MP3 Players and where they're going...

[Dman877]

I've had a 10 gig 3rd gen iPod for the last few years. The battery life always dissapointed though and for the last year or so, the battery has been dead. This wasn't too big a problem because I do most of my listening at work where I test circuit boards and am always near electricity. It seems I've dropped my iPod one too many times though because its started doing strange things (randomly skipping tracks, freezing for 30 seconds, etc).

I've recently gotten heavily into road biking and I want to take my tunes with me. So right now I'm looking at mp3 players all over the spectrum. The flash players are small and light which is what I want on the road but the money/megabyte ratio on the flash players seems pretty crappy. The battery life on flash players seems to be better, in general, though.

I have about 25 gigs of music, 15 or so of which I like to listen to on a regular basis. Its encoded at 160 - 256 kbps. I wouldn't mind swapping music out regulalry (like every night) as long as it's quick and painless though. I have a couple questions.

Whats the best music format in terms of quality and size?
How much decent quality (I'll be listening to it on crappy headphones) music can you fit on a 1 gig flash player?
Are there any new technologies around the corner I should wait for?
Should I just bite the bullet and grab another iPod? (really don't feel like giving apple more money atm)
Do all flashplayers work just like a flash drive, no software required just pop it in and drag files, or do they have proprietary bloatware to deal with?
Do the new iPods really last 12 hours on a charge? Mine said 8 hours but I never got more then about 6 out of it...
Does the length and bitrate of tracks you listen to affect battery life? I listen to mostly dance mixes which run anywhere from 1 to 5 hours a track.

I have a feeling I'm gonna be stuck buying an iPod mini, prolly 6 gig, because they're the smallest of the larger capacity players and at 220ish the value over 1gig flashplayers (120ish) is just too good to pass up...

Someone tell me there's a 30 gig microdrive player smaller then an iPod coming out in the next few months from someone other then apple with 20 hours battery life for 200 dollars please .

 

[wpeng]

I'm not an audio expert, but I will try to answer best I can:

1. I hear ogg vorbis is pretty good. I don't know too many players that support .ogg though.
2. Most advertisements like to say 400+ songs on 1 GB. 2 GB flash drives seem to lose a bit of space in formatting.
3. I don't think so. Just added features like FM, recording, color, etc...
4. If you're thinking about bang for the buck, iPod is not your best choice. It seems iPod, however, has the best QA and navigation interface.
5. There are actually some flash drives that need proprietary software. Most mp3 review sites mention this, though, so look around.
6. I think the battery issue on iPods has been fixed. All I know is that iPod Minis are rated at 18 hrs nowadays.
7. Higher quality music sucks more juice is what I've been hearing on forums.

As for your last request... I wish... I myself would never buy an mp3 player purely for looks, so I personally would advise against iPod. Apparently most competitors have players with better audio quality and lower price.

 

[HDTVMan]

The problem with Ogg Vorbis is its not MP3 and despite it having better audio compression most dont wish to rerip thier audio collection or download ogg files to replace their mp3's. Ogg came to late when most already had substantial MP3 collections. Also MP3 can be found in Car, Portable, etc. Its pretty much the standard in every device where OGG still doesnt really exist. Betamax was better than VHS but VHS won because of adult media. MP3 beat OGG because it was first and won the popular vote.

Creatives XiFi chip will eventually move to audio devices and help alleviate the lossy compression of MP3. Most wont care because Mp3 already sounds good enough. But go and listen to an actual CD and you will hear a difference. Like me you still wont care.

I believe eventually phone carriers will get the friggin hint and allow more mp3 player options and play with removable sd/mmc media. But some may not want to go that route. I personally dont want to strap a cancer producing device to my body while I try to increase my health in working out.

Eventually mp3 will be built into the headphones at a Reasonable cost. Not $500 oakleys. Walmart already has the worlds smallest one and its like 1" by 1". Spread half on each side of headphones and you have a winner. Then they will take those micro memory cards for expansion but with 1 gig headphones you wont need much.

Car-casting will be something next. Broadcast your MP3 collection wherever your car is within 300ft and you wear a pair of wireless headphones. Now I am making this stuff up. Or WiFi headphones and gyms will have wifi connections you you can access you mp3 collection via WiFi. Dont know.

 

[LED]

192and up for MP3's should be suffice and also wma is rebounding...Go HERE and click the link for a nice review on the new kid on the Block

 

[Dman877]

Thanks for the help guys. Does anyone know of any good review sites for this stuff? I've been using cnet/shopper.com and the reviews are kinda hit-n-miss.

 

[FlasHBurN]

Originally posted by: LED
192and up for MP3's should be suffice and also wma is rebounding...Go HERE and click the link for a nice review on the new kid on the Block

That is interesting. A bit too many drawbacks to the unit though. Namely the size, quality of build materials and the software. If Red Chair decides to make their software compatible with it, I might be interested in replacing my 40GB Zen Xtra with it.

