Need Mp3 player help/advice/opinions (archos experts doubly welcome)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I want to buy an mp3 player, but this is my dillema.

I want a Harddrive based player(need capacity) with the ability to record(not too sure of this usefulness, but helps me justify the cost of said device to myself =), being a college student and all). Usb 2.0/firewire would be nice, but usb 1.1 shouldn’t be too maddenly slow(advice on this requested as well)

I’ve looked at then Nomad Zen, the archos jukebox and the treo 10/15.

the Zen and the archos series record. the Treo does not but, but is significantly cheaper then the others.

The zen is a bit to expensive for my tastes as well as creative not letting windows recognize it as a drive on plugin(anyone know is creative is going to change this via firmware?) but it’s supposed to have the best sound quality, and well… damn it looks good.

Thus I’m mainly looking at the archos series.

From specs I’ve noticed the entire archos series(except the multimedia version) has a paltry 2 mb buffer! I would think that would only offer about 2 minutes of skip protection. not that big of a deal when I consider I don’t think i’ll be taking this thing on workouts(but I might). How well does this 2 mb buffer do? Walking? running? jogging?

I like sound quality, but I doubt i’ll ever be able to buy extremely good headphones. I prefer earbuds and behind the ear style headphones. Those ones that clip onto your ear are comfortable enough too I guess.(An audiophile’s advice please?) How is the archo’s sound quality output on the archos recorder and archos FM?

Weight: the archos Recorder requires 4 nimhs while the fm has a built in lithium battery. how heavy is the recorder with those 4 batteries?

size: pretty much no difference in size, but do they fit in a pocket?

firmware: I’ve heard good things about Rockbox, the open source firmware. how much better is it then the lastest archos firmware?(this is a concern for me because their Faq says the archos FM is not supported)

I guess thats it. Any advice would be appreciated. Also if anyone knows of groundbreaking new products that are worth waiting for let me know.

  • thanks in advance.
2

Hmm. I’m no expert type expert, but I do have the Archos Multimedia Jukebox (that’s the one with the little screen, so it plays videos).

I have it on my belt while I’m at work - it’s a little too big for a pocket, but it comes with a carrying case with a belt loop. I haven’t tried running or joggin with it, but I’ve never had a skip while walking.

The behind-the-ear headphones that came with it sound fine, in my opinion. It has a volume control on the wire, which is nice, because changing volume on the box requires half a dozen button pushes.

I haven’t tried the recorder yet, so I can’t comment on that.

And mine came with a rechargeable battery. I can feel it on my belt, but it’s not uncomfortably heavy.

Hope that helps.

3

Archos Jukebox Recorder 20 owner here, but no claims at expertness.

I’ve never had my unit skip on me, at a brisk walking pace while jostling about in a roomy coat pocket, at least. No testing in anything more strenuous.

Pocket-sized, it isn’t; in colder months, I carry it in a jacket or coat pocket. It is a fairly heavy bit of gadget, but not overly so–mostly just a solid feel.

Rockbox’s playback features beat the official firmware’s into the ground, and then spit on it and call it names until it cries. Navigation is easier due to revolutionary “page up” and “page down” features, rather than going one. line. at. a. time. with the official firmware, and it adds other blindingly-necessary bits such as resuming play at the point you paused an mp3 at before powering down.

Sound quality’s fine with a decent pair of earbuds; better with more expensive headphones of course. The 'phones that come with the unit are crap, though.

The latest versions of Rockbox apparently have the recording feature working (previously the official firmware’s only edge on it), but I can’t attest to that–the recording bit was never a selling point to me.

4

thanks guys.

Anyone own the Archos FM recorder? the one that looks like the multimedia video unit, but blue.

Can anyone comment on that unit? Is rockbox compatible with it?

5

I have an Archos 10 gig player. It primarily uses a USB connection to upload and retrieve information. It has hookups for “in and out” which is probably for the recording aspects which you mentioned. I never use it for that and don’t really have any plans to try. It is a pretty solid feeling box. The batteries are not easily removable and recharge within a few hours on a regular wall socket. They tend to be about the size of a cassette walkman (remember those?). The headphones that came with it fold up but are actually pretty good quality. Also, I have never heard it skip and have dropped it on the floor accidently while listening, shaken the case to intentionally try to make it skip (for a few minutes), and gone through all of the settings while listening to the songs. It is a pretty good little machine. I would probably pick up the 20 gig ones (didn’t know they had some with video playback on the unit, that is cool) if I were to buy it today; however, with the 10 gig unit I have currently, I have been more than satisfied.

6

thanks guys, but I got more questions still. =)

I’ve heard the microphone on the archos jukebox recorder picks up the harddrive spinning. Can anyone confirm this?

Can anyone comment on the Archos FM recorder unit’s interface as opposed to the original Archos and archos recorder?

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any more archos users out there?

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I’ve got the Archos Jukebox 6000 which is their 6 Gig version. I’ve had it for over a year and been quite happy with it. I’ve never tried recording directly on it and just drag everything over from the PC. (Plug the cable into the USB port and it appears in Windows as just another drive, so it’s easy to get stuff over. In fact, I use it as a portable drive as much as an MP3 player and use it for transferring files between my home and office PCs.)

Never used a microphone or the FM radio version so can’t comment on that.

I haven’t tried jogging with it but I use it in my car (plugged into the cassette deck using one of those cassette adapter things) and never had it skip. (Ah, being able to drive from Atlanta to Florida and never hear the same song twice!) In fact, I don’t ever remember hearing it skip.

It’s a bit heavy for a shirt pocket but fits in a jacket pocket well. I usually carry it on my belt in the carrying case.

The headphones that come with it are completely adequate. They probably aren’t audiophile quality, but we are talking about MP3s here…

So, I’m happy with it.

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Thanks tanstaafl, good to know.

It just struck me that people might now know that Archos has 4 different mp3 players. Can anyone comment on This player’s interface as opposed to This player’s interface(with and without the rockbox firmware). The first player linked should not be confused with the Multimedia (video playing) version, they look similar but have completely different internal parts I suspect. If anyone owns/seen both, weight differences?

Oh yea, does anyone know if this thing plays .wav files? With 20 gigs it’s worth it to just copy a cd over to keep full quality.

thanks guys.

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oh and for all those users who own an archos recorder or archos studio
Visit http://rockbox.haxx.se/
they are an open source movement for the archos studio and recorder. Their firmware is supposed to completely kill archos’ own firmware. (still wondering if the archos FM recorder has a different interface)