Christmas Time: MP3 Player Reviews

Fleetwood Mac #1 · Jan 18, 2005

I'm not sure about other players but the one I mentioned (Archos Multimedia) has the capability to do line-in recording straight to the player. I've done it few times and was surprised by the quality as they were almost as good as the recordings I've done on my PC with SoundBlaster Audigy2 card. All you need to do is connect the line-in jack which they include with accessories from source to player, select Record on main screen, set source to Analog, choose quality (upto 320 kbps and 48 kHz), press Start and Rename the track/artist/album on screen (still no need for PC) after the session is done. If I start to list all the features (more than any hyped players) available it will look like I'm advertising here for them .

It's really the best $270 I've spent in years.

http://photobucket.com/albums/v338/USsoccerfan22/?action=view&current=210233d.jpg

dark knight · Jan 18, 2005

Interesting - I have a tape I'm converting and I did it once from a crappy walkman to my Mac and the quality is so-so when listened to on my Ipod (and really bad from a stereo), but I'm going to try again from a stereo deck and using the software you can buy for conversion from Mac (some third party software). I guess now that you mention you can probably also do it direct to the I-pod, but I assumed the quality would suffer.

skipshady · Jan 19, 2005

I overheard a guy on the subway recommending this Philips player to some strangers, and he was talking about how he converted his LP collection to mp3. I obviously can't vouch for the quality, but it might be worth a look.

M9fanatic · Jan 20, 2005

KDdidit said:

So I had an old Creative Jukebox 3 or something. I only used it in the car with a cassette adapter so its not like I was pushing the boundries of performance with it. The GF borrows my car and somebody steals it (edit:the player, not the car). What they're going to do with it without the charger or anything like that, who knows...but anyway. I say don't worry about it, its a 3 year old fossil. She won't have any of it and figures out it was a $300 player (probably worth about $100 today) and goes shopping. Today I got a Creatize Zen Micro and man is it great. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with comparing it to the clunky old one I had before, but this one will be used in more places than just my car. Never had an Ipod, so I won't go ranting about what's better, just saying the Micro is a pretty sweet.
Click to expand...

what program are you using to upload songs? and how fast does it do it?

also how easy is it to change playlists?

M9fanatic · Jan 20, 2005

_chachi said:

santa brought me a 5gb dell pocket dj. i wanted a smaller unit since i will use it at the gym and jogging. i have used an ipod and the only thing better on the ipod is the thumb wheel. i don't use the included musicmatch software to rip cd's, because it's slow (unless you buy the $20 upgrade). it works great and i have no complaints.
Click to expand...

I'm debating between the dell and the zen micro.

what program do you like best for uploading your music to it? how fast is it?

The Double · Jan 20, 2005

I have a 20 Gb Dell DJ, and I have to say I like it better then my friends. I use MusicMatch to upload music, and it couldnt be easier. Just drag to the screen and it shouldnt take more then 5 seconds.

Metros Striker10 · Jan 20, 2005

How about just connecting the player to the computer with a USB 2.0 cable? It should read it as another drive..go to my computer, find the drive and then drag and drop.

Squash · Jan 21, 2005

How bout you just get an ipod and use itunes

I think honestly the issue with doing what your saying Metro is then the player may act as a hard drive and think the files are data. I think music match / itunes actually work with the OS on the player to help it tell the difference, so it puts them on as music.

Fleetwood Mac #1 · Jan 21, 2005

You can probably use the Windows 'SendTo' feature (almost similar to drag and drop) after connecting the player to your PC.

http://photobucket.com/albums/v338/USsoccerfan22/?action=view&current=SendToDriveK.jpg

Alan S · Feb 7, 2005

Thanks for all the suggestions here.

My research came down to two choices. Either a iPod-mini (hard-drive based) or the Creative MuVo N200 MP3 player (flash memory based). I ended up with the flash-based player for two reasons.

#1) It is going to be used mostly for jogging, and I wasn't sure a hard-drive based player would survive being dropped during a run.

#2) The Creative had a in-line recording capability that I wanted.

Both were compatible with audible.com (books on tape) files, but this excluded other good options like the iRiver MP3 players and some mentioned here.

Here is a link to what I got. It is only 8 onces and about the size of a lighter. It's the smallest player that I've seen.

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=215&product=10737

chad · Feb 7, 2005

Why not use the "in" jack on your sound card? Then use some audio editing software to remove hiss and add eq? Then convert to smaller files.

dark knight · Feb 7, 2005

Alan S said:

Thanks for all the suggestions here.

My research came down to two choices. Either a iPod-mini (hard-drive based) or the Creative MuVo N200 MP3 player (flash memory based). I ended up with the flash-based player for two reasons.

#1) It is going to be used mostly for jogging, and I wasn't sure a hard-drive based player would survive being dropped during a run.

#2) The Creative had a in-line recording capability that I wanted.

Both were compatible with audible.com (books on tape) files, but this excluded other good options like the iRiver MP3 players and some mentioned here.

Here is a link to what I got. It is only 8 onces and about the size of a lighter. It's the smallest player that I've seen.

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=215&product=10737
Click to expand...

Smaller than the I-Pod Shuffle? It looks like it's more expensive (although Shuffle doesn't have a screen). I wonder if managing the music is as easy as in I-tunes.