MP3/4 players - what to do???
Discussion
The Mrs and I have decided to buy a couple of MP3 players - one for the whole CD collection and one for the car.
The problem is the market is full of these now and the choices seemingly unlimited!
We may be changing the PC in the future to a Mac, so Mac compatible would be a plus, and for the player in the car we'd need a jack/lead of some sort (do most come with these?).
Am I being daft and letting the marketing boffins have their wicked way with me in my want for the Apple offerings? Or should I look elsewhere - Sony, Creative, Sandisk, etc, etc...
Any advice and current user feedback would be great!
Cheers,
DTC
The problem is the market is full of these now and the choices seemingly unlimited!
We may be changing the PC in the future to a Mac, so Mac compatible would be a plus, and for the player in the car we'd need a jack/lead of some sort (do most come with these?).
Am I being daft and letting the marketing boffins have their wicked way with me in my want for the Apple offerings? Or should I look elsewhere - Sony, Creative, Sandisk, etc, etc...
Any advice and current user feedback would be great!
Cheers,
DTC
I'm a fan (and user) of the Creative Zen stuff.
Currently a couple of M Vision 30s, a Mosaic, and a Zen8G in the household.
I prefer the Zen for it's lightness and SD card slot, meaning you will never run out of capacity.
Straightforward management software. Drag and drop MP3s in
Sony? OK machines but the most god-awful software. Never again...
Never touched iPod because of the then issue of DRM on iTunes and I see no benefit to change from Creative now.
Currently a couple of M Vision 30s, a Mosaic, and a Zen8G in the household.
I prefer the Zen for it's lightness and SD card slot, meaning you will never run out of capacity.
Straightforward management software. Drag and drop MP3s in
Sony? OK machines but the most god-awful software. Never again...
Never touched iPod because of the then issue of DRM on iTunes and I see no benefit to change from Creative now.
Well I have an ipod classic, (80gb), and an ipod touch. They work a dream with itunes on Mac, 9I know the itunes for MS is bloated because of the coding). If it is just music you are after, I'd go with the classic. Excellent bit of kit. Oh, and if you want lossless, then you can use the apples lossless format, should you need to.
Edited by 350GT on Wednesday 12th August 21:12
Finlandia said:
How large is the collection? Do you need FLAC or other lossless formats?
For pure sound quality Cowon S9 and Sony X1000 (16 or 32GB) are the best there is for now, Cowon D2 (2, 4, 8 or 16GB + SDHC slot) is nearly as good.
Please excuse my ignorance, but wtf is FLAC For pure sound quality Cowon S9 and Sony X1000 (16 or 32GB) are the best there is for now, Cowon D2 (2, 4, 8 or 16GB + SDHC slot) is nearly as good.
I'm a newbie to this side of musical life you see We have a few hundred CD's and we'd like them all on the PC and one of the players. Looking at the ipod offerings I'd never fill the 80Gb one!
Not true, FLAC or any lossless format is required to preserve the original data that was on the CD. MP3's etc are lossy formats and if you rip to these you can NEVER recover the original CD from the ripped data.
I would suggest ripping your whole collection in a lossless format and then converting over to say MP3 the files that you wanted on the iPod type device. That way if you change player in the future to one that has more capacity or accepts different file formats then you only need to convert the previously lossless data ripped from the CDs rather than rip your whole collection again.
LOssless is not just for audiophiles but for those that care about hearing a quaility copy of the material.
I would suggest ripping your whole collection in a lossless format and then converting over to say MP3 the files that you wanted on the iPod type device. That way if you change player in the future to one that has more capacity or accepts different file formats then you only need to convert the previously lossless data ripped from the CDs rather than rip your whole collection again.
LOssless is not just for audiophiles but for those that care about hearing a quaility copy of the material.
DavidY said:
Not true, FLAC or any lossless format is required to preserve the original data that was on the CD. MP3's etc are lossy formats and if you rip to these you can NEVER recover the original CD from the ripped data.
