MP3 players

The addition of cable to the pritch dynasty means mp3's galore. I currently have a Sony MZR750 MD player, but I am now approaching the market looking for a really decent portable mp3 player with at least 64mb on-board RAM and support for WMA etc.

So what do you have and what would you recommend?

Pff. Wait for a player with OGG support, now that OGG has non-floating-point compatibility.

AndrewB said:

Pff. Wait for a player with OGG support, now that OGG has non-floating-point compatibility.

Ya, cause OGG is such a popular format. It's like what beta was to VHS.

Oooooh. That's harsh.

DC

The Movo is my fave ya can get more info here http://www.americas.creative.com/products/product.asp?product=432

While it doesn't have onboard RAM, I know that the RCA Lyra has support for WMA, Real G2, and Mp3 files. And it uses CompactFlash cards. I have one that came with a 64meg card, but you could go up to 512mb. I like my Lyra (even if it is the really old one, but they have newer ones).

AndrewB said:

Pff. Wait for a player with OGG support, now that OGG has non-floating-point compatibility.

A lot of music I have is in ogg now, to be honest the quality difference isn't really noticable given the equipment I have.

I just want an mp3 player that plays 128kbps or higher mp3s and I don't want to spend the Earth (£100 or $150ish). And I don't want to wait, heh

One that supports the addition of smart media cards would be welcome, as I could interchange between that and my digital camera.

The cool thing about the movo is that ti dubbles as a memorie stick. Ya can save up to 128megs.It realy good for moveing stuff form one comp to the other.

Or you can get one of those archos boxes with a miniature 10 or 20 gig hard drive. They're much more storage for the amount of space and ultimately lighter and easier to carry around than a player and a stack of memory sticks or CDs.

It can handle VBR MP3s. Plus there are models with USB2 connectivity so you can transfer MP3s faster.

deadnail's sent me over 100k of text in the last 3 months regarding how much he loves his Nomad 40GB model, I guess you could look into that.

Heh, i'm waiting for a programmable mp3 player with at least 20 gb space and ogg support

lament: you'd get far with a Zaurus.

Fredrik said:

lament: you'd get far with a Zaurus.

heh, that thing would be so much cooler without the retarded built-in keyboard

Archos is the way. I love mine. They are kind of heavy though (actually this is not due to the battery but the 4 AA batteries inside)

lament said:

heh, that thing would be so much cooler without the retarded built-in keyboard

Yeah but check out The new Zaurus. All the benefits of a keyboard in proper PDA style.

Where's the Dvorak model?

All of the music on my hard drive is variable bitrate OGG, so I'd pretty much demand OGG support in any portable player. Besides, it's not like one has to actually choose one format the way they did with VHS and Betamax. It's extremely easy to manufacture a portable music player with support for as many formats as needed. This was not the case with Betamax/VHS. So with MP3/WMA/OGG there's no fear that a superior format will be fizzled out.

Doesn't really matter to me anyway. I find that music vastly pales in comparison to movies and games.

AndrewB said:

Doesn't really matter to me anyway. I find that music vastly pales in comparison to movies and games.

Isn't that like saying that cheese pales in comparison to a cheeseburger? That whole argument about the whole being the sum of its parts...

With the exception of some Hitchcock (and probably a few other movies I don't know about), music is a part. Ergo...

DC

I have a six gig creative D.A.P jukebox.

Bow down.

fraggle said:

Archos is the way. I love mine. They are kind of heavy though (actually this is not due to the battery but the 4 AA batteries inside)

Are they paying you to go to Soton or something? Heh, there's no way I can afford that baby at the moment, even the basic 128MB mp3 model is pricey at £175.

Doom-Child said:

Isn't that like saying that cheese pales in comparison to a cheeseburger? That whole argument about the whole being the sum of its parts...

With the exception of some Hitchcock (and probably a few other movies I don't know about), music is a part. Ergo...

DC

Something like that. I find that simple stereo audio provides an extremely limited form of entertainment. Movies are so much more worthwhile, considering they can be about twice as long as a CD, have video as well as audio, and usually cost about the same as a CD.

Music serves its purpose in my life, but I still consider it to be generally inferior to movies.

What the fuck? Music is the greatest thing in life. If there was no music, I'd have killed myself by now.

The nice thing about music is, unless you're obsessed, it doesn't require 100% of your attention.

You're not gonna load up a movie to accompany you while you study or drive, for example.

Exactly, though I do like to lie there and listen to just music about once a day or so.

I have my MP3s playing in the background while I do work on the computer(s).

Sometimes it's soothing. :)

I've got a Sony D-CJ01 CD/MP3 CD player. It's damn good, I've got 9 albums on one CD and it's really light. Only £150.

ZarcyB said:

I've got a Sony D-CJ01 CD/MP3 CD player. It's damn good, I've got 9 albums on one CD and it's really light. Only £150.

After just watching my Sony MD player literally fall to bits in my hands after loads of problems, I'm so worried bout their build quality I'm considering ditching my lifelong use of their products..

Sony hardware is apparently very shoddy.

A entire series of their DVD players have a fuse problem where if used for "too long" the DVD player just burns out and becomes useless.

Ooh boy.

heh i have an sb live! but that doesn't help me because all i have is a crappy pair of speakers (with only one speaker functional) and a pair of cheap headphones (dead in on ear)

I just bought a 386sx "Blackmate" notepad on ebay for 5 Euro, it was made by the german firm "Escom" in 1991. Very slim, just 4 pounds, has monochrome display, 16mhz, came with Win 3.11. I think, I will upgrade it to any Linux or a nice DosShell, like Seal or Deskwork.

I doubt this will make a decent mp3 player :D

But, Deskwork actually has the ability to play mp3 files and its free. It was made in Dortmund, Germany by an computer science student and it makes the best of the oldest computer, like 386 or 486.
http://www.deskwork.de/