 

[halfadder]

I love the iPod, it's so small it actually fits in my pocket. I wish it was cheaper but you get what you pay for. The "problem" with iPods is that they use the very new lithium polymer battery technology which still has some bugs in it. Apple doesn't manufacture their own batteries, they use two different suppliers and because of this it's not too hard to find replacement batteries for $19 - $34. Apple will even replace the battery for you for $59 (ripoff if you're good with a screwdriver). Better yet, buy a Newer Techology brand battery, they have 20% to 78% (!!!) more capacity than the original factory batteries and don't cost all that much either. My 20 GB color screen 4th generation iPod is 4 months old and I'm still getting a little over 11 hours on a charge. I might buy the 40% more capacity battery and shoot for a possible 17 hours of battery life.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ipod/batteryreplacement

Long term, MP3 players will be moving to flash storage. Hard drives in audio players are just a fragile hack for now until flash memory gets better capacity and comes down in price.

I'm not a big fan of ogg. It's a totally open standard which is cool and it's excellent for recording audio books, but I'm just as happy with 160kbps MP3 that I can play anywhere. MPEG4 Audio (aka AAC) sounds great too but isn't as common.

Right now you can buy 512 MB flash players for $10 - $30 depending on what sort of coupons you can find and stack. I paid something like $20 including shipping for my 256 MB player almost 2 years ago, it has a USB port and runs on two cheap AAA batteries. Expect to see cheaper flash player with more storage in the next few months.

 

[The J]

I believe OGG requires more processing power than WMA or MP3 to decode, so that would lower your battery life right there. WMA and MP3 are both common. If you can, rip a song from a CD into WMA and MP3 (same bitrate) and listen to them to see which one you like better. At 128kbps I personally think WMA sounds better for the music I listen to, but I don't really notice a difference at higher bitrates. Obviously, your experience may be different.

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: The J
I believe OGG requires more processing power than WMA or MP3 to decode, so that would lower your battery life right there. WMA and MP3 are both common. If you can, rip a song from a CD into WMA and MP3 (same bitrate) and listen to them to see which one you like better. At 128kbps I personally think WMA sounds better for the music I listen to, but I don't really notice a difference at higher bitrates. Obviously, your experience may be different.

QTF! WMA sounds better than MP3, but at 192 TO MOST PEOPLE, WMA and MP3 VBR sound around the same.

 

[CKent]

get a ipod it rox

 

[HDTVMan]

mp3.com

Click on players.

 

[Cerb]

1. FLAC for high bitrates, Ogg at super low (<128k) ones.
Aside from that, listen to them. Some people like Ogg (better detail at a bitrate than most), some like MP3 (better stereo), some WMA (I wouldn't due to it being MS'), some AAC/MP4, etc.. Make a lossless copy of some songs, then some MP3. Ogg, etc. of varying qualities, and see where you can tell a difference. If you have the time, maybe even use FB2K for some blind A/B testing .
2.I. About 12 hours, --preset standard MP3.
2.II. There is no excuse for crappy headphones!!! KSC50/75 can be had for under $20 (best cheap ones if you don't need isolation), and even shipped for about $20, then there's the Sharp MD33 for cheap canalphones, and Sony MDR-EX81. Have I made myself clear? Do not use crappy headphones. Good ones can be had on the cheap.
3. No new tech, really.
4. That depends. Do you like the Ipod? iRiver and Cowon/iAudio have some nice HDD players. Warranties are a bit short, though--that's where Dell has an edge (though it costs you)
5. No. Creative's do, Cowon's do (I have a I5, and am quite happy with it). iRivers did, and I'm not sure if they do again (I know they didn't for one or two series of them). Unless you will use really low quality songs, I'd have to recommend the Cowon I5 (color backlight, big for a flash player, low battery life), U2 (small, the white one looks awesome, ~15 hours on its LP battery for MP3, 12 or so for Ogg and WMA, and it has a nicer case than the G3 or U2--the lanyard sucks, but that can easily be dealt with), or G3 (AA battery for long life) for flash players. They have a hard limit of about 480 files/directories. With --preset standard MP3s (~200kb/s), I have yet to get even 150 files on my 1GB.
6. Dunno personally, but I read that they actually exceed it.
7. The bitrate should affect battery life, and does for most players. At any given bitrate, MP3 is the best for battery life, but not necessarily the best for sound quality. From what I've read, AAC comes next, and then Ogg and WMA trade off, depending on the player.

 

[MOCKBA1]

I plan to replace my 3g iPod by iAudio. It seems a good player, very durable, solid, supports all audio and popular video formats. Only two things disappointing are small HD (30gb isn't right size) and no video out. I hope it will be fixed in future models. So, I'm going to buy a player first for kids, and after some time for myself, unless I'll see something better on market.

 

[wpeng]

If you want video out, get an Archos Gmini400/402. It doesn't have an FM tuner, but I hear all the other features are top notch. The main problem is about 10 hours battery life for music, 5/4 hours (Gmini 400/402) for video. Another problem is if you access the hard drive too much, it gets extremely hot.