Advice on MP3 players?

[Faux]

I'm buying an MP3 player tomorrow or the next and I have to choose. I still have no idea which I'm getting and I know myself from the past that I rush my choices and usually get messed up on the way =[

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If anyone who knows anything about Mp3 players give me advice on which brands to look for and what exactly I should look for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/subcla ... ge=0&list=

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm more than likely to go to Future Shop tomorrow so there's a link up there. If you guys have better advice on where to shop, tell me :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm leaning towards 512mb - 1gig mem and gonna see if I can keep the price lower than $200.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh yeah, I don't like designs like iPod so steer away from it. I'm leaning towards brands like Creative or iRiver but as I said, I don't know much :?

[Lionheart_0]

this is the one i have (ironicly im listening to it right now :D ) And its abou the best ive seen next to an ipod. It has only 82 mb BUT It has a memory slot. In this slot you can put a card (forget what type it is) and you can save on that card, then take it out if you wish. The cool thing is if you really have alot of songs you want to listen too, you can creat a whole library of cards :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link:http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10061335&catid=10205

 

 

 

Edit: Just looked the page even more. for some reason this one has ALOT more memory then mine, but is the exact same make :? , costs alot more then mine too...

[Bmw]

^ Eh Lionheart? I'm not too sure about that. Carrying memory cards is like carrying cds. Mp3 players imo are meant to be straightforward, no additional storages. I wouldn't like to need to buy a memory card.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for the poster, I'm not 100% sure on the sub gig players, but for under 200 ($199 CAD) lol you can get the 5gb Dell Pocket DJ. Amazing deal, amazing player. I've owned a dell DJ gen 1 before, and its a great machine. However, the gen 1's were big, so I bought an iPod mini for 249 CAD. But now with the new pocket dj, the size of the mini, for only 199. Great deal, one that I would highly reccomend. If not, I'd go with a Sony 512 or 1gig, in the 100 - 175 price range.

[jesselt]

creative zen micro. I have one and I like it.

[dymed]

If you aren't looking at ipods, I'd say the Dell DJ would be your best bet. 12 hours of battery life, 20 gb, and right under 200 USD (about 246 CAD). Also looks very nice. :D

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/Prod ... furbished=

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't have any experience with one, but my friend always complains about how her Creative Zen is skipping or that the buttons aren't working. I am not sure whether it's a Zen Micro or not though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An iRiver is also nice. I've got a friend who's had one for a long time, and he's got no complaints with it.

[magekillr]

i assume u want flash memory?

[Faux]

i assume u want flash memory?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah of course, it's also gonna be useful for me for my school work next year =\

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for Dell Dj, it has pretty much the same design as iPod which I really really don't like. My friend has one and he lets me use it but I dunno, it just irritates me.

[Bmw]

Whoa, you don't like the feel of the iPod or DJ? Yikes. I find them so comfortable! Not too big, not too small, just right. Oh well.

 

 

 

Well in that case, I would reccomend the 1 gig iRiver at Best Buy Canada for 199, or maybe the sony network 512 for 199. Prices really suck tho, but if you don't like the mini or dj, thats your best bet. Keep in mind that the Dell pocket is on sale atm for 199 CAD. Same price as these much, much smaller capacity players.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I guess its whatever floats your boat. If you're willing to spend the money for a flash player, then go for it. Those are the flashes i'd reccomend. Stay away from cheap no named players. To be honest, I really don't like anything from Creative either. I'd go with a sony, apple, dell, or iRiver player, but thats just me.

[Faux]

Yeah, right now, I'm aiming for an iRiver. They are a bit less expensive than sony and looks adorable too :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

another question; are all MP3 skip free? I want to use it when jogging =\

[Mercifull]

Yeah, right now, I'm aiming for an iRiver. They are a bit less expensive than sony and looks adorable too :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

another question; are all MP3 skip free? I want to use it when jogging =\

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flash memory players will always be skip free because they have no moving parts. And decent hdd players shouldnt skip either because they preload into memory about a minute worth of the song so you dont ever get skips.

