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Newest iPod vs. the Nomad Zen NX?
flyingember asks: "I am considering purchasing an iPod, since they are so cool looking. I then came across the new Nomad Zen NX. Size isn't an issue, my current MP3 player being a MP3-CD player. The big thing is price. In the US the 30GB Zen costs $300, the 30GB iPod costs $500. Or you can get a 10GB iPod for $300 or a 20GB Zen for $250 on the low end. Has the iPod got better design and layout of controls to make the price difference worth it?"
The iPod is just more asthetically usable. I don't know how to explain it. My friend got a zen recently. It has a jog dial on the right somewhere, but the interface is just weird. It feels like the type of interface I'd expect on my receiver.
I like devices that have interfaces that match their use. Take palm and its OS. I thought grafitii is great. It makes sense for really quick input. The fact you don't have a start menu and just use the "applications" menu to get to stuff was also great. It even use(d) a low power cpu. It's the opposite reason why I really hate windows ce. I just can' get used to the idea of having a start menu and apps that take up so much screen space.
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Other reason I don't like the zen? Same friend, can't download the drivers from creative, and to use the drivers, he has to install the base software. But the software he prefers to use for syncin' needs the drivers. So to use one software, he's forced to use another.
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iTunes works really well w/ the ipod. Hopefully, the win version will be just as good.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
so does price.
Of course, you could indulge in simple style,
but too the real techies, who would know
that either you're using smaller files,
or you paid more and got less to go.
Words to men, as air to birds.
The Nomad is cool and all. And I'd be proud to own one. And it is kinda cheaper. I would recommend it to others! And even myself perhaps if I didn't already own a 3rd gen iPod.
But iPod is smaller, lighter
It's way more stylish (aka chicks dig it)
It's got a slick interface with a really nice screen
You can play solitaire on it gosh darn it!!!
Okay, I'm just trying to defend my impulse 400 (USD) purchase.
no thanks
Nomad Zen reviews
iPod reviews
Of course, Epinions are not too helpful when the product is brand new. I usually go through a couple of five-star reviews and several one-stars (if such exist) to see what people are generally complaining about.
No.
:) ]
Doesn't the Nomad have features that the iPod doesn't have?
Like FM tuner and recording?
[and there's also the anti-yuppie factor
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
I have a 2nd generation ipod and now a new 3rd generation ipod, both 10 gigs, (i got the second one as part of an apple store rebate and only paid 70bucks for it). The layout and design is really really worth it. Even if you just get the 10 gig, it's worth it.
The cool factor really throws it in my opinion, unless you are on a super tight budget, but seeing as you are even considering buying one, you probably aren't. It's a great piece of equipment and my only complaint is the battery life blows. If that and the price are significant issues, then you can side with the Nomad, but otherwise, the iPod is your best bet.
Just picked up a Jukebox Multimedia for $300 - 20 gigs + support for recording and low end DivX movies. Spent a lot of time interviewing people with it at Defcon, not great quality but a versatile little box.
The ipod isn't just an MP3 player. It also can store your contacts, and appointments, as well as functioning as a portable harddrive as well (the zen can most likely do this too.) So it does a little more in a better package with a better interface. I'd say ipod.
I have a 20GB 2nd series ipod (now my wifes) and a 30GB 3rd series. The big difference I found was the quality. Borrow somebodies ipod and just listen to the sound - it is fantastic. The headphones alone would be $75 as they contain neobydium magnets and are great quality - ever notice when you see somebody with an ipod they are using the included headphones?
:)
The next thing is simplicity - the menu system on the ipod I find much more navigable and easier to use... granted I have only played w/ a zen in the store but the ipod just makes sense.
You also say you are not too worried about size, but just going from the series 2 to the series 3 is awesome (and the series 2 was smaller). You can slip it into your shirt pocket and never know it is there. It really does make a difference... granted, either is night and day for you right now, but down the road do you really want to suddenly be envious of a friends tight little package? (he he...)
I can honestly say these have been some of the best purchases I have ever made, have used them w/ both windows and on my wife's ibook. They work fabulous. And don't forget that iTunes and the Apple Music Store are coming to windows... you'll need something to play those nice songs on and slickly hook into what I think is the best mp3 player out there! (Yup, I'm jealous of my wife... come on economy - get rolling so I can get me a G5!!!)
You could always just buy you a volkwagen bug and get an ipod for free!!!
Size isn't an issue, my current MP3 player being a MP3-CD player. The big thing is price. In the US the 30GB Zen costs $300, the 30GB iPod costs $500.
So the difference is $200 give or take. The Zen NX isn't quite as small as the new iPod, but it's much smaller than the original Zen.
One of the coolest things about the Nomad's is Notmad Explorer, or more specifically, the Notweb Explorer. It's a cool web interface to your mp3 player. You can browse it, search it, download or stream your mp3's. Very cool.
The battery life is significantly longer on the Zen NX (and the battery is user removable). Also very cool.
yes.
DiscDividers tabbed plastic CD dividers: divider cards f
FireWire is a faster/better way to transfer files because of the sustained I/O involved (don't be fooled by the USB 2.0 FUD). The iPod is also a bootable FireWire HD, so you get dual-use out of the extra cost.
The iPod plays AAC which may not seem like a big deal but it is the successor to MP3 so I suspect you'll be seeing more and more content that way, DRM issues aside. There is also audible.com support if you like that sort of thing. You can also do contacts and calendaring on the iPod. Sounds kind of useless but it turns out to be handy, particularly if you're always carring around your portable music.
I'd take points off of the Nomad simply because it has Microsoft's proprietary WMA in it. Ish, don't encourage them.
Creative is horrible at support. Have you ever tried to DL a driver pack from them? Usually you get 4 or 5 TSR proggies that will crash your system. I lived in Singapore and actually had to go to their HQ three times to get my Geforce II replaced. Bad news.
Apple? I own an IPOD, and notwithstanding that you have to install MusicMatch, their package is quite good. I had very few software problems and absolutely no hardware issues. The IPOD is top notch stuff and it makes the subway commute into work everyday much more enjoyable.
We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated.
Where the hell is the vorbis support?!?!?!??!?
Dammit, all I want is something as cool as the ipod, but with vorbis.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
I wouldn't give up my 10 GB iPod for anyone else's machine, regardless of its capacity. The iPod is unbeatable when it comes to ease of use, putting CD players to shame. It's also got one feature that I've never seen on any other player, on-the-go playlists. If you don't know what I mean look on Apple's iPod site. Add to that the fact that you can charge it straight from the FireWire port, can grab a phone number or email address without having to pause the music and whip out the Palm, and will soon be able to record from it as well (you can do it already through a special developers mode, and Apple will supposedly release a firmware update in the near future integrating this function into the real interface), and I think the Zen has been soundly smacked. The iPod more than makes up for the price difference in its quality. It's also a rock. I don't know about the Zen, but I've never carried my 3rd gen iPod in a case for fear that it might get jumbled, scratched or crushed. The no-moving-parts philosophy probably has something to do with this. And if you're worried about vorbis support, just switch to AAC. The difference is amazing. And if you're really REALLY worried about vorbis support, the iPod will most likely support it once QuickTime does, which can't be too long. Oh yeah, and it won't drag your pants down if you put it in your pocket. Nice touch. I'm all about maintaining my pants-edness.
----- "All right. It was a miracle. Can we go now?"
20 and 40 gig versions, supports Ogg Vorbis and shipping in October (allegedly)
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f ro mint=1&submit.x=39&submit.y=24
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Details:
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/00799
http://gear.ign.com/articles/382/382161p1.html?
http://msg.mp3.com/hardware/liststory/?position
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/008007.php
http://empeg.comms.net/files/133662-ipodcompare
You probably wouldn't have heard of this yet unless you have an Empeg, but wait for the upcoming Rio Karma before deciding.
-- V
I own a jukebox 3 (20gb) and it has great sound quality (creative does have a BIT more experiance in sound than apple) and has dual line out ports (attatch to 4+speaker systems) in addition to the headphone jack. The feature that an iPod doesnt even come close to is line/mic/optical(and FM with additional hardware) recording to many different formats. Im not sure if the zenNX has these as creatives website isnt loading for me but these features definately made me pick creative over the ipod even though the jukebox is kinda big and ugly (doesnt matter if you keep it in a bag, pocket, or slide it into an empty slot above your car stereo :) )
Bottles.
Are the headphones *really* that amazing? I have a pair with my iPod, but I haven't even broken them out of the packaging yet, primarily because I don't want those blindingly bright white things advertising that I'm using the iPod to everyone around me (on the subway). I'm using a pair of Sony buds now, and though I'm not totally happy with them, I always though it was the iPod at fault, not the Sony buds (which I was very happy with using with minidisc).
I'm considering selling the iPod buds and buying a nice pair of someone elses. Tips under $40?
I don't think so...
You cut out one of the biggest wins of the iPod and you also cut out one of the biggest reasons for the price difference. In electronics, if you want it smaller, you pay more. So, what should you do? I can't answer that for you because you've already shown that you don't think like me (I'm not saying that's bad or good, just different)...you've ignored the thing that I think makes the iPod worth the extra money... but, that's just my opinion...so I suppose, if it doesn't matter to you (size that is) go for the Zen...if you like how it sounds, as that's the second big win of the iPod and most important thing (to me) is cost...and that's where the Zen wins...so go for it.
Audible handles my audiobook addiction. I wouldn't be able to stand a player that didn't handle that format.
No Zen is good zen
One point in favor of the iPod is the iTunes Music Store. Intuitive interface, non-intrusive DRM, great selection and getting better all the time. And it will soon be available for Windows. Do you really want to use BuyMusic.com instead?
--Paul
Nomad == made by Creative == also has restrictive DRM in place (on the device - hint: don't try to copy files from the device back to your hard drive)
No, they are DEFINITELY not that good. I think they suck IMHO. First off, the sound is distorted on both the low & high ends. Secondly, ear buds stink. Thirdly, I bought a pair of Seinnheisers and that made all the difference. They sound 100 times better than the iPod's headphones and they're more comfortable for only about $40.
I recommend using anything but the iPod headphones myself.
Zed's dead baby. Zed's dead.
- Removable/replaceable battery (although whether Creative will actually sell them further down the line is another issue).
- Low signal/noise ratio - Apple don't have (in my limited searching) specs for SNR for the iPod listed anywhere, so I can't compare, but from what I hear, the ZenNX has it there.
- 4-band equaliser - the iPod just has presets.
- On-the-fly cross-song volume normalisation - probably be handy for when your entire collection was been ripped before you knew anything about volume control. *ahem*
Err, that's it. I would recommend that you check the accuracy of my statements; some of my comparisons may be to the older iPod.Since most comments here have been about the iPod and its features and nothing has really been said about the Zen, I'll take a shot.
First off, I love my Zen, but then I would probably love whatever mp3 hard drive player I had (sweet, sweet 60 gig of musicy goodness). The biggest point for the Zen versus an iPod (at least in my clumsy opinion/experience) is that the Zen uses a standard notebook hard drive, which means that if you buy the 20 gig version now (or perhaps you, uh, drop and kill your Zen) and later want to go to a 60 gig, you can replace it fairly easily.
Second -- the Zen sounds great, but I can't compare it to an iPod since I have never heard one.
There are drawbacks to the Zen, however -- you need drivers for it (and, for a while, when transferring by firewire the music would be randomly corrupted with parts of the song being mixed up and transposed everywhere) which means no just plugging in and using it as a external hard drive; the Playcenter software that comes with it is just utter shit which makes it necessary to buy Notmad Explorer (and then something like Mp3/Tag Studio to tag all your files so they show up right on the Zen) and while that is a nice little piece of software, it is an extra $30 you have to spend that should have been fixed by making it a USB storage device like the Archos; the lack of any input/output jacks other than headphone-out kind of sucks meaning that I have to use the headphone-out with the fm-transmitter and line-in on the car and no recording without shelling out another $60 for the fm/mic remote; the battery is non-replaceable without sending it back to Creative and is supposedly only good for 300-500 charges (although the NX's battery is replaceable).
