Good mp3 players? - Update: I went with the Nomad Jukebox 2

[SickBeast]

Ah yes, removable media portable players (I'm referring to the MD suggestions above), how archaic! C'mon guys, get into the 21st century -- you gotta get a jukebox MP3 player of some sort. I have a Nomad Zen myself -- I store every CD I own on this little gem encoded at 192kbps. Flippin discs in and out is for chumps...

There's no way that any hard drive based MP3 player can compare to minidisc players when it comes to size, weight, price, and battery life. The only one that even comes close is the IPOD, which only lasts 10 hours on it's proprietary battery (compared to 56 hours on my sony mzn-505 with a single AA). Changing disks isn't so bad; you only need to do it once every few hours. It's probably just as inconvenient as finding the right album on your 20GB mp3 player.

The only "problem" with the minidisc players is the ATRAC3 thing. I have a very fast computer (athlon xp 2400+) so the encode time isn't bad for me. The good side to the ATRAC compression is the sound quality. A 132kbps ATRAC3 file sounds identical to a 192kbps mp3 (to my ears, anyway). It's only a matter of time before sony makes minidisc players that can use the newest ATRAC-pro codec; it apparently matches the current 132kbps mode in quality at 64kbps

 

[LiqwudIce]

I went ahead and bought the Nomad Jukebox 2 and i like it a lot. The software package that comes with it is easy to use and the player is also easy to use.

 

[j@cko]

Yeah. CD-Mp3 players are good but the cost of entry is a burner.

Burners are virtually free nowadays.

 

[FishTankX]

Have fun with your nomad jukebox. Hope it serves you well.

 

[Spicedaddy]

If only someone could come out with a MD that can record/play MP3 directly, and transfer back to a PC... I'd go pick one up tomorrow morning.


Stupid Sony and all their copyright protection. It doesn't even work anyways, it's just annoying for everybody.

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: Spicedaddy
If only someone could come out with a MD that can record/play MP3 directly, and transfer back to a PC... I'd go pick one up tomorrow morning.


Stupid Sony and all their copyright protection. It doesn't even work anyways, it's just annoying for everybody.

You should check out the software (M3U2SB) that I linked earlier.

Thorin

 

[FishTankX]

Originally posted by: Spicedaddy
If only someone could come out with a MD that can record/play MP3 directly, and transfer back to a PC... I'd go pick one up tomorrow morning.


Stupid Sony and all their copyright protection. It doesn't even work anyways, it's just annoying for everybody.

it's possible for digital transfers back to a P.C.

Frankly, if I were really looking for a hardcore recording sollution for live concerts, i'd buy a portable Mic Amp, (Most are like bricks, the higher class ones) and a portable ADC then just record to a Nomad 3 digitally though wav. The equivalent of a DAT recorder with significantly more storage, and no 'Tape eating' issues, while totally removing the 'Portable player= Crap ADC' part out of the equation.

 

[Booster]

I second the minidisc suggestion. I bought a Sony MZ-R500 Minidisc player a few months back for only $75, it was quite a good deal at the time. Of course, it doesn't have NetMD, but I don't want to play with that stuff either (and got no time to). Normally, when I have encoded enough mp3 worth of 5 hours of music, I connect the minidisc player to the soundcard output, fire up WinAMP, and go to bed. When I wake up 5 hours later, I got 5 hours of mp3 music in LP4 mode, very decent quality and the disc is only $2. The minidisc player is also very slim and light, easy to use with well designed controls and the battery life is amazing - it lasts 24 hours on 1 AA rechargeable battery!

 

[Rhombuss]

Have a look on Ebay, there are a ton of MP3 players available at decent prices (especially if you contact them outside of Ebay and arrange a private deal). I have a Samsung YEPP NEU64, and I highly recommend that or any other more recent release. The Samsung's probably have the best looking players out there.

 

[human2k]

RCA Lyra.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Originally posted by: thorin

Originally posted by: Spicedaddy
If only someone could come out with a MD that can record/play MP3 directly, and transfer back to a PC... I'd go pick one up tomorrow morning.


Stupid Sony and all their copyright protection. It doesn't even work anyways, it's just annoying for everybody.

You should check out the software (M3U2SB) that I linked earlier.

