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I'd really like to get a portable MP3 player for use at work, on airplanes, etc. But I just haven't seen anything that even meets my bare minimum requirements:

1) Must play Oggs
2) Must work with Linux
3) Must be durable and reliable
4) Must have at least 20GB

Ideally, I'd like to have a player that has the following features:

5) Can upgrade hard drive to larger capacity, using a standard (laptop probably) hard drive, not an overpriced special-order one from the manufacturer
6) Can connect to home network by ethernet
7) Can connect to stereo with SPDIF and RCA jacks
8) Doesn't require funky, annoying software to transfer new files (though optional software for extra functionality is ok, as long as it runs on Linux). As an addendum to this, can be used as generic HDD storage device when connected via USB.

1-5 and kinda 8 are met by Neuros. I have a 40GB one 1st gen one and am quite happy (although if I waited a few months I could have gotten the 2nd gen one...). I use linux exclusively and all of my CDs are ripped to OGGs. I use ndbm to sync. I am 99% sure you need some kind of software to sync, but you can just mount the drive and put other files on it for the generic HDD part of 8.

This guy knows all about 5 and can do it for you.

http://www.cool4u2view.com

The DAC in the iPod is fairly high quality. It is not unreasonable for someone to simply encode their CDs using Apple's lossless codec and put them on the iPod. With a 40G model around 60 albums (assuming an average size of 650M) could be stored losslessy in WAV; a few more using Apple's lossless encoder. It would be like turning your 40G iPod into a 5G iPod and swapping music around but such is life.

It becomes more realistic when you have 80G and 100G drives in your player; in a few months the Neuros is supposed to have 80G backpacks available (right now up to 40G are available and a few online stores are advertising the availability of the 80G model early) and you can order an 80G backpack right now from Cool4u2View. The Neuros doesn't support any lossless codecs except for WAV right now (although there is support for WMA I have never used it and do not know if it supports WMA lossless or even if WMA lossless is anything more than tagged WAV). 80G is still around 110 albums. The Neuros IIRC uses the same DAC as the iPod so the quality of the sound would be excellent.

For me -b 160kbps Vorbis files are good enough; I plan to re-encode my collection to FLAC when I get a larger HD for music (right now it is a poor little 20G that only has 4G free) as well as Vorbis (abcde makes it easy to encode to more than one format and put them in different directories) -q5 (for my Neuros).

So your last comment still applies to most people. Not everyone though.

This is rather offtopic, but I finally got around to reading your reply to my post about the Neuros a few days ago. There's a guy who works for DI (the makers of the Neuros) who distributes modded Neuros's (bigger hdd's) and also ships regular Neuros's out of the country. His URL is http://www.cool4u2view.com/.

The Neuros has an interesting following, one company He offers services to replace the 2.5 drives in the stock enclosures. I'm not sure, but I would bet that if you wanted an empty enclosure he'd sell you one.

The Neuros has an interesting following, one company He offers services to replace the 2.5 drives in the stock enclosures. I'm not sure, but I would bet that if you wanted an empty enclosure he'd sell you one.

Ok. This is sick.

I just happened across a site where a guy put's different 2.5" HDs in Neuros mp3 players. A mp3 player that does Ogg, broadcasts to FM, records from FM to mp3, transferes files, works with linux and holds 80 GB? For $500? That doesn't suck.