We make sure to test each product against its chief competitors too, so you can be sure that if we say so, the product is the best bet for the money. We live with these players for well over a week and run them in religiously so that the components have 'bedded in' before we commence our tests, and we don't finalize our testing until we are certain of the sound quality. The interface is easy to control. Tap through options using the touchscreen, and select the music you want to listen to. It could be more responsive, but you get used to it. Battery life is around nine hours, which isn't amazing, but not terrible either. The player is built with a full version of Android, complete with Wi-Fi connectivity and the Google Play Store, which results in it being kind of like an Android version of the iPod touch, able to do much more than just play music. However, the Onkyo DP-X1A is built for super-high-quality audio, and it's an absolute dream. It supports a range of music formats, including FLAC, OGG, WAV, MP3, ALAC, and more. In terms of hardware, the device has two chipsets, one to power the overall device, and one to handle the DAC and amplifier – resulting in a noise-free experience. The SanDisk 16GB Clip Sport Plus MP3 Player lets you take your audiobooks and music with you on the go without having to carry around a larger device like a phone or tablet. For joggers and gym-goers, the SanDisk Sport Plus is supposed to provide the ideal design at an affordable price without compromising on audio quality. I put down my phone and tested the SanDisk Clip Sport Plus MP3 Player for a week to see if its design, performance, and sound quality make it a worthy contender among its competitors.

If you pair one of the devices in this buying guide with a set of the best headphones you’ve got the ultimate in premium, portable music: high-quality music that you can take on your travels. The battery lasts for 20 hours on a single charge, but factors like Bluetooth usage and radio use can affect the battery’s performance. During testing, I was able to play music for 9 hours and 40 minutes straight on a pair of wired earbuds, but I didn’t let the device go into sleep mode at all during that time, and I frequently cycled through the menu options. The M11S is insightful enough to make minor or transient information apparent, and it can describe the most nuanced dynamic variations in a solo instrument with ease. It has more than enough headroom to dispatch the big dynamic shifts with no difficulty, and it can also describe a big, wide and properly defined soundstage. The treble is perhaps a little on the bright side, but not so much that we'd consider it a deal breaker. There's lots to love here including an Android 10 operating system with a touchscreen that's smooth and responsive, a punchy, controlled and detailed sound and a premium build. Based on 3.5 min songs @ 128kbps bitrate. Approximations: results will vary based on file attributes and other factors.As the name suggests, Lossless Audio doesn't sacrifice any of the musical information: the successors to the WAV format used in CDs, which is also lossless, use more advanced technology to take the audio information and make the file smaller without compromising on quality. There are several versions of Lossless Audio including Apple Lossless, FLAC and WMA Lossless, and as you'll see from our guide above you'll often find that the best MP3 players support at least some of those formats. Others might not have a great deal of space on their phone if it's an older model, so want to store music elsewhere, and some people might not want to use up battery or data when they're on the move. You don’t have to listen long, hard, or through especially accomplished headphones to realise the M11S is the real deal. In every meaningful music-making respect, it has skills – and in some areas, it’s a genuine expert.

And there's style to match the substance, with manufacturers also competing on design to deliver players that look as good as they sound. Fan of brutalist architecture? Astell & Kern is the name for you. Something a bit more colorful? See SanDisk or Sony. Want something about the size of a matchbox? Cowon's Plenue D3 is the one – see them all in our guide above. Why do people still use MP3 players? IEC 60529 IPX5: Tested to withstand water flow (12.5L/min) at 3 min. Must be clean and dry before use. This is a small, light and stylish music player with a simple matchbox-like design and a big, wide screen. It's an upgrade on Cowon's previous MP3-player model, this time with a volume dial, Bluetooth and more features. You get a pair of earphones in the box, and they’re of reasonable quality. They’re IEM-type isolating earphones – a bit bassy and with just entry-level sound, but not terrible. Sport Plus is clearly targeted towards active users who enjoy jogging, hiking, biking, and other outdoor activities. It’s a tiny MP3 player, only measuring 2.6 inches tall by 1.75 inches wide. The featherweight music player has a clip—a must-have for anyone who wants to use their MP3 player on the go. The clip grabs on tightly to clothing, so it doesn’t fall off while you’re on your daily run. The SanDisk Sport Plus has an IPX5 water resistance rating, and you won’t damage the MP3 player with a little sweat or rain. The IPX5 rating means it can withstand low-pressure water jets.

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You’re asked to select your region upon start-up, and if you select Europe the player is subjected to extremely aggressive volume limitating that effectively ruins the player with any earphones that are remotely hard to drive. A big sound quality win for the Clip Sport, though, is codec support. As well as the usual AAC and MP3, the player supports FLAC and OGG files. These aren’t supported by iPods, or Sony’s low-cost ‘sporty’ MP3 players. Another reason is that not everything you might want to listen to is available on the various streaming services –and not everything that's there today might be there tomorrow, because songs and even artists come and go. By synchronising an MP3 player with your desktop music collection you can always be sure that you can hear what you want to hear. A big bonus for many people is that with your own music collection, you don't need to pay a monthly subscription to listen to it, or to listen to it without advertising. Aside from the buttons, a lead hardware feature is the SanDisk Clip Sport’s screen. Some MP3 players at the price don’t have a screen at all. It’s the same setup we saw in the Clip Zip. However, battery life has been improved hugely since that model. It has gone from 12 hours to 25. These numbers relate to playing 128kbps MP3s on loop, so actual performance will be a fair bit worse. However, it means the difference between charging once a week and every couple of days – a huge improvement. We got through a week’s use off a charge.