Thorin

I know about the "mount the CD image and use SimpleBurner" method... M3U2SB just tries to automate the process for you, and I found it didn't really save me any time over doing it manually with Nero and Imagedrive. If it could play MP3s, all you'd have to do is drag an drop and it could transfer at NetMD's max speed. The way it is now, you lose time making the Audio CD image (MP3 to WAV), then reencoding again (WAV to ATRAC). That's 2 encodings when there could be 0...

it's possible for digital transfers back to a P.C.

AFAIK, you can only record through the analog output of the player. (which is useless) Which one lets you transfer to an ATRAC file on your PC?

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: FishTankX

Originally posted by: Muse
MD sounds nice to me except for the amount of music you can get on a disk. Sounds from the thread that 160 minutes is about the limit. I can get around 10 hours (600 minutes) on my CD-RW's of MP3s which I record at 128 kbps, 32,000 sampling rate (sounds OK to me recording off of FM), which I play in my iRiver SlimX IMP-350, obtainable for around $100 after rebate if you look around. The SlimX has an FM tuner, too. It weighs around 11 oz with the NiMH rechargeable batteries, has a fantastic remote with an LCD screen. It has upgradeable firmware, the feature set is rich and well thought out. I don't see the point in the newer SlimX IMP-400, which costs around twice as much right now. iRiver has other models, but I don't really know about them.

Yeah. CD-Mp3 players are good but the cost of entry is a burner.

Burner? I've got 3.

 

[SickBeast]

Ahh...you got the jukebox...I hope you're happy with it

 

[Pauli]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Ah yes, removable media portable players (I'm referring to the MD suggestions above), how archaic! C'mon guys, get into the 21st century -- you gotta get a jukebox MP3 player of some sort. I have a Nomad Zen myself -- I store every CD I own on this little gem encoded at 192kbps. Flippin discs in and out is for chumps...

There's no way that any hard drive based MP3 player can compare to minidisc players when it comes to size, weight, price, and battery life. The only one that even comes close is the IPOD, which only lasts 10 hours on it's proprietary battery (compared to 56 hours on my sony mzn-505 with a single AA). Changing disks isn't so bad; you only need to do it once every few hours. It's probably just as inconvenient as finding the right album on your 20GB mp3 player.

The only "problem" with the minidisc players is the ATRAC3 thing. I have a very fast computer (athlon xp 2400+) so the encode time isn't bad for me. The good side to the ATRAC compression is the sound quality. A 132kbps ATRAC3 file sounds identical to a 192kbps mp3 (to my ears, anyway). It's only a matter of time before sony makes minidisc players that can use the newest ATRAC-pro codec; it apparently matches the current 132kbps mode in quality at 64kbps

The Nomad Zen is plenty small and light enough for me to clip on my belt and go rollerblading or walking with. Probably not good for jogging, but then again, I wouldn't want to jog with an MD either -- only a very small flash player would be good for this. 10 hours of playing time is good enough for me before recharging -- I don't really ever listen to music for 10 straight hours. Yeah, changing disks isn't so bad, but carrying the whole mess of 'em with you is a pain. The ATRAC thing is the final straw -- what? I need to reencode all my MP3s? And like I said, flipping disks is for chumps. With my Zen, I carry around my ENTIRE CD collection that never, ever, requires me to change a disk or carry other disks with me. Face it, you made a mistake getting an MD player.

 

[LuDaCriS66]

The Nomad Zen is plenty small and light enough for me to clip on my belt and go rollerblading or walking with. Probably not good for jogging, but then again, I wouldn't want to jog with an MD either -- only a very small flash player would be good for this. 10 hours of playing time is good enough for me before recharging -- I don't really ever listen to music for 10 straight hours. Yeah, changing disks isn't so bad, but carrying the whole mess of 'em with you is a pain. The ATRAC thing is the final straw -- what? I need to reencode all my MP3s? And like I said, flipping disks is for chumps. With my Zen, I carry around my ENTIRE CD collection that never, ever, requires me to change a disk or carry other disks with me. Face it, you made a mistake getting an MD player.

Not necessarily... I've got a friend who has one of those sony MD players and it works on one AA battery for 30+ hours I think... the Zen lasts 12 hours tops and that's if you don't mess around with it at all. Don't get me wrong, I have the Zen myself. With shuffle on and a volume of about 18-20, I can get about 3 hours at most... then again, I like switching tracks a lot so I'm wasting battery there..

