I have several questions. Answers to any would be appreciated.

I am looking to get an MP3 player to use mainly in my car. Video feature would be OK but not necessary. The sources of my music would vary from MP3s on my computer, CD-Rs of WAV and WMA files (to be converted to MP3s), and occasionally, traditional CDs. What are your recommendations?

Second question, have torrent downloads been real susceptible to infections either on the computer or the MP3 player?

Third question, can the music from Wolfgang's Vault be captured as an MP3 (or converted) on my computer?

Thanks

For your needs they are all quite the same. Also the prices are very similar when you compare the capacity.

I have an ipod 80g and I am happy with it. The only pain in the ass is that it is very easy to fill it up with music, but not as easy to get it out (just in case you want a back up copy). The fact that it is possible, makes me wonder why they make things so complicated.

Don't know if this happens also for other products.

C

Q1: I'd tend to agree with liddas' comments, as long as you're just playing songs you've ripped off your own CDs or DRM-free MP3s from the Net. If you instead plan on downloading from either Apple or MS' on-line stores then you run into issues of their proprietary formats which will affect how else you can use the music going forward. The Zune (IMHO) is an especially dicey prospect since the Zune software (the player doesn't work with Windows Media Player!!) is supposedly pretty crappy. Sounds like for your use something simpler & less expensive than either the Ipod or Zune would be the way to go. How much disc space you need on the thing depends on how much lossy-compression you are willing to tolerate in your choice of song formatting.

Q2: Can't really speak much to this, but I've always been shy about letting other people into my computer for fear of the same issue you mention.

Q3: Yes

I appreciate your comments

There is some good MP3 players from Creative, if you want to look into that.

The Cowon players [reviews.cnet.com] give you (probably) the best sound of a portable audio player and also the added advantage of battery life + they support the most formats : FLAC,OGG,WAV in addition to MP3's and WMA files.It's good to have extra format options.I only know of two other brands that even support WAV : Apple and @#$%&.

If you want to have the stones ni Flac format (losless), choose the Iaudio Cowon types. I have one and it works very very good.

As expensive as an exclusive Ipod, but the quality is sooooo much better.

Urban Wheel

'Doo doo doo Heartbreaker'

I had a nano 8 GB and now a Ipod Touch 32 Gb
Fully happy with it.
Replaced both Nano and Palm since I use it as my agenda

[doctorstonesblog.blogspot.com]

Oh yes, forgot Cowon. They are great and look stylish in addition.

If you are short on storage space then try the Ogg Vorbis format. I recently discovered how great it sounds even with low bit rates like 80kbps and 64kbps even. With MP3, you can't go lower than 160kbps before it starts to sound rotten. 128kbps sounds dreadful to me.

I too was wanting to get a decent player, but I just didn't know what to get. Too many players, of which none seem to do everything I wanted (ability to record; radio funtion etc), too many restricting fromats. Eventually I decided to stick with my iRiver ifp899 1GB player. It does everything I want, the AA battery lasts 40hrs+. The only thing is the low storage space, but I never wanted to carry my whole music collection with me anyway...what if it get's damaged / stolen? I prefer to store all my music on CDs, kept safely at home. Just need to copy CDs to the player every now again when I want some new sounds.

By the way I've heard good things about Cowon and Creative. iRiver are good though their older players are better (like the ifp series) and unfortunately aren't made anymore. Probably the best, most versatile players are ones NOT made by the purveyors of annoying proprietory formats......in other words avoid AAC (Apple), ATRAC (Sony), protected WMA and the like.

I had to rule out the Zune,the Philips players,the i River,the Toshiba and the Creative Zen right away for their scant format support.Actually,that criteria narrowed it way down.I don't like having my hands tied to the same few formats,especially when they are compressed,lossy formats.I don't see the point in having a portable digital audio player that fails to play many formats of (portable) digital audio.I ended up going with the Cowon.

Also,I would stay far away from the Coby players and anything that Coby makes for that matter as it's complete garbage.

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Winning Ugly VXII
The Cowon players [reviews.cnet.com] give you (probably) the best sound of a portable audio player and also the added advantage of battery life + they support the most formats : FLAC,OGG,WAV in addition to MP3's and WMA files.It's good to have extra format options.I only know of two other brands that even support WAV : Apple and @#$%&.

And with a pair of real good headphones the sound just blow you away!
Great player, imho!
No need for itunes as well, sucks big time, i think.

I'm pretty happy with my Creative. I ruled out Ipod because I don't think they play WMA, and it's been my experience that when you cram more songs on a player, and therefore have to rip them at a lesser bit rate (less than 128 kbps), WMA sounds better than MP3. At 128 almost identical, and MP3 better above 128.

Have got the ipod 80G and quite pleased once I got used to it. You need iTunes which is allright too once you get used to it. Several "downs" I find is if you delete a file or files from your computer, it also disappears from your iPod. If your computer crashes it's not easy to copy the files from your iPod to a computer. It can only be syncronized with one computer. If you syncronize with another, all files you had will be deleted.
On the "ups" I can say that it's easy to use. Nice videoscreen. Can be used as a harddrive and on many car cd players you can attach an iPod cable and control the music from your car player.

[www.reverbnation.com]

hmm, I'd never heard of these Cowons. Support for flac would certainly simplify things for me, as I try to acquire most stuff in that format. And if it has better sound...

both iPods and Zunes enforce the assumption that you are only putting on the device rips of CDs you already have or tracks you've bought online and are expected to keep on your computer in perpetuity. I could accept this rationale more easily if the devices weren't so large: 80 GB is bigger than my hard drive! I have a 30GB Zune-- I'm supposed to keep it all backed up on my PC? If it's not supposed to double as a storage device, they should make them all "nano" size.

Do the Cowon players do this automatic erase thing?

Actually no problems importing all your mp3 files into iTunes. Even if they're not paid for.

[www.reverbnation.com]

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cc
hmm, I'd never heard of these Cowons. Support for flac would certainly simplify things for me, as I try to acquire most stuff in that format. And if it has better sound...

B&H Photo/Video/Pro Audio in New York City [www.bhphotovideo.com] sells tons of the Cowon players - even their older models (older than three years I would not buy).They also take orders over the phone for the entire U.S..I'm not sure about international orders.

thanks WUVXII -- I live in the city and have long wanted to have an excuse to go to B&H! (not being a photographer, and not realizing they sell audio equipment)

A related question: anyone knows if there are MP3-(or other format)players that play without gaps between the tracks? Especially when listening to live shows they're pretty annoying.

----------------------------
"Music is the frozen tapioca in the ice chest of history."

"Shit!... No shit, awright!"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-07-09 11:23 by Greg.

Well,I would imagine that if the original source has no gaps (assuming that you have the original source,a clean copy or transfer of the original source,or access to it),you can rip a complete concert as one long file that you can play without gaps on your player.That should be one way of doing it.You should also be able to remove any gaps you may have with various appropriate software.