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Aside from the radio features, this player looks way over-priced. I just bought a Mambo X for my girlfriend, and so far she and I have been really happy with it. In a nutshell, $200 gets you 20G, USB mass-storage interface (no need to use a sync manager -- you just have direct access to the drive), MP3 and WMA support (and yes, the vendor has committed to supporting Ogg Vorbis), audio record, and Li ion battery.

It isn't glorious or beautiful (iPods certainly are cute), but it works really well, is fast, CHEAP, high-capacity, and really light.

And, no, I'm not associated with the company in any way. But if you are already looking at the Neuros, you should be aware that there are products that cost half as much, and have 95% of the features. (The radio thing is neat, but we don't care -- headphones are the only thing that will be plugged into it.)

• It's the thinnest mp3 cd player out there (it uses those gum-stick batteries seen in minidisk players)
• Firmware Flashable
• Supports ID3 tags
• MP3, AAC, and WMF format compatible (I believe OGG format is in the works, it'e mentioned manual)
• Backlit in-line remote (like minidisk players again)
• user definable EQ, with like 5 presets
• AC adapter, external battery pack, and it charges it's batteries when you tell it to when it's connected to AC.
• It supports both Rockridge extensions, and M$'s Joliet. I have long filenames on my cds, and they all work perfectly (unlike the other piece of plastic shit I purchased off Spamazon for $160 two years ago)
• AAAAANNND, a built in FM tuner with presets

Is the Mambo X MP3/CD Player. It can play audio CDs and CDs of MP3s and is portable.

Another neat feature is is can use CDs that have directories on them, and it skips over non MP3 files (such as covers and CUE sheets).

This is basically the same thing, only instead of in-dash, it's like a portable cd-player. Definitely cool.

oh, yeah, and it's only $200 too.

-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.

It's scheduled to come out of vaporware this week. I don't know if it will or not, but the Mambo-X seems like a good bet -- it's actually a portable CD player that plays mp3's off a CD-R/RW.

I'm gonna want to listen to it at my friends place, on my stereo system, and in my car. Can't do that with my MP3's (as they stand now anyway).

By "now" you mean "today." In May, a new product will be released that changes this. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mambo no. X. It's a Discman-like CD player that plays both Red Book (standard uncompressed format) and MPEG Audio Layer 3 (Fraunhofer's popular compressed format). The RIAA doesn't want CDs you burned for your Mambo-X player to replace their $20 media, only 20c of which goes to the artist.

If pictures and audio (your "pr0n and .mp3") are what you want to store, they make removable hard disk drives for that. Does Iomega still sell the Jaz® brand? I know Iomega is selling an internal CD writer called ZipCD, which would be perfect for burning MP3 collections for a Mambo-X portable layer 3 CD player.

- - -

I got lazy towards the end of the comments to see if someone wrote about this already or not, so if someone did, oh well, I guess you'll have to read about it again. It's called MAMBOX (located at:http://www.mambox.com) and it can play ANY kind of CDs you want. Even CD-RW!!! I got one of those through a guy that works with 'em, but from what I've heard they are hugely back-ordered, and it'll take 'em about over a month to send you one. It's a really cool thing to have. Anyways, that's it. Go get one!
____________________________________________ ____________

The MamboX player looks pretty promising. It's due out pretty soon, and it's MSRP isn't something that's going to empty my wallet either.

the Genica Portable MP3/Audio CD Player. It costs $99. Buy it here. It doesn't go on sale for a few days, however.

Here you can find Voquette's Netlink for MD players... It may only work with these sharp model, but I'm unsure. The original review I read makes it sound that way but the Voquette site makes it sound like any MD can use the netlink. Amusingly enough they also make a MP3 player that will work with any cassette walkman, and even record MP3s to a walkman, if it has a record function.

There is the $179 MAMBOx. I don't think it's out yet, however, it looks cool.

Of course, there is Pine's Player.

There are more of these out there... These are just some of the ones that spring to mind, and all portable. I love my Apex, though... $160 and it plays any disc I own... MP3, DVD, CD, VCD... I use portable music so little that my Rio is fine for my purposes...

