Simplify your laptop buying
MP3 players: Poll: Do you have an MP3 player?
- 12/12/08 4:38 PM
MP3 Player
by dayaz - 12/14/08 6:22 AM In reply to: Poll: Do you have an MP3 player? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have a 30 Gig Creative Zen and love it. My sole purpose is listening to audio books.
Sansa Clip.
by gatordad - 12/14/08 8:57 AM In reply to: Poll: Do you have an MP3 player? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have a Sansa Clip (2mb). Love it! Perfect little mp3 player for running- just clip on my shirt and go. Cost me $29.99, have had it for a year with no problems (other than I changed the ear buds).
Sansa m280
by morbius--2008 - 12/14/08 10:32 AM In reply to: Poll: Do you have an MP3 player? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
bought 2 of these for $15 about 6 months ago. i haven't used mine yet but my wife likes hers. so far just listened to the radio. come on guys. real music requires a hi fi with monstrous speakers.
Music reproduction
by rbsjrx - 12/14/08 11:33 AM In reply to: Sansa m280 by morbius--2008"come on guys. real music requires a hi fi with monstrous speakers."
Generally, yes, but there are other factors...
If you want to listen to your private playlist at work or you want to listen to music while exercising, then a portable MP3 player may be what you need. If you're interested in serious, critical listening, then a stationary system is a better choice.
However, there are other issues that are germane...
Well-designed headphones can provide all the fidelity of a good system. What headphones can't provide is the spacial experience of even a good stereo system, much less a multi-channel system. The typical earbuds are anathema for any serious music listening, but are OK for background music - which is, after all, what portable MP3 players provide.
This leads tangentially to a discussion of small speaker systems of the sort that Bose sells. Speaker designers know of a principle called Hoffman's Iron Law, which says that three factors in speaker design are all interrelated - efficiency, size, and bass extension. To improve any of the three means giving up something with the other two. IOW, if you want highly efficient (sensitivity of 90dB/W/m or better) speakers with bass extension down to 30Hz or below, they will necessarily be huge. If you want a small speaker with good bass extension, then you'd better have a high-powered amp since it will be very inefficient. If you want small and efficient, don't expect much bass. For more on this, visit the Loudspeaker Designer's Selection Guide (LDSG) at http://ldsg.snippets.org/appdx-a.php. So how do Bose and other small system designers do it? Quite simply they design systems with resonant bass sections. This leads to a quality derided by many as "one-note bass". However, psychoacoustics being as they are, as you go below 100Hz, people's ability to pick out individual notes diminishes, so they perceive extended bass with the desired amount of "punch". Since the system is resonant, it can be made efficient using small drivers. It's also worth noting that although it's not part of Hoffman's Iron Law, distortion is a factor. If you keep everything else equal and increase the allowable distortion, the speaker will play louder. Even better from a marketing perspective, distorted sounds is perceived as louder than undistorted sound, given identical dB levels.
The source material is also important. MP3 is an inherently lossy format and will never sound quite as good as primary media (CD or vinyl). The Red Book CD standard (16-bit encoding, 44.1kHz sample rate) is marginal for some people with particularly good hearing. For those people, SACD is a better format. Vinyl is also making a resurgence, but the digital vs. analog debate is highly religious so I won't address it. Suffice it to say that really good vinyl reproduction requires a much more significant investment in money and user effort. Whether the investment is worth it is a judgment call.
rbsjrx
by veganmark - 12/18/08 4:00 AM In reply to: Music reproduction by rbsjrxHey Friend,
No one is arguing the fact that if you want the best sound possible then you want to listen to the purest music, which, right now, is going to be cd's. That's not what this discussion is about. For portability, there's nothing like an mp3 player. Sure, I could lug around my portable cd player but it's just not as much fun to use. My p2 player has an amazing widescreen for watching videos and with samsung's dnse it provides me with a boost to make up for some of the loss that comes with listening to an mp3. That's what this discussion is about. Do you have an mp3 player and, if so, which one?
Reread the thread, please
by rbsjrx - 12/18/08 4:40 AM In reply to: rbsjrx by veganmark"No one is arguing the fact that if you want the best sound possible then you want to listen to the purest music, which, right now, is going to be cd's. That's not what this discussion is about. For portability, there's nothing like an mp3 player. Sure, I could lug around my portable cd player but it's just not as much fun to use. My p2 player has an amazing widescreen for watching videos and with samsung's dnse it provides me with a boost to make up for some of the loss that comes with listening to an mp3. That's what this discussion is about. Do you have an mp3 player and, if so, which one?"
I wasn't debating the usefulness of portable MP3 players, merely offering perspective on the post to which I was replying. If you go all the way back up to the top of the forum, you'll see that I (well, my wife actually) have a SanDisk Sansa with which we're quite happy.
Whoa, Professor!
by MrGeek2U - 12/18/08 9:23 AM In reply to: Music reproduction by rbsjrxI appreciate your comments and knowledge. I too, agree that purity in music is directly related to specifications of amplifiers, speakers and sources. I just can't carry those components around, and what my mp3 player does for me is enjoyment of the music, (without analyzing am I getting the best reproduction), and that's the point.
As for the analog/digital debate: Live music wins. Every time.
1GB Zen Nano Plus, 4GB Sansa Clip, and some nice waterproof Panasonic earbuds(20-40 Khz)
My 2¢ CDN.
Ken
3 iPods
by BeatleMegaFan - 12/14/08 6:13 PM In reply to: Poll: Do you have an MP3 player? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
1. Got the original iPod Video (the 5th Gen, 30GB black model) in early 2006 so I could listen to my music library and watch a few videos on the go. I was very satisfied with it and iTunes, convincing me that Apple made some very nice products.
