What kind of portable music player do you use?

I'm a sucker for cool portable music hardware as well as lights. Why can't I find cheaper hobbies? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

What I look for in a music player: must be well built, sound good, linux compatible (or not need computer), have a 1/2 decent interface, and not cost more than $400. Here's what I use...

I've got an iRiver iFP390T 256Mb flash player which is very capable, 12+ hours battery life off an AA, small and near indestructible, but obviously limited in the amount of music it can hold, which necessitates frequent trips to the computer to change. Great for jogging, riding etc

I love minidiscs, and have two - an old Sony MZR900 and a newer MZNH700 (HiMD). I think minidisk is cool technology, just poorly marketed. They're well built and reasonably tough - as tough as a magneto-optical drive can be I guess. Battery life is very good. I like the convenience of being able to pop in a small disc that holds several hours of music. I also think that ATRAC encoded music sounds better than mp3. The main trouble is that to get really high quality recordings into them you have to record in real time from a line in, and when you have hundreds of CDs... The Sony SonicStage software for HiMD is a Windows only resource hogging rights restricting dog too. I tend to use my minidisks for music when I can't be bothered with the computer as an intermediate. Minidisks are great way to record live music, band rehearsals etc too.

I recently bought a cheap second hand Creative Zen Touch 20Gb hard disk player and all I can say is wow! Beautifully built, sounds great, mighty battery life (24+ hours) fits just about my whole CD collection in 192kbps VBR mp3 (which sound pretty good). Once I took the few hours to load the whole collection in via linux the rest is plain sailing, with only occasional computer visits to put in new music when I buy a new CD. I guess the major drawback to a hard disk player is the hard disk, which is just not as robust as a minidisk or flash based player.

So what portable music hardware do you use? What are your criteria?

Somewhere I have a small I-river unit. My main unit is an Ipod Photo. I bought it for the dual purpose of playing tunes and holding photos from memory cards. I wanted a photo storage device but this was the only thing available in the Brick and Mortar stores and I needed one immediately when I bought it. It is a good player and a mediocre memory card downloader. It replaces a 20 Meg Zen player that had almost a ten hour battery life. The Ipod is not that good in the battery department but it is decent enough.

I have owned others, both MP3 and CD-mp3 players, but our entire mobile music department around here is all iPods now /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif They do need to be plugged in to charge once in a while, but I've been very happy with them. My wife now uses my 3rd generation iPod, which is old enough now (what, about 2 and a half years?) that it needs a new battery. Runtime is down so that she has to charge it 2 or 3 times a week now /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif She listens for at least 2 to 3 hours in the car every day, so thats not as bad as it sounds. I just got it in the mail yesterday and will be performing the surgery myself this evening. For myself I got an iPod shuffle which turns out to be pretty much ideal for me. Since I'm at the computer every day, it's easy for me to plug it in and load a different randomized playlist from my huge library onto the smaller player. And the battery life of them is nothing short of amazing. Mine has been 3 weeks without a connection to the computer now and I still get a green light. But I don't listen to it for hours a day.

sony mini disc but i do like iriver there very well driven. but i didnt like its smaller amount of memeory. the sony himd i have uses 1 gg disc.but i want a second gen himd player

I have an iPod and have comed to love it. The battery life isnt great either, but thats not a big issue to me, as I can recharge it whenever needed. Also though, I listen to songs at random most of the time, and when a song I dont like comes on, I will change it, which doesnt help battery life at all. The HDD has to spin up and causes it to go down a good amount when you do it a lot. Thats why its best to create playlists that will work for you. The iPod is indeed Linux compatible and their are many programs out there for it to work with. (I am using Arch Linux) I prefer iTunes, but whatever works...

Cameron

I'm using an iPod Photo 40 gig. It replaced an iPod 3G 20 gig and I must say the color screen is fantastic. Almost like having OS X in my pocket.

My wife just bought the new Lexar LDP-600. It has 512 Mb of built in memory and will take SD cards for increase capacity. It has an FM reciever and TRANSMITTER. It is nice for listening to your tunes when in a work car with no CD or tape player.
http://www.lexar.com/mp3/LDP600.html

I have three iPods, and I'm probably going to be getting a Photo some time soon. My girlfriend and I swapped music players a little while ago (she had a Dell DJ), and I can say with absolute certainty that the iPod is the best thing out there for build quality, sound quality, and ease of use.

