MP3 Players

[Hi Ho]

I am in the market for an MP3 player. Though I cannot decide on one. I don't need a 20 GB one. That would be overkill. I am on a budget. I don't want to spend too much. Looking around, I found some Rio 64 MB players with an SD card slot. I already have SD cards for my digital camera. The 1.4 GB Creative MuVo2 would be nice but it isn't cheap. I really like the Creative MuVo. They are very small and I just like the design. However they don't have expandable memory and the largest oont is 256 MB. Are hard drive players more susceptible to skips or damage from being dropped? I want to hold a lot of music. All of my MP3's are at 192 KB/sec or higher so I would never get the advertised capacity out of a player. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am lost in the world of MP3 players. I want to spend around $100. Less if I can.

[Mac Medic]

Sony NetMD (minidisc). You can get them for under $100, each disc is about $1 and holds 5 hours of music (more than a non-expandable 64mb player). The MD will always be a cheaper and better option than a flash based player simply because of the cost of the media. Figure a 64mb card holds 64min music and costs about $30.

[Hi Ho]

I have considered MiniDisc also. I forgot to mention it. My question is, do they skip? I have used set top MiniDisc players but I have never used a portable.

[Mac Medic]

No, they don't skip. I think the new ones buffer about 30mins of music for skip protection. Basically they are rock solid and the battery life can't be beat, 40-60hrs on 1 AA battery. I'm not sure about your set-top unit you used to have but the new NetMD units record at 32x speeds rather than realtime-4x of the older units.

[Hi Ho]

How do you transfer music? Could I hook it up to my computer and transfer my MP3's? How fast is it? Are the discs reusable?

[Mac Medic]

You transfer via USB. The software will convert the MP3 into Atrac 3 format and put them on the MD leaving you MP3's intact, you can also copy directly from CD to the MD via USB, Each disc will hold about 5 hours at the lowest bit rate and the discs are re-writeable up to 1,000,000 times according to sony.

[Hi Ho]

How does it sound at the lowest bit-rate? How long does it take to copy 5 hours of MP3's?

[Mac Medic]

At the lowest bit rate i would equate it to a 128bit MP3. As the unit transfers at 32x, 5 hours will take about 10 minutes to transfer over.

[Hi Ho]

Is that including conversion? I read a review on Epinions that said it took 30 minutes to convert/copy 30 songs to his MiniDisc player.

[Mac Medic]

In my experience the music converts faster than the USB can handle the transfer, 5 hours would convert in about 5 minutes but take 10 mins to transfer because of the USB bandwidth limitation. I'm guessing the other guy had a slow processor.

I would also suggest checking out the sony forums as there have been a number of users that have been really messed up by the sony software (this is true for any software but somthing to be aware of anyway), I have installed it on a number of PC's including virtual PC's and have never had a single issue, but i thought you should be able to research it 1st

[Hi Ho]

I read that on Epinions. Someone said it wiped out almost all of their MP3's which they had copied from CD's. Not downloaded.

[Mac Medic]

I have no idea what to say about that, I guess it happens sometimes, I imagine he was a good PC user and had a backup though ;)

[Hi Ho]

I have all my music backed up. 6 CD's worth. I have all the CD's I own on my computer. Plus the songs I downloaded from Kazaa a loooong time ago. I reformated and that software will never see my computer again.

[Mac Medic]

I can tell you that the software has done nothing untoward with the kazaa files i have had in the past. As far as the sony software is concerned an MP3 is an MP3 regardless of the source.

[SonicVanguard]

There are alternatives to using Sony's software for a minidisc. My buisness partner has one and he hated Sony's software. He also didn't like the USB transfers - almost every one of his songs would hickup or skip except at the highest bitrate.

Craig finally decided to go with a digital transfer (mini-toslink) and he's happy now. He'll setup his computer to play a given playlist, set the minidisc or record, and leave it. Bit-for-bit transfers, no messing with the Atrac-3 rights crap (you can only transfer a song 3 times to minidisc via Atrac-3), and better audio quality.

Dave.

[Hi Ho]

Thank you both for the input. I may be going with MinDisc instead. How much faster would it be with USB 2.0?

[SonicVanguard]

To my knowledge, minidisc's do not support USB 2.0. They'll revert back to USB 1.1 for transfers.

Dave.

[Hi Ho]

Hmmm... I guess you are right. I thought I saw one on Crutchfield with USB 2. Oh well.