2. Several months later, the 2nd Generation Nano was released, and after using one, I immediately took to the new aluminum shell and nicer feel. Got a 4GB Red model around the holidays.
3. After using both of my other two iPods extensively (Nano for music on-the-go, Video for mass storage), I found that I wanted an all-in-one device, like the iPhone when that came out. But, being with Sprint at the time, I couldn't make the switch, so I turned to the next best thing: the iPod Touch. When Steve announced the Touch last year, I called my local Apple Store almost everyday for a couple of weeks until I could confirm they had one in stock. I made it to the store in the first week of October, I believe, and found that they had two whole drawers filled with 16GB models. I bought one of those, and I've used it almost as much as the other two. The touchscreen was very amusing and intuitive. Very impressive. Being an early adopter, I was tempted to hack it and download unofficial programs, but I decided to wait for an Apple-approved application system. Many months later, that came to be the App Store, and I must say, that and the release of the iPhone 2.0 firmware was one of the greatest technological achievements of the year for me. OTA app downloads are simply incredible.
Today, I use my iPhone 3G for listening to music, since I can pause tracks and answer phone calls whenever I have my headset attached. I enjoy the convenience. The rest of my iPod collection has been retired to home use:
Video - Still used for mass storage, and still works great after all the use its gone through. Right now, it holds every item I have in iTunes.
Nano - I have since completely filled its relatively small 4GB of space. Very disappointing that Apple promised me 1000 songs when I can only manage to cram in exactly 979 songs! 
I keep only my favorite artists on it, so it does get some occasional use.
Touch - This one still gets used regularly since it functions perfectly and runs almost all of the programs I have on my iPhone. There's mostly music on it now, but I do have 3 good movies on it in case someone wants to watch it when I'm out and about. Its fun to be able to pull out both my iPhone and Touch at the same time. Dual touchscreens, haha. 
Great iPod there.
In other news, I just purchased a new 4th Gen iPod Nano as a holiday gift. Can't wait to see its accelerometer in motion (pun unintended). I haven't had a chance to get a good look at the latest iPod Nano/Classic UI, so it will be a cool experience.
-BMF
MP3 Player
by Vickie2249 - 12/15/08 6:16 AM In reply to: Poll: Do you have an MP3 player? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have a Creative Zen 2Gb and I love it!!
Creative Zen Vision M - 30 mb
by imlo - 12/15/08 6:35 AM In reply to: Poll: Do you have an MP3 player? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've had this player over 2 years and I love it. The storage is massive and it has much better sound and photo quality than my partner's brand new iPod touch 2. People complain about the "dongle" - but I've never had a problem with it or the player itself.
Longtime iPod owner
by paoconnell - 12/15/08 10:42 AM In reply to: Poll: Do you have an MP3 player? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
It's a 4g, 20 gig iPod. I use it mostly on the highway so I can listen to my music or podcasts rather than searching for the few good radio broadcasts available. I live in the West, where good music (classic rock, classical, public radio) is rare or hard to find on the air.
Traveling question
by rbsjrx - 12/15/08 10:52 AM In reply to: Longtime iPod owner by paoconnell"I use it mostly on the highway so I can listen to my music or podcasts rather than searching for the few good radio broadcasts available."
Just out of curiosity, do you use ear buds or an adapter to play it through your FM radio?
$10 MP3 Player !
by rlessmue - 12/15/08 1:18 PM In reply to: Poll: Do you have an MP3 player? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
O.k., I don't have a Ipod..., but decided to try out a $10 Emprex-MP-1003 MP3 player that I found at Fry's (you can also get it on-line)...
http://dealspl.us/Emprex-MP-1003-MP3-Player_6224
This player only takes SD cards and doesn't have any
internal memory. Runs on a "AAA" battery.
Reasons why I bought it?
1) I will not "cry" if I loose it or it get's stepped on!
(Maybe over the SD card more than the unit!).
2) I had a bunch of "extra" SD cards and thought I would
put them to use.
3) Cost! At the time I wasn't ready to spend $100 on a player.
4) This being my first MP3 player, allowed me to see if I would
use a MP3 player or not (...would it be a "paper weight" instead?).
5) The manual said it would only "accept 1 Gig SD cards or smaller".
This is not true. I have a few 2 Gig SD cards that work fine in
the unit...I have not tried any larger cards than 2 Gigs.
Final thoughts...I am not unhappy with my purchase, but I found myself "looking" for more options than what this player offered.
I like the option of being able to use SD cards, and I think my next player will be one that has a SD slot in it.
Oh...if you have a kid that "needs" to have a MP3 player - I would get them this one...and see how they use it (or miss-use it!).
It would be money -well spent!
Cheers!
Yes, I have an MP3 player, but it is not and iPod.
by MrGeek2U - 12/17/08 10:20 PM In reply to: Poll: Do you have an MP3 player? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Actually I have 3 MP3 players (if you include my Samsung SCH-U540 CellPhone).
I have a 1GB Creative ZEN Nano Plus. It has great features, easy controls and lots of music from one AAA battery. Their website has great support and a recovery tool in case anything happens to muss it up. 3 years old and still going strong with great sound! mp3,wma and Audible compatible.
Just a few weeks ago, because of an awesome price, I picked up a Sandisk Sansa Clip 4GB Silver. It also has great features, very easy controls, a beautiful multi-color display. Sounds terrific, charges from the USB as you transfer music, and the clip is removable if it gets in your way. It's about 1.5"sq, very nice little player. Also has good web support and will play most formats...'cept iTunes.
no
by strjms72 - 12/18/08 2:31 AM In reply to: Yes, I have an MP3 player, but it is not and iPod. by MrGeek2Ui don't have a mp3 player because i don't need one. i have a good mobile phone and I use it for mp3 player.
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