In the end, the MD is probably a better value. If you ever need to replace the zen battery, it'll cost a pretty penny

 

[Pauli]

I agree that the Zen's achille's heel is the battery situation. I probably get about 7-8 hours per charge and when that battery needs replacement, it will cost $100 or so (unless I do it myself which I intend to do). However, that doesn't nullify my argument that a hardrive-based MP3 player is superior to an MD player. That is just a tradeoff that I'm willing to put up with. I mean, I just can't see myself copying all of my music tracks to MD disks, labelling each one of them with the tracks that are on it, and then lugging the whole collection around with me wherever I go. It is just simply archaic. And what about having a mix of music? You have to duplicate tracks that are on other disks and copy them to the mix disk. C'mon, this is the 20th Century technology -- we just don't need to do that anymore. MD players are not progress, they're a step backwards.

 

[LiqwudIce]

Question for anyone that is saying that their type of player has 20 hrs of play time or whatever. When have you ever listened to that many hrs of music at once? I really can't stand listening to more than an hour or two at a time myself. If i have to, i just recharge it overnight or when i'm not listening to it.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: LiqwudIce
Question for anyone that is saying that their type of player has 20 hrs of play time or whatever. When have you ever listened to that many hrs of music at once? I really can't stand listening to more than an hour or two at a time myself. If i have to, i just recharge it overnight or when i'm not listening to it.

Battery life is a secondary issue for me. When I used my cassette walkman all the time it was something of a hassle switching the batteries. They only lasted 3-5 hours, I'm guessing, probably closer to 3. I carried an extra set with me always and these are NiCads. With my SlimX, I never run out of power. There's 10 or so hours and I always remember to recharge. There's a function where you can discharge/recharge and the manual advises doing this once a month to promote battery longevity (NiMH). I've seen posts where people favored the Sony over the SlimX because it gets over 20 hours from batteries, but for me it's really a non-issue.

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: LiqwudIce
Question for anyone that is saying that their type of player has 20 hrs of play time or whatever. When have you ever listened to that many hrs of music at once? I really can't stand listening to more than an hour or two at a time myself. If i have to, i just recharge it overnight or when i'm not listening to it.

Aparently you don't do any car trips.

Thorin

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Pauli
I agree that the Zen's achille's heel is the battery situation. I probably get about 7-8 hours per charge and when that battery needs replacement, it will cost $100 or so (unless I do it myself which I intend to do). However, that doesn't nullify my argument that a hardrive-based MP3 player is superior to an MD player. That is just a tradeoff that I'm willing to put up with. I mean, I just can't see myself copying all of my music tracks to MD disks, labelling each one of them with the tracks that are on it, and then lugging the whole collection around with me wherever I go. It is just simply archaic. And what about having a mix of music? You have to duplicate tracks that are on other disks and copy them to the mix disk. C'mon, this is the 20th Century technology -- we just don't need to do that anymore. MD players are not progress, they're a step backwards.

I agree with you that theoretically, and maybe even technologically, hard drive players are better than MD players. They have the advantage of having all of your media in one convenient location.

Here's the problem: you want to go on a trip by train, and it's 500 miles away. What do you do when your battery dies? Proprietary batteries are for chumps.

Problem number 2: what happens if you happen to drop your precious zen? Hmm...can you say "bad sectors"?

Problem number 3: what happens if you are only wearing very light clothing (shorts and a tshirt) and you want to listen to your music on the go? The minidisc player would have fit conveniently into the smallest of pockets. Mr. Zen won't fit? Awww...that's a shame.

Problem number 4: you make under $20,000/year and you've got bills to pay. Your budget is only $150. Again, what a shame, you can't afford the zen.

Give it a couple of years and the hard drive based players are going to kick some serious @$$. The problem with them right now is that the hard drive constantly spins (correct me if i'm wrong here). The MD players achieve such a long battery life by only spinning the disc for a few seconds every minute or so. I'm sure that they could adopt this to the hard drive players, but then once you start skipping songs you're in trouble. I'm personally most looking forward to the new minidiscs that can hold 650mb worth of data :Q That would mean 12 albums on a single disc. Add to this the new compression technology that sony has just came up with and you can double that to 24 albums.

