REd rED ReD : Toshiba MET401 digital audio player review

i know it's valentine's day and while everyone is out there saying i love you and this and that, i'm gonna write about my new love(my cam is still my wife, my ds my mistress, wii is my playmate)
my sony mp3 broke down on my trip to uk, just the display only (unlike my earphone *sobs*) but i decided to get a new, considering new players are pretty cheap and i just couldn't stand sony's connect stage software. it crashes half the time and the transfer rate is so slowww and while the sound quality was good, the hissing sound was pretty annoying.

so after searching around, it was between my love and an iriver clix. i initially wanted the clix but it was more expensive and after reading the comments on www.anythingbutipod.com , i dived in.

the red 4gb ver is only 12,600yen (rm 380) at amazon while other colors are a lil pricier. it's been over a month now since i bought it and i must say that my love has been impressing me by the day. the sound quality is amazing, yes better than my sony's without the hiss and without a doubt better than must junk(like the ipod) out there. online comments find the player comparable to cowon players and while i've never tried any, i don't think they're lying. sound is crisp and clear, bass is abit one the weaker side but detailed and lovely and the treble is just wonderful. it's at its best at the default setting, without none of the preset equalizers. i recommend at least a 320kbps file or even better lossless to take full advantage of the sound. i'm only using a denon ah-c551 but it just sounds wonderful. i never really liked lossless or a 320kbps bitrate due to the large size (30mb and 10mb) but it does make a difference! i bought utada's first love album recently and ripped a few songs out at lossless and songs like movin on without you and give me a reason are just amazing. eagles' hotel california at 320 was also great. the instruments were detailed and warm and had 'feel'. the only drawback is that 4gb would only get you roughly 100 lossless songs (though toshiba has just released a 8gb version)

other notable features are video playback. it doesn't support avi, only wmv only, so converting is abit of a pain but the screen is bright and nice.

interface is great and controls are good. buttons, simple and easy to use!

the only drawback is battery life at a miserable 16 hours!even an ipod now has 22+ hours... it's abit disappointing and takes time to get used to fomr my 50hr sony player but sound quality trumps battery life any dayy.

it makes me wonder why i'm building a portable amp this hols considering i don't think the sound can get any better with my current ear pieces.

edit: i forgot to include this but apparently during this year's CES(consumer electronics show) in vegas, toshiba were looking for premium earphones to pair it with their players and found SHURE. people at shure loved the player so much that they traded a few of their SE530s, their flagship earphones. one pair of those retails at around 55,000yen (rm1650) i can only dream to own it. but it does show how awesome this player really is