I would suggest ripping your whole collection in a lossless format and then converting over to say MP3 the files that you wanted on the iPod type device. That way if you change player in the future to one that has more capacity or accepts different file formats then you only need to convert the previously lossless data ripped from the CDs rather than rip your whole collection again.
LOssless is not just for audiophiles but for those that care about hearing a quaility copy of the material.
Not true? Not true? You know they have the original CD's don't you? You are suggesting they keep a hard copy, THEN a lossless FLAC copy, THEN an MP3 copy! As I said, Flac is really for audiophiles. Most people won't tell the difference between flac and mp3. It's up to them. If they want to waste a shedload of space then by all means. I would suggest ripping your whole collection in a lossless format and then converting over to say MP3 the files that you wanted on the iPod type device. That way if you change player in the future to one that has more capacity or accepts different file formats then you only need to convert the previously lossless data ripped from the CDs rather than rip your whole collection again.
LOssless is not just for audiophiles but for those that care about hearing a quaility copy of the material.
Edited by 350GT on Wednesday 12th August 21:52
350GT
HDDs are cheap and keeping a copy of the CDs in a lossless format saves re-ripping them all again in the future when you want the files in another format for a different player/purpose.
If you are most people and can't ell the difference between an MP3 file and a lossless file, then I'm pleased for you.
I have over 3000 ripped CDs, in FLAC format that is approx 1.3Tb, I can convert them to any other format with a batch converter at the touch of a few buttons, and I don't want to rip them all again!! You can buy 1Tb USB HDDs for around £80 these days so keeping an extra copy really is no hardship. And yes I have a loft full of CDs for that doomsday scenario!
Rip once, convert as required
davidy
HDDs are cheap and keeping a copy of the CDs in a lossless format saves re-ripping them all again in the future when you want the files in another format for a different player/purpose.
If you are most people and can't ell the difference between an MP3 file and a lossless file, then I'm pleased for you.
I have over 3000 ripped CDs, in FLAC format that is approx 1.3Tb, I can convert them to any other format with a batch converter at the touch of a few buttons, and I don't want to rip them all again!! You can buy 1Tb USB HDDs for around £80 these days so keeping an extra copy really is no hardship. And yes I have a loft full of CDs for that doomsday scenario!
Rip once, convert as required
davidy
FLAC, is as said a lossless format, and can be very handy for several reasons, but not an abslote necessity. It depends what earphones you will be using as well, with good earphones and a good player there is a difference between FLAC and any lossy format, even at the highest quality settings for the ripping.
It all depends how fussy one is and what one needs and is ready to pay for.
It all depends how fussy one is and what one needs and is ready to pay for.
Thanks for the info chaps.
OK, so I'm no audiophile, but I do like my music to sound half decent. I'm not sure whether I'd notice any change after converting files, but tbh, I'd prefer not to notice so I'd prefer not to lose any quality in the first place.
Bearing this in mind, what players are good?
Thanks once again
OK, so I'm no audiophile, but I do like my music to sound half decent. I'm not sure whether I'd notice any change after converting files, but tbh, I'd prefer not to notice so I'd prefer not to lose any quality in the first place.
Bearing this in mind, what players are good?
Thanks once again
The easy way is use an iPod and rip everything to 'Apple LossLess' through iTunes. These files will take up more disc space on the iPod than equivalent MP3 files but you should be able store in the region of 360 albums on a 120Gb iPod Classic
You can then use an iPod Nano or iTouch in the car and copy across the albums/sons that you want in the car
HTH
davidy
You can then use an iPod Nano or iTouch in the car and copy across the albums/sons that you want in the car
HTH
davidy
flac is good, but gotten most of my music in mp3's off the net
looking at the sandisk range for the car, not care about headphones as not planning to use them
passed the 80 GB mark a long time ago, but that represents a few weeks of continuous listening and so not an issue - 16 gb will be fine for me
looking at the sandisk range for the car, not care about headphones as not planning to use them
passed the 80 GB mark a long time ago, but that represents a few weeks of continuous listening and so not an issue - 16 gb will be fine for me
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