MP3 players

[discovery1]

I'm looking to buy to buy an mp3 player. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions, although I think that the only things we have around here are iPods. Thank you for your aid.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Clicky

The Iriver H140-Best pure music player on the market in my opinion, far better than the ipod and the one I use myself. File-tree style file organistation, rather than DB, although you can use that if you want to, Drag-and-drop music addition, optical and line in and out, recording support for MP3 and WAVs, and Ogg Vorbis, WMA, MP3 and WAV playback. There's also a full function remote, which is truly awesome-you can access ALL of the player's features from it

The only problem you're going to have is that it's been discontinued, but you should be able to find one. If you can't, its successor, the H340, is basically the same, but with a colour screen and movie playback support. However, it lacks the remote and the optical in/out, and is more pricey.

[edyzmedieval]

Try an iRiver... Good mp3 player, moderate price and also with a colour display and the ability to store and view photos... It comes with a 20GB hard disk...

www.iriver.com

[Dutch_guy]

Well I have an 20GB ipod and IMHO it is really good, it helped me survive my dialy bike trips
Also the quality is good, though I have never compared it to other MP3 players.

Only downside is that your standard earphones don't last long when you turn the volume on it's highest for a long time.
Still you can use other earphones if you like.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Only downside is that your standard earphones don't last long when you turn the volume on it's highest for a long time.
Still you can use other earphones if you like.

You'd have to be insane to use the iPod bundled 'phones, they're terrible. Of course, so are most bundled phones-but the iPod ones don't even have a wrap-around. Yeesh.

When talking about sound quality with digital Jukeboxes though, the importance of bit-rate cannot be overstated. I rip at 320KbS^-1 myself, to Ogg, and I get a great sound. For albums that are really well produced, I use WAV. I'd advise calculating how much you intend to put on there, and then ripping at the highest bit-rate you can while still having it all fit.

[The Wizard]

I use the iPod mini 4 GB... does the job for someone who doesn't have thousands upon thousands of songs (only about 1000) but doesn't want one of those tiny Philips things... besides, you'll be fly... for a white guy

And BKS... wrap-around? WTF? I have never used those things. Terrible. Even though they came with my iPod. The in-ear earphones are the best earphones on the market, as far as I'm concerned.

Only thing is, Apple is damn smart in marketing -- so be ready to dish out €20,- (or was that 40?) for them in-ear earphones.



~Wiz

[Dutch_guy]

well the earphones are bad , they broke after I got my Ipod for about 2 weeks.

I did get new ones though

[The Wizard]

I've had my iPod for half a year or more... and they are still working fine. Only con is that the wires are cracking... i.e. I can see the green and red wires underneath.



~Wiz

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

And BKS... wrap-around? WTF? I have never used those things. Terrible. Even though they came with my iPod.

I was refering to in-ear headphones in which the right hand wire is much longer than the left, so it can be looped around your neck. I didn't mean more traditional fixed-headphones, I find them far more restrictive. Of course, if you put a pair of Grados on your player, they will sound awesome, but I wouldn't want to use them on the bus.

[The Wizard]

Ohh... problem solved. I hate those too. No, I thought you meant those fuzzy things you get with your earphones, that you're supposed to wrap around them to make it easier on your ear. Even though I find they make it less comfortable.

The Apple earphones are very well-shaped, IMO -- they fit perfectly in my ears and stay there. Something I can't say of Sony or Philips earphones.



~Wiz

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

I use Sony Fontopias myself-



Great bass, would need an earthquake to shift them from your ears, well defined mids, crisp treble, and cut out most ambient noise. For 25 quid, they're really rather good. I'd like some Etymotic studio in ear phones, but I don't have the money.

[The Wizard]

Hmmm, my two biggest gripes with the iPod are:

• The lack of good EQ options; i.e. you only have a selection of 'modes', and you cannot alter the EQ manually yourself.
• The fact that '1000' songs for the iPod mini is bullshit. Perhaps it can be reached if all of them were not mp3s but Apple's own compression format, 92 (?) kbits/s, and no longer than 3:30 minutes each. Since most of my songs are mp3s, 4 minutes long (I got one megamix 90 minutes long), and at least 128 kbits/sec (usually 192), I can only fit about 780 songs on the thing. Sigh.

But, overall, these aren't that big problems. Perhaps when my music collection is bigger, but not right now. Only the EQ thing is a real problem to me. Up until now I've been too lazy to purchase the in-ear headphones anyways.



~Wiz

[Lehesu]

Try searching CNET for opinions on all the mp3s. They generally give good criticism.

Clicky

[Navaros]

in my view iPods are pieces of crap and the constant media barrage touting them as if they are the only MP3 player on the market is disgusting

iPods have a non-replaceable battery with a limited life. so when it dies you are left with a useless device; unless you send it back to Apple at your own expense and have them replace the battery at a ludicrous charge

also, the copy protection restrictions on the iPod are really bad. they delete files off your iPod automatically if you connect it to a computer that does not have all the files that are on your iPod on the computer too. which is ludicrous.

plus they force you to use iTunes, which is also ludicrous

i always recommend everyone to avoid iPod like the plague. get an MP3 player that is recognized as a portable drive. just plug it to the USB port, copy and paste your files, and you're done. no copy-protection BS deleting your files automatically or wasting your time and energy. and make sure that whatever you buy, that the batteries are removable by yourself

[Slyspy]

I use a Creative MuVo2 4Gb unit and have no complaints (although the bundled headphones were poor and uncomfortable of course).

[TonkaToys]

Bought mine off some geezer in Hong Kong via ebay... brand-free bargain-basement beauty!
Paid about £30, it has 512mb storage, which means I've got about 1000 MP3 or WMF files on it with space to spare!
Headphones were pants though.

[ah_dut]

Sony's ones force you to use really crappy proprietry software but still...amazing battery life

[discovery1]

Thanks for the help all. These iRivers look good, and Best Buy does actually carry them.

[Spino]

If you're looking for something considerably less bulky consider the Samsung YP-MT6Z mp3 player. It uses 1gig of flash memory instead of a micro drive hard disk. It beats the pi$$ out of the Ipod Shuffle and is arguably the leader of the flash memory mp3 playing pack.

The MT6Z has got a great little lcd screen and thumb operated button/joystick for navigating its interface. Thanks to an additional jack the MT6Z can encode on the fly from an external source and has a built in microphone for voice recording as well. It also sports excellent compatibility with other formats and can handle not only WMA files but ASF and Ogg files (Ogg Vorbis) as well. It even has a built in FM tuner. Using the MT6Z as a simple flash memory card is simple and problem free. The speed that you can transfer files and folders to the player is fantastic, it seems to take full advantage of its USB 2.0 compatibility.

But the really cool thing about the MT6Z is that it uses AA batteries instead of the more expensive AAA batteries. This does add a bit to the MT6Z's overall size (it's 'fatter' than its peers) but it makes up for it by providing astounding longevity. According to the spec sheet it can play for 42 hours straight on a single AA battery! Even assuming that is a best case, laboratory conditions type figure it's quite remarkable.

It's a given that most lightweight headphones that ship with walkmen and mp3 players are poor in quality and the pair that ships with the MT6Z are no exception. The MT6Z's other drawbacks are it's additional girth due to its AA battery requirements, the astonishingly crappy clear plastic case which is supposed to protect it from scratches and whatnot and the fact that it will shut down if you pause it for longer than 10 seconds (it boots up and resumes playing quickly though). I also hate the Ipod inspired white/metal color scheme unique to the 1gig version. I was hoping to get one in red or blue but it seems those colors are reserved for the 256 & 512meg versions.

Coupled with a pair of quality Sony earbud headphones the MT6Z has made me all smiles since I bought it three weeks ago. It is by far one of the best bangs for the buck I've purchased in quite a while. I picked one up for a little over $150.

Here's a decent and thorough review of the MT6Z...

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1785

[The Wizard]

Bought mine off some geezer in Hong Kong via ebay... brand-free bargain-basement beauty!
Paid about £30, it has 512mb storage, which means I've got about 1000 MP3 or WMF files on it with space to spare!
Headphones were pants though.

1000 MP3s on 512 mb?! I only fitted about 105-110 on my mom's 512 mb MP3 player...



~Wiz

[Lehesu]

1000 MP3s on 512 mb?! I only fitted about 105-110 on my mom's 512 mb MP3 player...



~Wiz

Depends on compression.

[TonkaToys]

1000 MP3s on 512 mb?! I only fitted about 105-110 on my mom's 512 mb MP3 player...



~Wiz

Hang on, I'll just start it up and check that I wasn't seeing things...

[TonkaToys]

My mistake, it is around 700. I'm using a mixture of mp3 and WMA formats, and choosing higher compression for some of the songs I listen to least.

[Lehesu]

Does anyone have a Zen? I am considering getting a Zen Touch 20 or 40 GB.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

The main thing that strikes me about the Zen touch is that it is huge-even the 20Gb version is collosal, compared to the iriver and ipod of the same capacity. I'm not one of those who goes for ultra small players at the expense of funtionality, but it seems a bit strange to me.

[Taurus]

I think that ipods are pants but thats just my opinion.
I bought the Sony 20GB NW-HD1 for £100 and it is amazing. It stores more songs than any other 20GB because of Sony's own compression ATRAC 3PLUS.

The only catch is that they don't sell them anymore (where I live anyway) but considering it was supposed to be £250 and I got it for £100 I thought it was a very good buy, also it is the size of a credit card and is only about 1.5cm thick if that.