[Mercifull]

-oops-

[Mercifull]

-oops-

[Faux]

 

Yeah, right now, I'm aiming for an iRiver. They are a bit less expensive than sony and looks adorable too :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

another question; are all MP3 skip free? I want to use it when jogging =\

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flash memory players will always be skip free because they have no moving parts. And decent hdd players shouldnt skip either because they preload into memory about a minute worth of the song so you dont ever get skips.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks. HDD players are the ones like Dell Dj and iPod right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANyone know what the average capacity of 512 mb and 1g are? Like what's the average amount of songs you can put in =\ I've seen some in flyers but they're pretty BS since they seem a bit too much to be real.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde ... atid=10205 might be what I will get. Either that or a 1 gig one. Average of 4.5/5 from 250 rates are good enough for me =\

[Mercifull]

 

 

Yeah, right now, I'm aiming for an iRiver. They are a bit less expensive than sony and looks adorable too :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

another question; are all MP3 skip free? I want to use it when jogging =\

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flash memory players will always be skip free because they have no moving parts. And decent hdd players shouldnt skip either because they preload into memory about a minute worth of the song so you dont ever get skips.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks. HDD players are the ones like Dell Dj and iPod right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANyone know what the average capacity of 512 mb and 1g are? Like what's the average amount of songs you can put in =\ I've seen some in flyers but they're pretty BS since they seem a bit too much to be real.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde ... atid=10205 might be what I will get. Either that or a 1 gig one. Average of 4.5/5 from 250 rates are good enough for me =\

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah Apple iPods, Dell DJ, Zen touch etc are all Hard disk mp3 players. they have the most storage. 512mb is about 120 songs at 192 bitrate mp3. The higher quality the mp3 the less songs you can fit on. Likewise the length of the song is important too. A Mogwai CD is likely to take up much more space than a Busted album for example.

 

 

 

A 20GB iPod will take an average of 5000 songs at a normal quality bitrate.

[Faux]

 

 

 

Yeah, right now, I'm aiming for an iRiver. They are a bit less expensive than sony and looks adorable too :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

another question; are all MP3 skip free? I want to use it when jogging =\

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flash memory players will always be skip free because they have no moving parts. And decent hdd players shouldnt skip either because they preload into memory about a minute worth of the song so you dont ever get skips.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks. HDD players are the ones like Dell Dj and iPod right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANyone know what the average capacity of 512 mb and 1g are? Like what's the average amount of songs you can put in =\ I've seen some in flyers but they're pretty BS since they seem a bit too much to be real.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde ... atid=10205 might be what I will get. Either that or a 1 gig one. Average of 4.5/5 from 250 rates are good enough for me =\

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah Apple iPods, Dell DJ, Zen touch etc are all Hard disk mp3 players. they have the most storage. 512mb is about 120 songs at 192 bitrate mp3. The higher quality the mp3 the less songs you can fit on. Likewise the length of the song is important too. A Mogwai CD is likely to take up much more space than a Busted album for example.

 

 

 

A 20GB iPod will take an average of 5000 songs at a normal quality bitrate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iPod is great and all but from what I've seen, it's not that great for me. My friend has it and he's into music more than I am and he barely uses over 5 gigs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

512 mb is good enough for me :)

[Mercifull]

iPods now all come with colour screens and you can use them to store album art and photographs now. You can easily fill 20GB up. I use 12 so far on my monocrome one.

[cjlhdevil]

 

 

 

Yeah, right now, I'm aiming for an iRiver. They are a bit less expensive than sony and looks adorable too :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

another question; are all MP3 skip free? I want to use it when jogging =\

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flash memory players will always be skip free because they have no moving parts. And decent hdd players shouldnt skip either because they preload into memory about a minute worth of the song so you dont ever get skips.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks. HDD players are the ones like Dell Dj and iPod right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANyone know what the average capacity of 512 mb and 1g are? Like what's the average amount of songs you can put in =\ I've seen some in flyers but they're pretty BS since they seem a bit too much to be real.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde ... atid=10205 might be what I will get. Either that or a 1 gig one. Average of 4.5/5 from 250 rates are good enough for me =\

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah Apple iPods, Dell DJ, Zen touch etc are all Hard disk mp3 players. they have the most storage. 512mb is about 120 songs at 192 bitrate mp3. The higher quality the mp3 the less songs you can fit on. Likewise the length of the song is important too. A Mogwai CD is likely to take up much more space than a Busted album for example.

