Why aren't there any large capacity players?

A lot of the newer players have a micro sd card slot. Not quite the 1tb you are looking for , but 64 GB cards are becoming available. I think the standalone mp3 player is going away anyway, now that smartphones do just as good a job. I switched from my Sansa clip to an Android phone a bought the Poweramp player app. Just as good, and why carry two devices. If you want more storage, you can always subscribe to a cloud storage service. Besides, you can subscribe to Pandora or Spotify and hear just about any song anytime you want.

Have you tried to ABX files to know for sure? I have and was very surprised with the results. I’m not talking about crappy low bit rate mp3 files encoded with crappy encoders or downloaded mp3’s. I’m talking about high quality home ripped mp3’s with EAC & LAME at -V 0 setting. Anyone can do this easily and free with software like foobar2000 and its ABX comparator. BTW, I thought along the same lines until I tested out various files and can hardly tell the difference on portable gear. Sure FLAC is nicer for home use but IMHO for 99.99% of the current portable players its dam near impossible to tell the difference compared to high end home gear. As most portable players can throw in artifacts, hum and other noises that are barely audible unless you use highly sensitive BA driven IEMs or customs.


Your guess is as good as mine, but here’s my thoughts: Seems that manufacturers are focusing more on convergence devices like phones and most people do not use uncompressed files for portable use, keeping their FLAC & WAV files at home where storage is cheap. Thus manufactures focused using flash memory VS hard drive as it’s more stable during highly active use, also allowing them to make smaller sleeker players that are trendy with the masses. Unfortunately they have not gotten large enough for you or I yet :/


Agreed, it’s not unreasonable but it will still be several or more years down the road if we’re lucky. BTW I didn’t think of this above but the refresh rate of the db on 1-2TBs on most current player firmware would take longer than the battery life. I only say most current because I do know that rockbox can handle it (although not available for all players), as it can do db refresh in the background while your listening to other tunes that were already on your player.


Again, your guess is as good as mine and who knows what the future for portable media players will bring. I only hope they stop focusing on convergence devices ...

The real reason companies don't make players in the 1TB size or larger is because it's simply not economical to do so. The number of people who would buy a 1TB MP3 player are only in the tens of thousands, if that. When a company is selling millions of 16GB players a year, and making huge profits on each, why would they start making a large-capacity player that few would buy and that would probably have lower margins than say a 16GB player? It's a case of the many outdoing the few.

Is this "tens of thousands" your estimation in the USA or globally?

BTW if there are companies building so called audiofile DAPs like the HiFiman HM-801 that was recently replaced HM-901 (there are others too), selling for $800 or more. If there's small companies doing that, I'm sure that larger space players are not far away. BTW open source firmware rockbox can handle db's of up to 2TB's AFAIK, now we just need a flash card that size and a player that have an expansion slot. Currently I know people are reformatting 64GB SSXC cards to FAT32 and running them in current players that claim only hold up to 32GB cards and only SDHC.

*** I say so called above because test have proven that these audiofile players are no better than top-tier players for less than half the price. http://anythingbutipod.com/2012/05/h...oy-presumably/ or http://anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=69268 or http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...ad.php?t=54879 there are other links as well ...

The only hold up I see is the focus on convergence devices by larger companies building more phones than DAPs :/

I would love a nice, high capacity portable audio player. I had a Zune (which I loved) 80gig but it died and now I have an iPod classic *shudders* 160gig which I got out of pure necessity and lack of choices. I honestly don't care for it but I needed the capacity. I don't need a terabyte but 250-500gig would be nice for both audio and video.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who seeks a high capacity player. Thought I was going crazy. How I am the only person who likes their whole library on hand at any time?

Since SSD drives are dropping prices like crazy, these boutique audiophile companies could create a device that just uses any size SSD drive. I don't think there are any 1TB drives yet, but there are certainly 512gb. you could even stack 2 of those, though it would be pretty expensive. But considering the prices audiophiles pay for other devices, it's not even an issue. Basically all you need is power to the drive and software to run your music and headphone output.

Holy shnikes, if I had any engineering skills, I would invent it myself.

Hi there. This is my first post. I usually just avidly read the postings but don't contribute myself. However, this is a subject close to my heart. I have been searching for a high-capacity FLAC player for ages and have been dismayed the way development has actually gone backwards in the last few years. My final solution is not perfect but not bad either.

Firstly, I simply wanted a small portable unit that I could use with headphones on the train but also connect to a hi-fi or small and with speakers when I go on holiday. I have compared high bit rate MP3 recordings with FLAC and swear that I can tell the difference. MP3 has a slight strangulated quality (the best working describe it) when listening to some sounds and frequencies. Being in my 50s, I come from a generation where high fidelity was the holy Grail. I know a lot of youngsters don't think like that any more but from me it is still paramount. So I was looking to try and get as many of my CDs converted to FLAC and stored on a small portable player.

I start point was my existing MP3 player which is a 32GB creative Zen, now approximately 5-6 years old. This only supports MP3, not FLAC. I looked at the iPod but have never fancied Apple and their all pervasive control over music supply and format. I know Rockbox is a possibility but to be honest, having looked at it, I don't fancy it. Cowon did do a high-capacity player which supports FLAC and has received good reviews. However, in common with other manufacturers, Cowon no longer make the high capacity players so the only answer is to find one second-hand. As far as I can see, there is no technical support to speak of from Cowon to gain I have not pursue this.

In the end, having reviewed all options, I went back to a Creative Zen, choosing the Xfi-2 model. This supports FLAC, has a 32GB hard drive and a slot for micro SD cards. I have experimented with a number of these and cannot find a compatible 64GB card that will work with the Zen. 32GB cards work well and I am using a Kingston 32GB card now. So with the hard drive, I have a total of 64GB storage. This does not give me all I want but I feel that it is a reasonable compromise. The Zen and SD card were both very reasonably priced and the sound produced on headphones or when connected to the hi-fi is astonishing.

My search will continue for the perfect high-capacity FLAC player but in the meantime, I have some sort of a solution to my problem.