Thread: Your non-iPod portable mp3 players

Let's start a thread about portable mp3 players. However, the iPod is so prevalent that perhaps we could also discuss other brands (Sony? Cowon? iriver? Sansa? Samsung?) as there is plenty to choose from and in many cases their sound quality is reportedly superior to the iPod. We did have some mp3 player advice in another thread, but let's create a place where everyone could describe his or hers portable DAP and perhaps post a photo. I will post mine as soon as it arrives - I also purchased a camera to take a picture of my new portable DAP

I have a Sony walkman MP3 which sounds great, but I don't use it that much because of the crappy software that it uses.

I have around 10 iPods now, which are divided between jazz and classical. I have around 500 classical CDs and around 5,000 jazz CDs, which I haven't even begun to transfer to my iPod(s).

I transfer everything using 192 kps. It sounds great without sacrificing memory. I used to transfer things at 192 kps using a variable bit rate, but it took up too much memory, because it was being pushed to about 196 or 198.

Originally Posted by JTech82

I have around 10 iPods now, which are divided between jazz and classical. I have around 500 classical CDs and around 5,000 jazz CDs, which I haven't even begun to transfer to my iPod(s).

Transferring them is quite a problem. Last time I went on vacations I spent a lot of time deciding which of my 2500 cds I would transfer and take with me to the mountains. I spent more than 12 hours ripping them to my hard drive...

Originally Posted by YsayeOp.27#6

Transferring them is quite a problem. Last time I went on vacations I spent a lot of time deciding which of my 2500 cds I would transfer and take with me to the mountains. I spent more than 12 hours ripping them to my hard drive...

What's an even bigger problem is having to change the information from Gracenote, because those people that enter the information for classical music are morons. About 99% of the albums I load into iTunes I have to change it's information, because of their incompetence.

I wrote an email to the head of data processing at Gracenote. He never got back with me, but that's understandable when he probably gets thousands of emails a months discussing the same problem.

Bottomline: they need to fire all the people that enter in the classical music information and get people who can spell, type, and are intelligent and want to do the best job they can.

Originally Posted by JTech82

I have a Sony walkman MP3 which sounds great, but I don't use it that much because of the crappy software that it uses.

You don't need the software if you have a more recent Sony Walkman player, like this:



You just "drag and drop" the music files without any software whatsoever. For films you would need WMP, but not for music files.

Originally Posted by Ciel_Rouge

You don't need the software if you have a more recent Sony Walkman player, like this:



You just "drag and drop" the music files without any software whatsoever. For films you would need WMP, but not for music files.

I love my iPods and I wouldn't part with any of them. I also like iTunes, although there would be many things I would change with that program, which I'm not going to get into here.

The biggest problem, Ciel Rouge, is Gracenote where most MP3 software programs gets its information from. The information, especially when dealing with classical box sets, is wrong. I put in a Stravinsky disc one time and I had to change EVERYTHING including the musical genre. This happens all the time and if you're a perfectionist like me, you want it entered in right.

Developers can come up with great software ideas all day long, but it doesn't mean anything if the information being brought in via Gracenote is wrong.

Mp3 players are very practical for listening to music everywhere, but are very problematic to deal with. Converting, transferring, choosing which ones must be deleted because of the lack of memory, are very boring.

And there is the problem about the quality of the files transferred. Mp3? Wma? something else?

It's too much for me and my fish-brain.

Originally Posted by Alnitak

Mp3 players are very practical for listening to music everywhere, but are very problematic to deal with. Converting, transferring, choosing which ones must be deleted because of the lack of memory, are very boring.

The labor part of it: transferring, editing, etc. are boring, but the payoff is you have a ton of music on your iPod that you can take anywhere.

As I mentioned above, I transfer EVERYTHING using 192 bit rate. When you start transferring music with a lower bit rate than 162 kps you start loosing a lot of quality. I want it to sound good, so the sacrifice is usage of more memory.

I think there's a myriad of opinions expressed about Mp3 players, especially from audiophiles like me, but the convenience of it and the sound quality, if transferred at the bit rate I mentioned, should please audiophiles.

You can't ever replace a stereo system with a good CD unit, amplifier, and speakers, but I'm happy with my iPods. They do what I need them to do.

The main problem I have is with Gracenote, which nobody seems to want to talk about. They are morons. They enter in the information haphazardly. You might as well say they don't care how they enter it in and that's what I have an objection with.

Thank you for this advice. In fact, I've just realized I use 320 kbit bit rate (so many kbit for a so little ear, right?) , and I also must confess that I spend already too much time on my computer... and what a problem for me to spend even more time to transfer music on a ipod (which I haven't got, by the by!)

Originally Posted by Alnitak

I use 320 kbit bit rate

You should use Lame with V0 preset. The quality is almost like 320, but nearly half the 320's size.

Here are 2 articles that should be interesting for people who rip cds:
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index....act_Audio_Copy
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME

Originally Posted by nickgray

You should use Lame with V0 preset. The quality is almost like 320, but nearly half the 320's size.

Actually, I use lame...