Maybe in 2 years your arguements will be able to convince me, but as it stands now I'm very happy with my minidisc player.

 

[Pauli]

Here's the problem: you want to go on a trip by train, and it's 500 miles away. What do you do when your battery dies? Proprietary batteries are for chumps.

Touche! You are indeed correct, proprietary batteries are for chumps. Why couldn't Apple or Creative just put a replaceable battery on these things at the expense of just a small amount of space increase in the package size? That way, you could carry an extra with you if on a long train trip. In any case, I think my Zen would make it through a 500 mile train trip.

Problem number 2: what happens if you happen to drop your precious zen? Hmm...can you say "bad sectors"?

Good point. Although I have dropped my Zen twice onto pavement from hip height and the vinyl case protected it from visible damage and the hard drive still appears to work Ok. But you are correct, there is a pretty good risk here (although replacing the hard drive on a Zen is no big deal -- many ppl have upgraded to 60GB disks). I would contend that the MD players are relatively fragile as well if dropped from 5 or 6 feet.

Problem number 3: what happens if you are only wearing very light clothing (shorts and a tshirt) and you want to listen to your music on the go? The minidisc player would have fit conveniently into the smallest of pockets. Mr. Zen won't fit? Awww...that's a shame.

Well, I wouldn't put a Zen or iPod in a shirt pocket because of comfort concerns, but I did attach a cell-phone-style belt clip to my Zen case and this works great -- hangs on my hip just like a cell phone. As long as I wear a belt, this is no problem.

Problem number 4: you make under $20,000/year and you've got bills to pay. Your budget is only $150. Again, what a shame, you can't afford the zen.

Well, yeah, that's problematic. Although a friend of mine told me his high-end MD player cost almost $300!

Give it a couple of years and the hard drive based players are going to kick some serious @$$. The problem with them right now is that the hard drive constantly spins (correct me if i'm wrong here). The MD players achieve such a long battery life by only spinning the disc for a few seconds every minute or so. I'm sure that they could adopt this to the hard drive players, but then once you start skipping songs you're in trouble.

Well, no, the hard drive only spins for a few seconds to load the tracks into the buffer (Zen has 16MB, iPod 32MB) just like the MD players. No skipping. Why the battery life is not longer on HD players, I don't know.

Maybe in 2 years your arguements will be able to convince me, but as it stands now I'm very happy with my minidisc player.

I admit that HD players are no panacea for the moment. I can't wait what is available 3 years from now, though.

 

[SickBeast]

Cool. I guess that means we're both chumps then. Hopefully they'll come out with something better soon that we can both buy so that we're no longer chumps.

<edit: btw, wth is a chump? we never say that word here in canada>

 

[John]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
<edit: btw, wth is a chump? we never say that word here in canada>

Sucker......

 

[FishTankX]

Originally posted by: Pauli
I agree that the Zen's achille's heel is the battery situation. I probably get about 7-8 hours per charge and when that battery needs replacement, it will cost $100 or so (unless I do it myself which I intend to do). However, that doesn't nullify my argument that a hardrive-based MP3 player is superior to an MD player. That is just a tradeoff that I'm willing to put up with. I mean, I just can't see myself copying all of my music tracks to MD disks, labelling each one of them with the tracks that are on it, and then lugging the whole collection around with me wherever I go. It is just simply archaic. And what about having a mix of music? You have to duplicate tracks that are on other disks and copy them to the mix disk. C'mon, this is the 20th Century technology -- we just don't need to do that anymore. MD players are not progress, they're a step backwards.

The first MD player came out in late 1992. They're 10 years old, people. They're not meant to be 'New'. They're meant to be a medium that gives you a CD's worth of music at CD quality on a small removable cartridge, in a small package. That's what MD was meant to do. That is what it has done. End of story.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: thorin

Originally posted by: LiqwudIce
Question for anyone that is saying that their type of player has 20 hrs of play time or whatever. When have you ever listened to that many hrs of music at once? I really can't stand listening to more than an hour or two at a time myself. If i have to, i just recharge it overnight or when i'm not listening to it.

Aparently you don't do any car trips.

Thorin

Not speaking for that guy but I have a car kit for that.