Hubby recently confided that what he’d really like for Christmas is an MP3 player. So I took a look online and was quickly overcome by details and acronyms that boggled my mind.
Normally I’d just find a reasonably priced Sony product, but the features and configurations really puzzled me. What’s the point of it being a CD/MP3 player? Isn’t MP3 supposed to be a way of saving huge amounts of data on its own, thus making the CD obsolete? Why would I want to save data in their proprietary format if I’ve already got MP3 files?
The Apple iPod seems to store quite a bit, but it received a lot of negative ratings from non-Apple users. Now if there’s one thing I don’t need on Christmas day it’s an overheated Hubby who can’t get the software to work. We’re still running Windows 98 over here (don’t laugh - at least we didn’t get that bug over the summer).
So if you were going to buy one for, say, an older relative who didn’t love computers and needed ease of use, which would you choose?
I might mention that I’m currently housebound & thus unable to ask my friendly neighborhood electronics dealer for recommendations.
I shall follow this thread with interest. I am something of a technophobe but also want an MP3 player, so I have high hopes of being guided into an appropriate purchase.
I dont know if he’d need the apple iPod, that has 10GB of memory and up.
I think an MP3 can be compressed to 2MB with MP3pro (not sure if MP3 players accept MP3pro format), so thats 1 song per 2MB. so a 128MB player is 64 songs which might be enough for the guy.
i looked an an IRiver 128MB MP3 player for christmas myself. It got alot of good reviews from buyers at circuit city and with rebates it was only $69.
The point of a CD/MP3 player is that it can read CD-R disks containing MP3 files. MP3 is just a way of compressing music data. Normal audio CDs are uncompressed so they can only hold 74 minutes or so (or was it 76?) but once converted into MP3 format, you can save 10 hours’ worth of MP3 data on a single CD-R disk. Naturally you’d need a computer with a CD-R drive to create those disks.
The iPod works well with Windows PCs, and is extremely easy to use. I think the negative reviews refer to MusicMatch Jukebox, which used to be bundled with iPod and used for transferring files to the iPod. Apple has recently released the windows version of iTunes which works much better. The software itself is free and useful as a music library management system even if you don’t have iPod, so you can download it from apple.com and try it out. It also allows you to buy (download) music from Apple’s online store for $1 per song.
Apple’s iTunes for Windows requires XP or ME, as fessie’s machine runs Win 98 it would not serve her presently. So skip the wonderful iPod unless you totally makeover your computing environment.
Actually, almost as much can be said for care and feeding of most mp3 players. There is a certain degree of computer technical knowledge required to import CDs and then convert them to MP3s. Then you would have the choice of either burning MP3s to a disc for the combo CD/MP3 players or uploading the songs to a straight MP3 player. There is a learning curve to all of this and much of the software out there is not very good for ease of use.
So consider whether going the MP3 path is really worth learning new computer stuff too. “Old fashioned” CDs work fine and decent players are cheap.
I agree with Geoduck on economic feasablity. Me personally: I would first get an portable mp3/CD player, because I already have around 30 CDs with only mp3s on them and I know from burning CDs as a hobby that you can fit 13 albums on one blank 80min CD, and CDs cost about 20 cents a piece (if you get them from the right places, i recommend Imation). That will be the cheapest route.
If I were to get a non-CD mp3 player, it would be the RCA Lyra Personal Jukebox RD2840 or the new Dell Digital Jukebox depending on how much space I wanted. Sure the flash memory players like Rio and such are lighter and cheaper, but you won’t be getting as much for your money.
Wow, thanks for the information everybody, that was extremely helpful!
So sorry to hear about the speeding ticket - that really bites! I hope Santa makes it up to you.
Another possibility, which is not very popular in America, is the minidisc player. Sony has released their NetMD line, which allows for transfer at high speed using USB. You get about 5:1 compression at LP4, which is about the same compression I get using my MP3/CD player, but that’s because I encode very high–static 320 or VBR 320. 128 encoding will give you closer to 10:1 compression. Minidisc is an optical format, the player is about the size of most MP3 players, and it’s really hard to skip it. If you encode straight from a CD using SimpleBurner, it encodes into ATRAC (the proprietary format Sony came up with for minidisc), or you can use the SonicStage software to transfer MP3/WMA, albeit with DRM. There are ways around that, mostly by using image drives and image files, but if you don’t know much about computers and don’t care about DRM, it’s probably not needed to go through all that. That part, at least, I am sure Sony is aimed directly at the lowest common denominator of computer owners.
If you don’t want to go minidisc, I would suggest an MP3/CD player. It’ll play audio CDs and data CDs with MP3 files burned on them, a lot will also do WMA, and some of the new ones include Ogg Vorbis support as well.
Finally, if you want to get off optical media completely, I’d have to suggest either the iPod or the Creative. I’ve used someone’s Creative and it works nice, but it’s heavier than the iPod and doesn’t have that Apple style. I didn’t ask about the software that’s used with Creative’s stuff. I would not suggest getting anything smaller than a 10-gig player if you have a large collection, as most of the solid-state players have a capacity of about 256 megs–assuming a 4 mb average for songs, 64 songs, so 3 or 4 albums. I haven’t gone the large jukebox route, mostly because I need at least a 40 gig, which is about 600 bucks for the Apple and 400 for the Creative.
On the other hand, the Creative models are significantly cheaper than Apple’s. I picked up a 60GB Nomad Zen Xtra for $350, while a 20GB iPod would’ve cost me $400. I plugged it into the computer and it worked fine, but you need USB 2.0, which an older win98 machine may not have. Your best choice may be the CD/mp3 player.
As far as song size, there’s no program out there that can encode every song in 2MB without severely reducing the sound quality of longer songs.
I bought a 20GB RCA Lyra over e-bay for about $149 US (refurbished). Works great, holds my full CD collection, sounds fantastic, battery lasts about 12 hours. The techies may criticize its “weight” (11 oz), firmware (delay between songs, slower transfer than some machines), etc., but it really is great value for money, and a very sweet machine. If you have a good computer with some spare memory, I wouldn’t really consider a CD/MP3, especially if you are a gym rat like me.
