FLAC/ALAC/MP3 player "with buttons"

[EfeTe]

Hi everyone,

Silly question I know but I'm sure some of you will point me in the right direction. What I'm looking for specifically is a portable player while I'm on the road (I'm constantly on the road either in the car or on the plane) which has got external buttons -I mean physical buttons on the side of the unit.

When I'm travelling I tend to go with easy, straighforward devices to use that I can afford to lose / break. Usually a BT set of cans (recently mostly my Parrot Ziks) or the nicely foldable Focal Spirit One, and then a small inexpensive device to play the tunes. Got a dozen of iPods, iPhones, iPad 4 and Mini, I even play them on a Samsung Galaxy Note used as a player only. Hell I even use the Blackberry 9300 to listen to my music mainly because of its external play/pause, rewind, fforward buttons at the top of the thingy!!

That is exactly what I'm looking for. Since I listen quite a lot of music when I'm in bed, or flying or waiting in a hall I just do not want to deal with screens, touch screens, look at album art nonono nothing of the sort. I just want to sit down and enjoy, and then up/down the volume, skip tracks etc mechanically through dedicated buttons on the edge of the unit I don't mind if they're plasticky or do not look nice -I just don't want to be looking at the screen.

So maybe without the need to be spending thousands on a Hifiman or an A&K (as much as they seem a nice enough proposition), have you got or would you recommend me any portable players with buttons on the side that I could purchase. I'm thinking Cowon, Sansa, Zune, Galaxy Player, Sony's Walkman etc etc.

Ideas / experiences anyone?

Cheers

[Yamaki]

Actually, I was going to recommend the A&K 100. I have one and it works great. I understand they will be soon updating the 100 to with a 64GB internal drive and two 32GB micro SD card slots.

The current version has a 32GB HD with two 32GB micro SD card slots.

I really, really like mine. I have it paired with some Sennheiser Momentum headphones and it's a great combo.

[EfeTe]

Hi Michael,

Thanks a lot for your recommendation. I've ordered the A&K 100 and will post my impressions here when it's arrived and after the subsequent break-in period (do items like these need breaking in at all?)

Cheers
EfeTe

[Yamaki]

It did not seem to require any break-in. Once I figured out how to load music on it, I immediately began enjoying the music.

You definitely want to read the instructions. Loading music is not exactly an intuitive process and the instructions are a bit sparse on process but you'll figure it out.

I use Sennheiser Momentum headphones and they are a good pairing with this unit to my ears.

[EfeTe]

Cheers. I like Sennheiser in general, have had 3-4 of their models but not the Momentums as of today. The ones I use the most are Beyerdynamic 770's for home listening (through the McIntosh D100 headphone amp), Focal Spirit One´s for wired on the go and Parrot Zik´s for non-cabled (bluetooth) but will deifinitely give those a try.