Josh Sisk

There are a bunch of Mp3/CD portable player combos. In fact, it's funny you should ask as the first that is acually into production is the Mambo-X and it started Shipping on Friday. It's made by Tagram and has the best features of any of the dual-compliant format players I've seen yet.

For the full low-down on portable players and their support/features go here. Another place to check is Mp3.com's Portable players page. You might find out a little more about some of the players there (especially Mp3 ports.).

The advantage that a portable MP3 player has over a CD player is it has not moving parts. It lends itself to physical activities that CD players don't.

NOTE: This does not necessarily apply to driving. There are numerous redbook-only portable CD players with car kits (plug the cassette into the headphone jack).

A CD player that can play CD's that contain MP3's is where it's at. I'd buy one of those.

You can put all your Lou Bega "Mambo-V" on a Mambo-X player. Reserve yours today!

Terratec CD/MP3 Player

Mambox portable MP3/CD Player

Pine Technology (MP3 Audio): D'music SM-200C Portable MP3/Audio CD Player

netDrives CD/MP3 player Brujo

There is one which claims to be the worlds first, its at www.mambox.com and looks pretty cool.. It seems it may be shipping soon even, and has links to sites which will sell it.

-- iCEBaLM

There are only two to my knowlodge. One is the Apex Digital AD-600A. Which plays DVD's, CD's, Kariokee CD's, and MP3's burned onto a CD. I purchased this DVD player for $194 after tax from my local Circut City. But I'm pretty sure they are getting sueded for having the ability to disable the copyprotection feature in the dvd player. So good luck finding one.

The other is called Mambox. This device is the size of any standard Discman. It playes both audio CD's and MP3's that have been burned to a CD. This product is out yet however. According to Jason Moh, Director of Product Marketing, The first scheduled production will be the week of April 17th.

for a portable unit check out
http://www.mambox.com/products.htm. There is also the CD/DVD/VCD/MP3 player posted a while ago. The Apex AD600A. Check out http://64.45.6.252/apex/.

mambox

According to this letter from their Director of Product Marketing, they got pushed back to this month (March 2000). I'll definitely be buying one.
Here's the main link:
http://www.mambox.com/p300.htm

According to this letter from their Director of Product Marketing, they got pushed back to this month (March 2000). I'll definitely be buying one.
Here's the main link:
http://www.mambox.com/p300.htm

Agreed. I have no interest in flash-memory-based devices. Nor do I have interest in devices which require me to run proprietary software to transfer my MP3s to the device. The former - hey, battery-operated portables that play an hour's worth of music have been around for years. As for the latter, I really don't trust most major companies' closed-source software not to embed RIAA-friendly codes in my MP3s. A CD-ROM-based solution wins on both counts.

(For bonus points - scan the disc as an ISO-9660 disc or just use the ISO-9660-friendly part of the Joliet filesystem for *.mp3 - through all subdirectories - and ignore files not ending in *.mp3. Then you ensure that nobody will have to re-burn their CDs to use them with your device. Primitive solutions like "assume only .mp3 files exist" or "assume all files are in the root directory" are a cop-out, given the infancy of the market.)

People have already mentioned the MamboX as a possible contender - personally, it's been delayed so long that I'm not sure it'll ever get released. (That said, the day I see one is probably the day I buy one! :-)

On the open source front, check out these guys: Soundbastard. Looks like a group of geeks doing a decoder-in-firmware device that'll have an onboard IDE controller. It'll be your choice whether to use it with a conventional CD-ROM or an IDE (laptop or even conventional) hard drive. And the whole thing - hardware and firmware - is GPL'd!

What's nice is that the Soundbastard folks seem to be doing it with a minimum of surface-mount parts, meaning that the end product should be assemblable in kit form by an end user with a soldering iron. Sweeeeeeeet!

I like this one because as much as I am a mp3 freak, I still have an existing collection of over 300 cds. This gives you the option of playing mp3's or regular cds.

--

Here is information on the release of the Mambo X MP3 portable cd player as to why it hasn't been released yet (I noticed this device mentioned in numerous messages in this thread...):

From: Jason Moh, Director of Product Marketing
To: All MAMBO-X P300 Enthusiasts
Date: December 31, 1999

As some of you may be aware, we have experienced a delay in the production of the Mambo-X. The date has been pushed to March. We understand that this has been cause for concern with getting the product to market, and that both resellers and users would like to know the current status. We would like to address the problem.