 

 

 

A 20GB iPod will take an average of 5000 songs at a normal quality bitrate.

Realistically it won't hold 120 songs, my Ipod mini is 4 gigs and is fully up at only 700 songs.

[rocketman089]

Realistically it won't hold 120 songs, my Ipod mini is 4 gigs and is fully up at only 700 songs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's because iPod's advertise the amount of songs they hold as if all the songs are converted the AAC format. You can do it with itunes, it downsizes the songs size per sake of some misc sounds and music quality (which can actually improve quality, as it rids of miscellanious noise like fuzz, static, etc.)

[cjlhdevil]

 

Realistically it won't hold 120 songs, my Ipod mini is 4 gigs and is fully up at only 700 songs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's because iPod's advertise the amount of songs they hold as if all the songs are converted the AAC format. You can do it with itunes, it downsizes the songs size per sake of some misc sounds and music quality (which can actually improve quality, as it rids of miscellanious noise like fuzz, static, etc.)

Oooooh is that the thing which basically gets rid of all sounds not hearable to a human ear? Making it smaller?

[rocketman089]

Oooooh is that the thing which basically gets rid of all sounds not hearable to a human ear? Making it smaller?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yep, and I wouldn't necessarily say that it's not hearable. You probably won't notice anything different with those ipod headphones, or even real high quality headphones unless you intentially listen in both formats real carefully and look for differences yourself. It's nothing to worry about either way. Only bad thing about AAC format is that ipods are the only ones that can use them (i think, at least not any CDs or CD players).

[Bmw]

Wow, I'm an idiot :lol:

 

 

 

Why did I never convert my music files to AAC? I dunno. I only use music on my iPod and Computer anyways, so AAC will do just fine. Not looking to make any CD's or anything, plus my iPod is almost full. Converting Library right now. :P I realize some quality loss will occur, but I don't mind. I'm not a sound quality freak, and can't even tell the difference anyways. Just checked, a few 6mb files have been reduced to 3. something mb. Awesome.

[Pyro]

There are two kinds of compression, lossy and lossless compression.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lossless compression work in the same way that ordinary non-audio/video compression does, it takes a bit more "effort" to open it, but the quality is the same in the end. FLAC is an example of lossless compression.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lossy compression on the other hand filters out detail in order to decrease the size. Most of time it filters away parts of the audio that you wouldn't notice, such as a quiet sound directly after a loud sound. MP3, WMA and AAC are examples of lossy compression. Lossy compression will decrease the sound quality considerably.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can convert a format to another one. Let's say you have a CD, and you decide to rip it into WAV. You now have CD-quality audio on your harddrive. You then decide to convert it into 192kbps MP3. You now have 192kbps MP3-quality audio on your harddrive, and you delete the WAV. Later you decide to convert it into 192kbs WMA audio. Will you then have 192kbps WMA-quality audio? No. Converting a lossy format into another lossy format will produce poor results. If you use several lossy codecs after another the sound will soon become "muddy".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are dead set on using AAC, I must suggest ripping directly from the CD as this will improve quality without increasing filesize. However, I don't really see the point. If you're using MP3 already, just transcode it into MP3 with a lower bitrate. AAC is just another lossy codec, it's nothing special.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though, if you can't hear the difference in quality with your current equipment, I suppose it doesn't matter. Just figured I'd shed some light on codecs.

[magekillr]

i fit like...35 songs on my 128 MB one that i bought 5 years ago...all played at 128 KB/sec

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and some of those songs were like 7 minutes long

[Scruffy5389]

http://www.sandisk.com/retail/dap.asp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

^^Sandisk's mp3 players are all under $200. They come in 256mb, 512 mb, and 1gb. The user interface is terrible and you can't make playlists, but they're cheap and they play music, so consider them, too.

[Kielmccaul75]

I personally have the ancient 40GB Ipod black & white screen majigger ;) I have about 30GB of music on it atm, but I have probably only listened to 5GB worth of it.

 

 

 

My mum has just bought a pretty new 60GB Ipod photo, and I love it. A bit pricey but overall worth it.