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  • New MP3 Player!

    Our MP3 player is aging, and for very complex reasons I had never gotten around to putting a CD player in the new car. I've been driving a lot. So for my b-day, Julie got me this:



    2GB model, in green on black. It has its ups and downs, which include:

    + It's TINY. Like book of matches tiny.
    + The battery lasts forever. Creative claims 15 hours, and I've gotten that out of it easily.
    + Appears as a filesystem, making interfacing really easy.
    + Reasonably high quality audio, certainly better than our aging Nomad. Better than many other MP3 players.

    - The screen is hard to see in full daylight. But in all other lights it's quite viewable.
    - Despite Creative's claims, I've scratched the screen already. And of course there are no screen protectors available yet except from Creative's website. For $20. *sigh* Oh well, I can buy an iPod Nano protector and trim it down.
    - Like virtually every other player on the market, this one relies COMPLETELY on tags. It lets you make folders and build up a filesystem any way you like on the player, but then completely ignores that filesystem and organization in favor of the ID3 tags. Of course 90% of the mp3's on my hard drive don't have good/correct ID3 tags. There are lots of options for how to listen to music once you've got the tags in place, though. And if you're a bit careful when loading the player, you can make playlists during file transfer that play things in order.

    +/- The EQ is... interesting. It has lots of options for EQ, customization, and bass boost. However in practice I leave the EQ off 99% of the time. The smart volume, too. The signal coming out is hot enough that it sounds good through the Volvo's stereo. The supplied headphones are REALLY low-end heavy. I've read a bunch of reviews that say upgrading to even a $20 set of Sony phones makes the listening experience much better, but to be honest 99% of small headphones have inadequate bass so I think I'll stick with the included low-end-heavies.

    I think the coolest feature is that you can plug the player into a PC and play audio from it without loading that audio onto the PC.

    Ok, that is all. Thought I'd share!
    The Internet - where men are men, women are men, and teenage girls are FBI agents!

    I'm the least you could do
    If only life were as easy as you
    I'm the least you could do, oh yeah
    If only life were as easy as you
    I would still get screwed

  • #2
    Does it need a driver, or is it USB Mass Storage compliant? Sounds like a pretty good player. What's really scary is that 15 hours isn't long enough to last through the flight I'm taking next month.
    Lady, people aren't chocolates. Do you know what they are mostly? Bastards. Bastard coated bastards with bastard filling. But I don't find them half as annoying as I find naive, bubble-headed optimists who walk around vomiting sunshine. -- Dr. Perry Cox

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    • #3
      Originally posted by agallag
      What's really scary is that 15 hours isn't long enough to last through the flight I'm taking next month.
      It just barely covers the flights I take every so often, though sometimes not

      What annoys me about Creative is that they could make a kick-arse player if they would just pull their heads our their collective arse. They have some really nice ones available, but one thing or another always makes me think twice investing in one. The latest Zen models are pretty damn slick though.

      Just too bad Creative offers little (piss poor) to no Mac support. Sadly that's why most Mac users opt for an iPod - there just isn't any worthwhile alternatives out there. But that's another thread
      “And, remember: there's no 'I' in 'irony'” ~ Merlin Mann

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      • #4
        In other MP3 player news, Sandisk just released an 8 GB flash based MP3 player that will cost roughly the same price as a 4 GB iPod Nano (~!$250)



        Gotta love competition. On top of the Rockbox, an opensource firmware maker, has been give Sandisk's blessing to develop an alternate interface for the Sansa based on Rockbox. This would give the Sansa line all sorts of fun features:



        Though the interface is not as cool and intuative as the iPod, double the built-in memory, and miniSD port and equal sound quality is a winner for me...if I ever get around to buying an actual MP3 instead of using my PDA phone.
        “Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out”
        –The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

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        • #5
          I bought a Cowon iAudio F1 (1GB, $85 at Newegg) earlier this month and have been extremely happy.

          + OGG support out of the box
          + FM Radio reception is amazing for such a small device
          + Recording really good as well, can pick up people talking in meetings and such
          + Works as mass drive, they officially support Linux
          + Claimed to have 20 hour battery, I use a couple hours a day and have only gone a little over a week before sticking it into the computer which charges it. So don't no the actual limit.
          + Sound quality is really good, nice bass using the provided ear plugs
          + Has bookmark support
          + Can be controlled easily without looking at device because it uses a little joystick
          + Came with a mini USB thing (which I carry with me) and also a long cable (which I can leave at home)

          - Same screen problem, in daylight barely visible, in say a car, very bright and visible
          - Only sorts songs in list by name or date modified. Problem with filename is that some have 09. Artist - Track.
          Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra 9, Opteron 170 Denmark 2x2Ghz, 2 GB Corsair XMS, Gigabyte 6600, Gentoo Linux
          Motion Computing M1400 -- Tablet PC, Ubuntu Linux

          "if I said you had a beautiful body would you take your pants off and dance around a bit?" --Zapp Brannigan

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          • #6
            Gurm, to tag your mp3s, if you have albums, try MusicBrainz Picard. Saves a LOT of time, pseudo-automatic tagging.
            There's an Opera in my macbook.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by az
              Gurm, to tag your mp3s, if you have albums, try MusicBrainz Picard. Saves a LOT of time, pseudo-automatic tagging.
              If I rip from CD, Exact Audio Copy auto-tags them quite nicely. The problem is the existing multi-gig MP3 archive... *sigh*
              The Internet - where men are men, women are men, and teenage girls are FBI agents!

              I'm the least you could do
              If only life were as easy as you
              I'm the least you could do, oh yeah
              If only life were as easy as you
              I would still get screwed

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by agallag
                Does it need a driver, or is it USB Mass Storage compliant? Sounds like a pretty good player. What's really scary is that 15 hours isn't long enough to last through the flight I'm taking next month.
                It's USB Mass Storage compliant, which is nice. Installing the driver, however, lets you fiddle with the settings as well as use the hardware to play MP3's while you work, which is a neat feature, I guess - not that WinAmp takes up much CPU in the first place.
                The Internet - where men are men, women are men, and teenage girls are FBI agents!

                I'm the least you could do
                If only life were as easy as you
                I'm the least you could do, oh yeah
                If only life were as easy as you
                I would still get screwed

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Gurm
                  If I rip from CD, Exact Audio Copy auto-tags them quite nicely. The problem is the existing multi-gig MP3 archive... *sigh*
                  And musicbrainz is how I dealt with something like that over here.

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                  • #10
                    Correct. I rip with EAC and auto-tag, and all the older and other mp3s get tagged with musicbrainz. Took me a day or so to correctly and completely tag 2700 mp3s.
                    There's an Opera in my macbook.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by az
                      Correct. I rip with EAC and auto-tag, and all the older and other mp3s get tagged with musicbrainz. Took me a day or so to correctly and completely tag 2700 mp3s.
                      Thanks, both of you. I'll check it out!
                      The Internet - where men are men, women are men, and teenage girls are FBI agents!

                      I'm the least you could do
                      If only life were as easy as you
                      I'm the least you could do, oh yeah
                      If only life were as easy as you
                      I would still get screwed

                      Comment

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