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hifiman hm-801

Hifiman HM-602: An iPod killer?

The iPod is a phenomenon, and it has clearly elevated the state of the art of portable music players. But it's not a bona fide high-end device. It's good for what it is, but I've always been a bit frustrated by the iPod's inability to sound great with some of my favorite full-size headphones.

Earlier this year I reviewed the Hifiman HM-801, and dubbed it "the Hummer" of portable players. The HM-801 made my iPod sound feeble by comparison.

The HM-801 was conceived as an audiophile player, so non-sound-oriented features are scarce. Instead of a hard drive, the HM-801 uses 32GB SDHC cards, which can store 20 24-bit-96 kHz FLAC "albums," or 50 CD-quality albums. Obviously, you can bring a bunch of SD cards with you so capacity isn't an issue. The player retails for $790.

That's expensive, but the best stuff always is. The HM-801 is about to be joined by another Hifiman player, the HM-602. Priced at $439, it's a good deal more affordable, and smaller than the HM-801; it's just 2.4 by 4 by 1 inches. That's nearly the same size as an iPod Classic, but more than twice as thick.

I prefer the HM-801's bold styling, but the new player's ergonomics are better. Neither is as easy to use and navigate as an iPod, but I got the hang of the HM-602's functions in a few days. It also plays 32GB SDHC cards. Like the HM-801, the HM-602 plays 96-kHz sampled FLAC files, but reduces 24-bit resolution to 16 bit. It also plays WAV, MP3, ACC, OGG, and APE files. The new player has 16GB of built-in flash memory; the HM-801 has just 2GB.… Read more

iPod 160GB Classic: Not dead yet

Yesterday, there were jitters at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for Apple's media event that the company would discontinue the iPod Classic ($249) without providing a direct replacement. No worries, however, as the seventh-generation 160GB machine remains in the line, unchanged--and that's a good thing. It sounds awfully nice, for a portable device.

I can tell you this: The 160GB Classic smokes my reliable, but ancient, 15GB third-generation iPod. Loaded with identical files, the 160GB has better defined, deeper bass and it has a clearer overall sound with my Monster Turbine Copper in-ear headphones.

Better, much … Read more

Hifiman HM-801 vs. iPod, Zune: A sound winner?

Sure, iPods and Zunes can sound perfectly fine, but no one ever claimed they were bona fide portable high-end audio devices. Their "good enough" sound isn't entirely their fault: they're too small to house a battery potent enough to power a high-quality headphone amplifier and a high-resolution 24-bit/96kHz digital-to-analog converter.

The Hifiman High Fidelity Music Player HM-801 is the Hummer of portables; it's big enough to get the job done. It's 3 inches wide, 4.5 inches high, and 1 inch thick; that's about the size of an old Walkman cassette player from the 1980s. Hifiman doesn't say how much the HM-801 weighs, but it feels substantial.

If Apple wanted to build something as good or better, it could, but the potential market for something that sounds better than an iPod is probably insignificant, and certainly too small for Apple or Microsoft to bother with. They're too busy jamming more features into their players, and sound quality never makes the cut. Besides, the market demands ever cheaper products, and real quality is never cheap. so the HM-801 is downright pricey.

That's another way of saying it's aimed at the sort of music lover who's already invested in a set of top-of-the-line Etymotic, Grado, Klipsch, Monster, Shure, or Ultimate Ears headphones. If you have and you're using an iPod or Zune, you're not hearing all the sound quality you paid for with those headphones.

The HM-801 was conceived as an audiophile player, so non-sound-oriented features are pretty scarce. The HM-801 has a user removable headphone amplifier circuitboard/module that makes future upgrades easy as pie. Hifiman already has one such upgrade in the works, a $170 board specifically designed to maximize detail and resolution of high-end in-ear headphones. Looking inside the HM-801--it has removable panels--so you can see it features top quality components, like a Burr-Brown PCM1704U digital-to-analog converter and Burr-Brown OPA627 Op-Amp. This is a level of technology normally found in audiophile home componentry, and never before used in a portable music player. … Read more