I'm using a 40gig iPod, which primarily replaced a Rio 20 gig HD player, and since getting the iPod, I haven't hardly used my 2 MD players or my CD-MP3 player at all. I do have a tiny little Samsung Yepp 256MB MP3 player I use on occasion when the iPod is too much.

-Keith

I have recently got a 20G iPod. [gift from wife] Love the darn thing. First HD based Portable Media player. I use it in the car, home, just about everywhere except at the gym. My only other player is an old Creative MuVo 128MB. Stores about an hour or two. Perfect for the gym. Don't worry about subjecting the MuVo to shocks/bumps. Heck, I even jump rope with it w/o any problems. Had it for awhile. I would suggest an iPod shuffle or similarly flash based player for the gym.
- Danno

Personally I just use a little Sony Walkman radio when I need portability. My son, however, has been using an iRiver iHP-120 for about a year now. It's had no problems. Seems to be a very solid well made unit, as it should be considering the price. One feature that set it aside from other kinds, I think, is its ability to record via cable from any source. Much of my old music on reel-to-reel tape has found its way into the player. One thing it can't do is record from its own FM tuner. Overall, though, a very nice gadget.

Geoff

Ipod mini(my wifes) and an Iriver IFP180T. Both great players.

Numerous CD players, portable radios (EVERYONE is gonna have one someday /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif ), and a mini-disk player. I don't really like MP3 players for some reason.

The last time I had a portable music player, it was a portable CD player by Magnetbox (Magnavox) that was hardly larger in diameter than a CD itself. It had skip, random play, bass boost, and some other features. I haven't seen it since last October though, so I presume it was left behind in a move I made at that time last year. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif

I have a GP-L4 radio and a 10-band radio from County Comm, and several large ghetto blasters (a JVC RC-550, RC-656, RC-M71, RC-M80, Sears SR2100, and an Aiwa CS-600), but I really don't use them as portable music playback devices.

I had a play with my brother in law's iPod a while ago, and there's no doubt that it was beautifully built, very stylish, and with an attractive easy to use interface - much like a Mac I suppose /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif . The main things that swayed me against the iPod were the high price and the lack of flexibility with file formats. I'd have no hesitation getting one for my wife, who doesn't care about such things. But then again, she's already making a concerted play for me to give her one of my minidiscs!

Just last Christmas I treated myself to a new mp3 player to replace my aging Rio 500. After looking at the hard-disk based players, I decided that the right one for me hasn't been built yet. I started shopping flash memory players, and found the Muro MR-100. It's an off-brand Korean model, but is very similar to the iRiver player with some very cool additions. It has an aluminum case and an FM broadcast feature. It uses the gumstick-style NiMH rechargeable batteries, so it also has a slim profile. Also has full recording capability from radio, line-in, and a built in microphone. I've been very pleased with it. I use it in my company car (through a cassette adaptor) and in my personal car which has a stock CD player and necessiates using the FM broadcast. Mine is the 512MB version which looks to be sold out on the main distributor's website.

It connects to a PC by USB and becomes a removeable drive in Windows, no extra driver needed. I'm not sure how or if it would mount to a Linux PC, but I bet it's possible and perhaps has been done already.

I have a 3rd Gen, 40gb Ipod and a 1gb Ipod Shuffle.

Geoff

Archos Gmini 400 (20 GB) Digital Media Player ePinion Review

i got a 256MB one of these.
http://img.ferra.ru/pubimages/62459.jpg

my biggest beef with it isnt the size, it's the USB 1.1 transfer rates. although i can definitely go for the 512 or 1gb version. most stuff i have is 192kbps vbr.

stock headphones suck. i got a pair of the $50 sony earbuds. http://www.radioshack.com/images/ProductCatalog/ProductImage/33/33-1233.jpg
these things really kick some ***. I like that it uses also AAA, makes it nice and small. and very good battery life given the size.

Leon

I have a Trumpion Comotron 128 music player with 128 megs built in and an additional 128 megs of smart media (yeah, it's old hat) installed.
It plays great, even on my big Phillips collapsible headphones. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Runs on 2 aaa batteries for a couple hours at near full volumne. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif