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Latest Crop of MP3 Players
Anonymous Coward writes "A couple of interesting new MP3 portables were announced this week. The first one is Bantam's BA1000 that has near-identical size and weight dimensions to the iPod, but offers a number of features the older Apple doesn't like the ability to record from an internal FM radio. Choosing to offer the player in only 2GB and 5GB capacities, it looks like it is shooting to be the first sub $200 portable utilizing Toshiba's petite 1.8" drives. The other player announced was Samsung's Yepp YP-55, which claims to be the first Surround Sound MP3 flash portable. Using SRS Labs' surround sound simulator, the unit comes in 128MB and 258MB units. MP3newswire.net also offers an older, but nicely explained article on how this technology works using only two headphones to replace six speakers."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/30315.html
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it's about time the flash memory players got some extra storage, i'm not prepared to splash out on a neat mp3 player that can only hold one album at a decent bit rate. according to the article, they won't be getting to the UK for a while yet though
Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
Leela: No he didn't.
Come on, geeez!!! :-)
On a more interesting note, Frontier Labs recently released their new MP3 player, the NEX IA. From the site:
Supports multiple formats (MP3 and WMATM) and emerging formats such as Ogg Vorbis through firmware upgrades.It's almost official then, go OGG! Can't wait!
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
It is amazing how fast I filled up my own iPod with 5 Gigs of sound. Go for the player with the largest capacity one can afford. In this case size really matters.
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
Yet another HDD unit. I went through three Creative Jukebox Zens before I gave up on them. The idea is awesome, but I'd want to hear some 'torture-test' stories (like, you know, using it while walking...) from some I-Pod owners before I shell out another $300 USD for something that's about as durable as a lightbulb.
Of course with colour screen cell phones taking off the prices should drop to the point that this will be a natural progression in the next generation of players. I'm backing that may be a showpiece at the next macworld.
__
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All I know is tha the Neuros upgrade will be out soon that will let me use it in GNU/Linux *and* be the first portable hardware player that can do Ogg Vorbis, and in the future, Ogg Speex and FLAC.
I've waited years for these features, and soon my wait will be over.
If there were another player with the same features out now, I'd buy that.
Oh, and the Neuros will also let you record from FM and has a low-range FM broadcast so you can use it in your car.
- Serge Wroclawski
Latest Crop of MP3 Players
Im gonna plant my Rio right now and see what I get!
There is no such thing as MP3s. I triple guarantee you, nobody is violating any copyrights on KaZaA, never! The RIAA are a gang of international criminals and mercenaries! They will be welcomed with DDoS attacks and shoes! The all of the lying RIAA infidels will be slaughtered, most of them!
Repeal the DMCA!
And, as a result, I'm curious as to wether or not we'll ever see said mp3 player [and if so, in what way will it be crippled?]
Btw -- How on earth can someone have 2 terabyte[s] of non-pirated music files? "Fair Use"? [at that point, why not get a cd player?] Concerts? Where, exactly, do these come from?
but do they support unicode?
As far as using it just to play music 5 gigs would be enough(I use mine for other stuff so 5 gigs would be weak), but do I get to keep my 10hour battery? I am an 10gig iPod owner and the battery is the MOST important feature to me!!!
Can someone who knows why please post an explanation. I'm totally baffled by it all, I have to assume it's true because my surround sound speaker system sounds massively different to my old stereo systems, but I just don't understand the technology.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Its also possible to make your own if you want support for any format.
If you just want MP3, well thats easy. There are lots of sites on the web, here is one.
For Ogg there is an entire decoder-on-a-chip thingy, see this project. Or you could probably just use a software version if you got some sort of RISC chip or whatnot (need to be fairly fast)
Um, no. The article doesn't explain how to "replace six speakers" with two. It describes a WinAmp plugin for "virtual speaker placement", whatever that is.
Personally, I've found that all these "virtual" thingies are market-droid speak, snake oil at their very best. If your recording has two channels (assuming no multichannel encoding), a correctly configured stereo pair is the best option.
Real multichannel records may give you true 3D sound, if you have the decoder, amp, and speakers to do it. However, the linked article describes an "improvement" to a system that's ill-suited for high fidelity playback in the first place.
Why anybody would want to distort the sound even further from what it is after MP3/Ogg encoding, since you can get better results with a decent amp (budget models from NAD are very nice), and a pair of high quality speakers.
Check this out. The small Danish company that's designed it needs your input on which product to make next, so if you like the look of it, make sure you vote for it on the site.
The iPod has yet to be beaten in my opinion, when comparing features the iPod's firewire interface (slower in theory, but not real world tests than USB 2.0), Amazingly simple integration and hard drive DATA capability are excluded. Plus they have great quality and have an INSANE number of support products and now battery & hard drive replacement services on the cheap.
I would hold off on any MP# purchase to see if the newest iPods will be compatible with a new Apple Music service possibly later this month.
I fully expect the new iPods to surpass anything on the market with a twist (as the the current ones do) for another year upon introduction.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
the only price i could find for the new line of bantam players was the 5gb model for $329 (granted, the product is not for sale yet, so this is probably not set in stone), while a 5gb iPod will only cost you $300. If they introduced this new line of players to compete with the iPod, which was pretty obviously their intent, wouldnt they think that it is a good idea to price their products competitively? They add some new features, and promise some more in future models, but what makes this device a better buy than a similarly sized iPod, which has been proven to be a great product?
From a happy iPodder.
Humans (and other animals as well) use several different clues to localise spatial sound, let's have a look at them: Firstly, there's the time difference: signals that are off center arrive earlier at one ear and later at the other. We can't consciously perceive such minimal time intervals, but out brain is hardwired to perceive the difference between the two signals. Electronic circuits can fake this effect, as long as the listener doesn't move eir head. Secondly, the sound is filtered by the head and the auricles, again differently for each ear if the source is off center and differently for sounds that come from different directions in general. Electronic circuits (and also microphones mounted inside artificial heads) can approximate this effect, but each individual has a different head and different ears and would require a recording tailored to em specifically for this to work perfectly. There actually is equipment that tailors spatial sounds to one headphone wearing individual after having measured eir head's characteristics with little microphones places inside eir auditory canals, near the ear drums. This works rather well, but again can't compensate for movements of the head. If you want to use speakers instead of headphones, the situation is much, much worse. And thirdly, that head movement I mentioned twice above: humans actually do that on purpose and unconsciously twist and tilt their heads around a little when localising sounds, thus making use of the slight changes in the filtering that occurs because of the head and the auricles. So far, there's no technique that takes that into account.
As you can see, that expensive new hardware that Dolby is rolling out now, the Pro Logic II Virtual Speaker encoder, absolutely cannot produce the same effect as any ordinary 4.1, 5.1 or 6.1 setup. It may spice up a movie you watch on your TV, but you wouldn't even rely on that when you're playing Quake and want to hear enemies coming from behind. And that's expensive, high end stuff. A 'surround sound simulator' in a lowly MP3 player delivers even less. I haven't tried the one mentioned above, but I guess there's no way it could make music sound 'more immersive' or '3d-like'.
What's even worse, we're talking about music here. The best way to play music back is, without the slightest doubt, exactly the way it is intended to sound, the way it was recorded onto the CD or whatever medium. All those fancy DSP functions you find in all kinds of (mediocre) stereo equipment are nothing but useless features that exist for the sole purpose to have more features than the competition; it's pure dupery. You can alter sound by adding reverb or applying weird equalisation or whatnot, but arguing this alteration would be an improvement to each and every track is very, very stupid; don't fall for that.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
I agree that such a portable shouldn't be the primary storage device for a music collection. However, having my entire collection on hand at any time kicks ass. At the moment, my entire collection fits in 14 GB. For awhile to come, there will be portable players that can hold it. Of course, being able to afford such a handy player is another thing altogether. I would have a use for a 5 GB player even though it can't hold everything. The flash players seems like a waste of time and money to me. There is a convienience factor as well. Little players have to be filled up all the time. I'd rather only hook the player up to my desktop when I've made significant additions to my music collection. I'm thinking more in terms of syncing the player to the main archive rather picking out new tunes for it all the time.
If they aren't meant to hold the entire collection then they should be. Not for primary storage or even a backup, you're right about that. It is a matter of convienience. If I have to change out whats on it all the time, the player becomes a PITA. Bring on the big hard drives!
Cough cough *Newton*, cough...
As devices get smaller, manufacturers have a tendency to start using smaller batteries. The unfortunate side effect of this is...
a. The batteries last no time at all.
b. The bud earphones can't be driven with enough current to get the volume you might want.
c. Switching on anything marked "turbo" bass will eat those batteries even faster.
d. Leaving the device off for a few weeks may actually drain the battery anyway if the device uses some kind of static memory storage.
I recently purchased a cheap ordinary AM/FM stereo portable from Emerson with 10 station memory (model HR2001). The device uses 2 AAA batteries. The max volume is poor, and when it is turned off for more than 2 weeks at a time, the batteries are totally drained from storing the stations in memory.
When I read about that yepp device I cringed. Who in their "right mind" would buy such a thing. I loath any portable device that uses less than 2 AA size cells. There's just not enought juice to run the circuitry and audio amplifier.
The conspiracy is that now the battery companies are owned by the portable manufacturers, so like the Lexmark printers and printer cartridges, you are getting suckered into a recurring cost business model.
And yes, the 3D "surround sound" audio from "bud" earphones is a joke, a marketing gimmick, the wool is being pulled over your eyes. It's just like the tube amplifier mobos, if a company can market to just the right segment of the population that can be sold to, they will. You are being used! Don't fall for it. Take some engineering and physics classes! Think for yourself! Don't let someone else think for you!!!
Just my 2 cents.
In short, there isn't any competition, and I'm wondering why. Did Apple have some exclusive agreement that says no one else can use the drives? If typical price/performance curve for the PC industry had followed, I should be able to buy an iPod 'clone' for $150 (half the price of the Mac version) by now. Unless something fishy is going on...
There are in fact ways to have a sort of 3D perception of sound using only 2 speakers.
The room acoustics research teamat the IRCAM works on this. Their spatialisateur application allows you to use many different speakers configurations to enhance the spatial perception of a given piece, and using 2 speakers is an option. This is based on lots of psycho-acoustic research etc., and it works.
It's more intended for concerts and things like that rather than mp3 players, but the technolgy exists.
Sound & sound perception are far more complicated and full of surprises than one may think first...
And btw, 16/24 and 24/92 refer to the bitrate and samplerate (in khz) of recorded audio, a completely different subject.
The placement of an FM Radio recorder on an MP3 player must be giving the music industry some kind of headache. While it is one thing to call some bootlegged Avril (or artist of choice...) mp3 illegal, if you recorded it and placed it on the player then it most certainly is not. And while it's impossible to tell if an mp3 on a player was ripped from a CD or downloaded, it seems like this radio recorder makes the issue even more complicated. Imagine, for example, having one of those babies in your living room and just continuously downloading all the music you hear and burning it to CD. I would assume that's perfectly legal (seeing as how taping the radio is), and can't be stopped. Hmm... free distribution of recorded-from-radio CD-Rs, anyone?
It wasn't me, it was the one-armed
The BA1000 has dimensions that are almost identical to the iPod's. The unit comes in at a svelt 194 grams vs. the iPod's 185 grams. Dimensions of the unit are 106mm x 66mm x 31mm (4.0" x 2.6" x 1.2") vs. the iPod's 102 x 62 x 20 mm (4.0" x 2.4" x 0.78"). In both cases the iPod is still smaller, but marginally so.
31 mm thick vs 20 mm? That is a huge difference. Thickness makes all the difference in the world in being able to carry it in your pocket. The iPod is justtt small enough. (I consider Palm Vs/m500s just about perfectly sized). An extra 1.1 cm would make this thing uncomfortable to carry in your pocket.
Random is the New Order.
Last spring I chose between an MP3-player and a Minidisc player, and the choise fell on Sony MZ-N707 NetMD. It's absolutely wonderful. I transfer about 5 hours of music onto one disc, the transfer speed is definetly ok, never had a skip. All in all, I've got nothing bad to say about it, and people looking for descent portable music players should at least concider the NetMD players.
I've dropped the damn thing. On hard floors. From about 4 feet. It's fallen out of my backpack a couple of times, in its belt strap thingy which protects it from scratches a bit but probably doesn't cushion the impact much. It still works fine. This is a 20g model about 6 months old. (Note - I don't recommend dropping any hard drive, even one with a spin wheel and headphones).
thinksecret, which is usually pretty reliable, has an article about upcoming ipods due at the end of the month. I would wait until then if I was currently in the market for an mp3 player.
Also, for those with ipods now, here's a link for buying a replacement battery for $49. Useful if your battery is starting to show some wear.
A friend bought an iPod and used it for months during his almost-daily training for the Boston Marathon. Then he ran the marathon with it. It simply went into his pocket- no waist pack or nothin', so it sure got bounced around a lot.
That good enough? :-)
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