but nothing special. Just normal.

With all these players I used it´s stock earbuds or just some cheap sony or philips earphones/buds.

I wasn´t all that into earbud at that time.

It was 6 or 7 years ago (when I had my Tom-Tec) that a friend of mine showed off a little square, grey box with some buttons and a display.

I asked him what it did and he said ´´to listen music´´. So I aked him what went into it. It was too small for a Cassette tape or CD. the only option I could think of were those little casettes for voice recorders. But he said that it didn´t use such media. You just put the music in the device ad play it.

He let me play around with it for a while and I was stunned. Sound was´t that good, but the technology behind it just attracted me.

I guess you guys allready know what I´m talking about: It was the first MP3 player I ever saw. And one of the very first MP3 players of the world.

It wasn´t even availaible here in Holland, he bought it in germany. It had 128MB memory and no sound functions at all.

This was the push for me to go out there and look for a real good and fantastic DAP. I wanted one. So at first I went to look for MP3 players. But there was not much to choose from. Just brands like MPMAN and things like that. No-one even heard from iPod since it didn´t even excist.

Eventually I saw a little machine wich looked a bit more natural to me ´cause some media had to go into it in order to play music. Yes, I fell in love with my first MiniDisc. It was an MZ-N707. I bought this player and I totally loved it. The sound was stunning compared to the things I´ve heard before. It had DSP (digital sound preset) and a remote!!! I was the man, ´cause my DAP had a remote

It lasted for months (really!) on a single AA battery. It lasted almost 5 years. It still works, But I sold it.

After my very pleasant experience with MD I decided (two years after the purchase of MZ-N707) to buy the newest MZ-NH900. By the time I got very demanding when it came to soundquality and I only wanted the best. I´d bought better earbuds too. First sony clip-ons. Then the MDR-EX71. Together with the absolutely stunning and perfect sound of my MZ-NH900 it was (and somewhere in my heart still is) my favorite combo. The I got A PSP for xmas. It´s for gaming in 1st place, but I used it for music a lot. SQ was surprisingly good. (read the thread I wrote about it). I also got an Sonyericsson W800i somewhere along the line. SQ was good, especially if you notice that its a phone. But there was a hiss all the time wich annoyed me.

After two years with my MZ-NH900 I wanted a backlit display and more space. After almost 5 years of MD use (I hated MP3 players for its SQ) I was ready to take the jump to ´´MP3´´ players. This as only since there were no MD´s around. The MZ-R10 and others from that serie were just out of pruduction and the MZ-RH1 had yet to come out and was way to expensive. So I had to get an MP3 player. NW-A1200 came into my life. SQ was very good. Allthough I doubt it to be on par or better with my MZ-NH900. But the backlight, the menu structure, its many options etc made it a really great device. Last Xmas I bought an NW-S703. Well, you know the thing. Stunning SQ, great battery, nice screen. I´ve mentioned this before. And finally, as you know, I bought a creative zen vision:M. I made a review in ´´review and pictorials´´ if you wanna know my experiences on this one.

Oh, I just remember: I have a sony NW-E307 too. good SQ, but too much hiss. Battery is great.

sorry for the amount of text, but that´s my history.

greetz

[kerfuffle]

My portable audio history is very short. The same can't be said for my earphone history, though. xD

[dura_]

My portable audio history is very short. The same can't be said for my earphone history, though. xD

That can be interesting too (especially if it is about headphones also suitable for portable use), so if you feel like giving it a shot, please go ahead.

[kerfuffle]

Sure.

It started at the end of 2002, when my parents bought me a portable CD player for my birthday. My mum didn't like the way the lid worked (it sprang up half-openedl; you had to lift the lid after), so she got me to return it, and bought a Sony CD Walkman. xD I've dropped it heaps of times, but it still works perfectly. Minus the battery cover, which unfortunately got lost somewhere in the beginning of 2005. >.< So that meant my batteries kept falling out of the back. They just had to put the batteries inside the Walkman in the next model. "

But it wasn't long before I got a new Walkman - one that could fit in my pocket (no more carrying bags!), could hold lots of songs (no more carrying CDs!), that could connect to my new-at-the-time laptop, and had a built-in battery. xD The NW-HD1 cost AUD$600, but it was on sale for $500. And I got a free pair of JVC earphones worth $25, because they were having some sport voucher promotion thingyo, but I didn't want the voucher. A week later, I went back and swapped for a new NW-HD1 (I accidentally dropped it and the screen got all dusty, but I used another excuse). About six months later, the earphones that came with the NW-HD1 broke. >.< My cousin told me that I could swap them, since it was under warranty. (She could have told me this before when the earphones that came with my CD Walkman broke six months after. ") So back to the shop I went. Since I saw that they were still selling the NW-HD1 in a catalogue, I tried to see if I could get a new one with the MP3 upgrade (the excuse being sucky battery life xD). Unfortunately, they didn't have any. They however did one NW-HD5. I liked the specifications (particularly the playlists) but it was red. Not black. Not silver. But RED. And it was the only one they had. I thought it looked ugly in red. The salesman seemed to agree, 'cause he recommended that I keep the NW-HD1, as it looked better. So in the end, I walked away with the earphones from the NW-HD5 to replace the broken ones with my NW-HD1. But they broke a year later. >.<

My earphones history! xD I've only used cheap earphones, until I borrowed my friend's Sony noise-cancelling earphones, which I liked. Unfortunately, I had to give them back. But a few months later, my cousin came back from America with the MDR-EX51s I asked her to buy for me. The bad thing was that they were white and pink - the only colour they had in stock. "

Anyway, here's a list of all the earphones I've broken, in chronological order:

- the ones that came with my CD Walkman (six months)

- these cheap Philips earphones (two weeks - hopeless)

- Sony MDR-E818 (can't remember - about three months, I think)

- Sony MDR-E828 (about two months)

- fake Sonys with the left earphone being on the long cord (didn't last very long, and didn't sound that good )

- slightly more expensive Philips earphones (lasted about two months or something; I think my friend accidentally broke them while tugging on them to talk to me)

- the ones I got with my NW-HD1 (six months)

- the replacement ones from the NW-HD5 (a year)

- my friend's earphones that she got with her CD Walkman (I was testing whether her Creative flash MP3 player was really skip-proof or not xD)

The current earphones I have:

- the JVC ones mentioned before (except that I lent them to my friend, and now we're out of school, and she hasn't returned them. O_O Oh well, she can have them. I didn't like them much, and they were for free. xD)

- second pair of MDR-E818 given on my birthday by a friend of mine two years ago

- second pair of the earphones I got with my NW-HD1 (MDR-E737)

- the MDR-EX51s mentioned before.

So much for a short history.

Edited February 28, 2007 by kerfuffle

[DannyB37]

1st, A CD Player (With FM Tuner), A gift, just a cheep one about 10 years ago (Only broke about a month ago - held out pretty well)

2nd, another CD Player, that my dad broke about a week ago when he borrowed it! He tried to open it the wrong way, it still works, just the hinge is broken!

3rd, A Hi-MD Player Sony MZ-NH1 About 2 years ago, don't use it much now, but It still is one amazing audio player!

4th, a cheep 128mb mp3 player, used it about 2 weeks.

5th, My iAudio U2 1GB, I love that little thing, has to be my favorite audio player of all time! (I also got my psp around this time, but never used it as an audio player)

6th, 80GB iPod, from xMas to today!! Still prefer the iAudio U2, just it isn't big enough!

(Wanting to put rock box on it when it comes out for the 80GB!!!)

My small little history!

Edited February 28, 2007 by DannyB37