While it may sound like I am coming down hard on the Zen, I do still dearly love mine -- having it full of 60 gigs of music means having my entire music collection in my pocket and being able to listen to anything on a whim or showing up at a party and having pretty much anything anyone else wants to hear.
And as for size? Eh, I wear pants with big pockets. I've already got the camera, flash cards, and phone in there, what more is another big toy?
I've *never* seen anyone using an iPod with the bundled headphones. I also don't know anyone that likes those shitty earbuds anyways, they all use regular headphones, albeit smaller ones. I think the sound quality of headphones os about 50 times better than any earbud out there, because I find sound is distorted in my ear with any buds.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, though I'm not yet sure about the universe. - A Einstein
It may just be me, but after using an Ipod in the store, I found the Nomad's interface much better. I like the fact that on the Nomad you can browse around and add files to the active queue quite easily and make playlists(multiple playlists and name them) on the fly. The only thing the 3rd gen Ipod has is 1 On The Go Playlist and I thought it was more of a pain to create and manage. I don't like using premade playlists. I listen to random songs and like the option of adding, deleting and skipping around my Now Playing List. I couldn't find a way on the Ipod to actually change the Now Playing list on the fly, like you can on the Nomad.
My 2nd gen iPod does the advertised 10 hours. For the size, this is by far the best battery life I've ever had on a portable player. Way better than my old solid state mp3 players (2-3 hours), and only eclipsed by my sony CD walkman, which had plenty of room for larger batteries (ie. barely portable, certainly not pocketable). I can't really argue against either of these players, unless you have a mac, in which case the iPod is a no brainer.
I don't know if it's my setup (about 12GB of MP3s on a Samba share), but the software was diabolically bad at cataloging my collection & copying it to the iPod. Musicmatch locked up completely several times, leaving it "Not Responding" according to Task Manager under XP. It took about 2-3 hours to do the cataloging of the collection (I'm not sure as I had to keep restarting it and actually ended up leaving it running through the day while I was at work). Also, it seemed to be incredably slow at copying tracks to the iPod (about 15 minutes for 4 songs!).
In the end, I downloaded EphPod and used that to copy files to the iPod. Worked a heck of a lot better, getting a full list of MP3s in about 10-20 seconds (about the same as Winamp). Copying wasn't as fast as I'd hoped (about 1.5MB/sec; I'd have hoped for nearer 8, the limit of the 100Mbit/sec ethernet) but still OK.
However, the iPod itself is great; the lack of moving parts is a comfort as it prevents dust entering the system anywhere. The sound is excellent and the controls are good. The hold button is a fantastic idea, preventing the unit starting up when you don't want it and the headset controls are pretty good.
I love the quality of the sound the buds put out on my (2nd generation, 10GB) iPod. Unfortunately, most earbuds have a nasty habit of falling out of my ear at inopportune moments (basically, anytime I move), so I never use them.
:-)
The only earbuds that I've used that stick OK are a set of Koss ones I have (I forget the model) that use compressible foam to mold into the ear. They stick OK. Usually, I use a set of conventional walkman-style Sony headphones that fold up. Sound from both of those is worse than it is from the Apple earbuds, but at least they stay attached.
I mainly use my iPod in the car, though, where I plug in an iTrip to use it as a travel jukebox. To simplify switching channels, I have a playlist that only has about a dozen stations that I know should have a free frequency pretty much all throughout the Northeast, and then I plugged those presets into my car stereo.
Earbuds aren't quite as good for car usage
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Are the headphones *really* that amazing?
For buds, they're the best in the $100 price range. The bass really sucks and the treble *can* be tinny. I use Stanton Dynaphase 60's (old studio headphones you can get on ebay for $20). Using my studio headphones, the sound out of the iPod really is *amazing*. It's made me go back and re-record my entire CD collection using the --extreme preset in lame.
I *really can* tell the difference in sound quality using these headphones and the ipod. Using a Nomad, I can't tell the difference between a 128 and a 320.
You should choose based on how you want people to think about you.
