I posted alot on this topic, making my best argument for uncompressed music and big stereo systems. Something was churning in the back of my mind despite that, so I started researching headphones and portable music players. It's been 4 years since I bought headphone, and about as long since I bought my last portable (an Archos model).

Yesterday, after 4 trips to Circuit City, lots of listening, and lots of research, I found the player/headphone combo that has changed my view on portables forever. It is the Sony NWZ-S616F, AKA the Walkman, paired with $100 Sony earbuds (MDR-EX90LP). The new Sony walkman is notable for the quality of its amplifier circuit, which seems more powerful and refined that what you find on other players. The inner-ear earbuds are comfortable, but more importantly they far exceeded my expectation in terms of sound quality.

Without a doubt, this new combo from Sony is the first portable system I've heard that I would describe as audiophile. It is a simple fact that I am hearing more detail through this setup than I've ever extracted from my home stereo. I am ripping my CD audio at 320Kbps into Windows Media format, which is in fact indistinguishable from the source material.

I'm sure there are plenty of other combos of player and headphones that have allowed others to reach the same conclusion. At the same time it needs to be said that there are alot of not-so-great-sounding players and headphones out there... iPods are not as good sounding as this new walkman, nor are Zunes. As for the headphones, I am an absolute convert to inner-ear style buds. I'd even consider auditioning Ultimate Ears buds, and spend $1000 on their custom fit units if they deliver on their promise: the same sound as a $10,000+ audiophile stereo system's goodness in the palm of your hand. I'd peg what I'm hearing from my current Sony getup at the $5,000 level if I were buying full-sized gear.

For those who care, I've done much listening to portable CD players with Grado SR-60 and SR-80 phones, Bang & Olufsen Form 2 phones, and Sony MDR-V900... all full-sized headphones, and all blown away by these buds & Walkman.

So there... compressed music competes with uncompressed, and a portable beats the 500 pounds of gear (literally) sitting in my living room. I stand corrected.

Ah, the miracles of modern technology.

I heartily agree on the in-ear headphone issue. My current combo is a Cowon iAudio X5 with Shure i2c headphones. I use the foam covers for which the bass is a little poor, compared with the rubber covers that create a better seal and produce more than adequate bass, but the rubber ones cause my ears to hurt after a half hour or so. With a bass boost in eq this combo just sounds wonderful. It does make it hard to hear ambient sounds on the go, but it's a small price to pay to have portable hi-fi.

There's no doubt that headphones can be made well and will sound good but they are not how music is experienced and that is the difference. Music is enveloping. Systems that reproduce music well sound live in the room. You can reach for the individual instrument they are so real. When you leave that room it still sounds like there's a live concert taking place in that room. When you play pipe organ bass be certain to remove objects from your shelves.

I enjoy good headphones too. I enjoy fine audio in cars. I enjoy live music. I have my home centered around an audiophile system that is not as good as live music but pretty darn close. It immerses you in the stereophonic presence of a live stage. It is not injected into your head as with headphones of any quality. Simply put they are not comparable. They each have their place.

Scoot'r-d:

I enjoy good headphones too. I enjoy fine audio in cars. I enjoy live music. I have my home centered around an audiophile system that is not as good as live music but pretty darn close. It immerses you in the stereophonic presence of a live stage. It is not injected into your head as with headphones of any quality. Simply put they are not comparable. They each have their place.

There is quite a bit of music out there that is produced in a studio and is not an attempt to simulate live music at all. These studio albums, regardless of genre, can sound better through headphones... or speakers... it depends on the recording. When you take away the "live" element, comparing headphones and speakers becomes an apples-to-apples comparison. I do agree that live recordings (or live instrument studio recordings) do benefit from being played on speakers, but "music" is not limited to reproducing the "live" experience... hence the term "headphone music" which can be rock, hip-hip, electronica, experimental music, etc.

Interesting. That Sony model's storage is pretty limited, so it's not a viable replacement for my 60gb iPod, but I have always felt my MiniDisc Walkman's sound quality was better than my iPods, but I had always equated this with ATRAC being technically superior to MP3s in some way. Maybe it's just a hardware issue.

As for the phones, I wish I could get on board with the inner-ear design, but I hate the way they feel and just can't get past it. There is something to be said for sealed phones vs. an open style, however. I myself just broke down and ordered a pair of Ultrasone HFI 700s after hearing a rave, in-depth review from a friend who works at a studio in Nashville. I'm hoping they're the ideal compromise.

160GB ipod + FLAC + Rockbox + ShureE2c = stop complaining

I use the Shure E5c earphones. They RAWK.

Dreamweapon:

Interesting. That Sony model's storage is pretty limited, so it's not a viable replacement for my 60gb iPod, but I have always felt my MiniDisc Walkman's sound quality was better than my iPods, but I had always equated this with ATRAC being technically superior to MP3s in some way. Maybe it's just a hardware issue.

The new Walkman plays MP3, AAC, and WMA files... so I'm not listening to ATRAC, that was a deciding factor in my buying it. It is true that these new Walkman units are Flash devices and as a result their storage is limited (I opted for a 4 gig model) but that's fine since I was looking for the best playback quality. I suspect it is the quality of the amplifier circuitry that makes the difference, the Sony can play obscenely loud with zero distortion; this means it can also drive less efficient (full sized) headphones with greater ease.

The other deciding factor on the Sony was the 32+ hour per charge battery life. As for the limited storage, I have my music collection on my laptop and can swap out albums at will, so the relatively small size, durability, and long battery life of flash-based music players beat out the convenience of having more storage.