The player works, and performs well under normal conditions. Even with most stress testing, it works fine, and would not have any problems for the majority of users. However, during our extended stress testing, we found a problem that could potentially cause temporarily degraded performance for some users; It doesn't involve any physical defect that could break the unit, but rather is a technical one that could affect the playing in certain specific situations. We have found the source of the problem and are implementing an effective solution, which will allow production to go forward. Since this one issue is the only one that has come up with the player, we don't foresee any additional delays in production or shipping.

It is our belief that our users deserve the highest quality for an item like this, and we genuinely want to deliver a superior product to our customers. We greatly appreciate everyone's patience in this situation, and we are confident that everyone will find the result to be worthwhile.

Sincerely,

Jason Moh
Director of Product Marketing
Tagram System Corporation

The URL for this letter

I'd rather have a CD player that can play CDs with MP3s burned on them. 80 hours? I mean really, who needs 80 hours of music. 6 hours on 1 cd is plenty for me.. and it's pretty easy to carry more cds. I also don't know if I trust hard drive technology in portable format. Something that small, with a HD in it, I wonder how it stands up to a jog in the park. You can pre order CD MP3 players, only 2 I know of (i'm sure there are more), check out theMambo X and theD'Music. Each is not much more expensive than a regular CD player.

the MamboX is supposed to ship in the middle of this month. I am not sure if it will be delayed again. What I do know is that I am buying this if it comes out soon and there is no similar product available.

mambo-x

then you just burn cdr or cdrw (of 10 hrs or so) and you're in business!

try THAT with MD. you can barely get 70minutes on an MD. and recording on MD is in real-time and no faster. if I'm in a hurry, I can grab a bunch of .wav files and create a cdr of .mp3 files in much faster than real-time (since my computer writes to cdr and not some analog or possibly real-time digital link).

--

Here's an alternative English language link to the Mambo-X MP3 player.



--

Just ordered one of these(preorder though). Not the pine one but a MamboX. Supports variable bit rate encoding and data rates up to 320kb/s. Playback for mp3's and audio cd's. Does work with cd-r's AND CD-RW's! Supposed to be shipping sometime February. Head on to their website for more. And it even cost's less than this stick from sony.

This device embodies everything that you just outlined. And they're taking pre-orders today!

Now lets see:

~4 megs per MP3
650 megs per CD
650/4 = Thats about 162 songs per CD.
Now there's about 15 tracks on the average CD.
162/15 = Thats about 11 albums per CD.

11 albums per CD!

How can this 64 meg device even compete?
Even by recompressing your mp3s at lower bitrates (bleh), you're fitting about 1 album on this device. Do you want to be able to listen to 11 albums or 1?

The only legitimate arguement I can think of for buying Sony's device is it's small size. I personally don't find portable CD players too big. The P300 is even $100 cheaper.

This sony device sounds nice, but I think solid state audio devices are still a while off.

Right now there are two major mp3 cd players which are "in the making." However, there are doubts about when their actual release date is, and if they will be actually materialize.

As someone else stated, Pine appears to be the most notable project as of now, though it has been delayed for quite a long time, and promises a release around February with a price of $200-300. However, I'm not sure whether it will actually ship by then.

Another option is Mambo X, which claims it will be released around December with a price of $179. It sounds great, but again I remain skeptical, as the site seems more intent on hip advertising than on actually going into detail about the specs of the player.

But basically, though mp3 cd players are the best option for portable mp3 listening, and are supposedly not too hard to make (decoder chip + lcd display?), you wont be seeing much around because of RIAA pressure (theyve sorta settled the other mp3 players, like the rio and the lyra, with their threats because now almost all mp3 players are being made SDMI compliant *shudder*.) Also, Sony, a big cd player manufacturer, won't go near it because they have a record company branch and because they are too busy pushing their minidisc crap. But hopefully this trend won't last, and we'll be able to see the big shot companies come out with quality mp3 cd players that don't just look like vaporware in the making.