I own an iPhone (16 GB) and an iPod Touch (32 GB). I used to have an 80 GB Video iPod but I accidentally dropped it and it went bye-bye. I love the organizational functions of iTunes, but it does sometimes get extremely hard to fit the titles and artists onto the page in an understandable manner. Do you all have any organizational methods that you use to sort out the works? I read some ways that people organize their music so that they can understand it all when listening to it on their iPod, but those tactics didn't really help me much. Forgive me, as well, I just now saw that you mainly wanted to discuss non-iPod Mp3 players, but iTunes is universal, so I'll leave it at that.

Originally Posted by Rachovsky

I own an iPhone (16 GB) and an iPod Touch (32 GB). I used to have an 80 GB Video iPod but I accidentally dropped it and it went bye-bye. I love the organizational functions of iTunes, but it does sometimes get extremely hard to fit the titles and artists onto the page in an understandable manner. Do you all have any organizational methods that you use to sort out the works? I read some ways that people organize their music so that they can understand it all when listening to it on their iPod, but those tactics didn't really help me much. Forgive me, as well, I just now saw that you mainly wanted to discuss non-iPod Mp3 players, but iTunes is universal, so I'll leave it at that.

For example, here's a temporary image of what my iTunes can look like at some points.

How about we all discuss what morons the people who work for Gracenote are? I mean does anyone even have the same problems I do with them?

I could site many examples, but for the purposes of explaining myself even further I'll provide the following example:

Every CD of the EMI "budget" box sets that I own: R. Strauss, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Liszt, Bruckner, and Ravel/Debussy came up with the wrong title of the album. They are incredibly inconsistent. One disc, for example, will be labeled "Strauss: Orchestral Works [Disc 1]" and then the next disc comes up with something like "Richard Strauss Orchestral Works, Vol. 2." If the information was entered in right the first time, then I wouldn't have to do anything. THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING!!!

I can't begin to tell you all the problems I've encountered using Gracenote. Does anyone else know another website like Gracenote that supplies information that I could tell iTunes to go and get? I'm tired of fixing Gracenote's incompetence.

I just purchased my first mp3 player “Creative ZEN X-Fi 16GB with two memory cards @ 4GB each, I had many problems transferring CDs to player using the Creative Central Program that comes with the player I.e. missing tracks, tracks in wrong order, wrong tagging etc, I was advised to use WMP11 and it solved all of my problems, the player came with canal type phones and quite honestly I was bowled over at the quality of the reproduction I transfer at 192, the only draw back is that to charge from the mains you have to use a Creative adapter no others will work [I have tried]

JTech82: I understand wrong tagging by Gracenote can be bothersome. However, I suppose there ARE alternatives - try asking on an iPod forum or one related to iTunes.

Originally Posted by Alnitak

Mp3 players are very practical for listening to music everywhere, but are very problematic to deal with. Converting, transferring, choosing which ones must be deleted because of the lack of memory, are very boring.

And there is the problem about the quality of the files transferred. Mp3? Wma? something else?

Well, portable players are not only good for "anywhere" but "any time". You can listen any time you want without bothering other family members. I especially prefer to listen at night - I even sometimes go to bed earlier in order to do just that. The idea is that as the day progresses into nighttime, your ears will become more sensitive and thresholds will shift. In this way, when I listen at levels far below halfway throught the scale, I get really powerful, rich and undistorted sound and since all major and minor distractions are gone, the experience is deeper than listening during the day on speakers (unless you have a dedicated and treated room for your speakers - that is a completely different story).

As for the transfer issues, first of all once everything is completed you have rapid access to a lot of music at your fingertips. Moving physical CDs, finding them, changing them in the player etc. is very distracting and I suppose can also be very boring. Once you set yourself free of physical storage, you suddenly become much more flexible and creative with your listening. I like CDs for the physical feel and the booklets and all that - but they can still be safely put on the shelf for display and reference while all freedom and creativity continues in the totally digital dimension. Imagine you hear a passage which reminds you of something else. Normally you would never bother to get up and reach for the other album. In a DAP you just press a button to do that.

As for file formats, I am perfectly happy with 320 kbps for practically all kinds of music. Going below that will slowly peel away some richness and beauty. But at 320 it sounds really good and the tradeoff for extremely rapid access and independence may actually be worth it.

Regarding the limited capacity - well, 8 gigs or even 16 is becoming rather cheap and if you include SD cards you get a lot. There is no need to transfer the whole CD collection at once. Just enough to provide variety and just choosing the things you really want to listen to. You do not have to be present at the computer while it does the conversion and transfer and this most bothersome part will only be needed once in a while, when you get bored with the chunk of your collection that you currently have on your DAP.

And finally re iPods - yes, I thought we could make it a non-iPod thread as they are very prevalent and have been discussed elsewhere numerous times. But there is still room for some iPod references, especially when we compare them to other things. I would like to specifically ask a question to people who happen to have both the iPod and a non-iPod DAP - have you ever tried to compare the sound directly? Putting aside the cover flow and all other bells and whistles, if you close your eyes and just listen to the sound it provides - how do they relate - your iPod vs. your non-iPod?

So, feel free to discuss anything DAP-related here and maybe paste the photos of your portable systems in this thread - including earphones and earbuds as they make for 50 % of what you get out of your DAP