The iPod is like the VW Beetle. You will be perceived as the Yuppie scum that listens to ELO, even though you were 3 when they made their last album. Hell, even VeeDub has a "Pods Unite" campaign right now.
The Nomad is like the Nissan Xterra. It's a piece of crap toy masquerading as a useful tool. Oh, and it's bright yellow. Chick car. People will think you have a cell phone jammed up your ass at all times.
Which of these people would you rather put a bullet into? Right. Get the iPod.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I can't believe this product (or any other ones by Archos) aren't being discussed. With the Archos AV models, you can record and play back movies (the AV320 has a 3.8" color screen), listen to the radio, capture and view photos. It can support Compact flash, smartmedia, and memory stick. And, oh yeah, listen and record mp3's. They have 20GB and 40GB models.
Archos can do much more than the iPod and costs much less. Go check it out people! (archos.com)
Battery life. It's not bad but not exactly great. The advertised battery life is 10 hours, but I've only found it to be 3 or 4. Still not bad, but this gets to be a pain when travelling. Also using the EQ presets, the backlight, and playing large mp3 files causes the battery life to be shorter.
Pauses between songs. This is very obvious when I'm listening to a DJ mix spanned across multiple tracks. One solution is to put all the tracks into one big mp3 file, but this a) reduces battery life and b) is a pain in the ass in general.
Artist/Track/Album indexing. The UI and information architecture is generally very good, but it doesn't handle compilation CDs or DJ mixes very well. You'll have to use the ipod to see the exact problem, but the net effect is that in order to listen to a DJ mix or compilation you'll have to do a lookup by Album, not Artist. So to listen to Sasha and Digweed's Northern Exposure I have to look up Northern Exposure because looking up Sasha or Digweed gives me the few odd tracks that they produced, not their actual mixes. I realize this is a bit of a corner case but I wish that the Browse hierarchy was a little bit more customizable, that's all.
I finally decided. two factors. One, you can't find the NX in stores yet. Two, the ipod is so much cooler. So I got the ipod. I'm setting it up on my XP machine right now.
The problem with epinions is that the user base is not the same as Slashdot. As a result, the reviews there are less likely to reflect the concerns I would share with other Slashdot geeks.
Also, few of those reviews reflect the give and take of a comparison - claim/ counter claim - that is so abundant on slashdot.
If you want some truly comfortable ear buds that sound very good and don't cost too much, check out the Sony Fontopias. They're a little weak on the bass, as you'd expect from such tiny drivers, but they're unblievably comfy, and they don't feel like they're going to fall out of your ears all the time. They also do a damned fine job of shutting out ambient noise.
The big, obvious difference between the Nomad Zen NX and the iPod comes down to two subjects: listening time and aesthetics. The Zen NX Has longer battery life (14 hours on a full charge, compared to the iPod's 8 hours) and more room for your money (30gb for $300, compared to the iPod's $500 price tag for comparable room). Coupled with Zen NX's removable battery (though there aren't extra ones on sale as of yet), this amounts to much more listening time between recharges than the iPod. With the iPod, though, you get a much much much better interface. It is said that the bulk of the iPod's price tag is due to its OS. It's much easier to use than the the Zens. The controls are also much easier to use.
My dad's ipod arrived yesterday, I haven't listened to any music on it yet but I am blown away by its beauty. Its an incredible looking piece of equipment, clearly a lot of effort was put into the design of not only the unit itself but also the headphones, dock, etc. Its a work of art.
And to make matters more confusing, any opinions on this beauty from iRiver? http://www.iriverjapan.com/product.php?product=iHP -100
Rocket science is easy. Neurosurgery, now *that's* difficult.
iRiver iHP-100
Rocket science is easy. Neurosurgery, now *that's* difficult.
MP3 encoding (with blocks of samples) makes it difficult, if not impossible, to encode tracks to separate MP3s and not have gaps in between. Granted, some gaps are bigger than others depending on the player, but you'll have to look to other formats if you want truly gapless playback.
Can you mount a nx directly without special drivers/software like you can with the ipod?
Or does the iPod do that as well?
That would be one of my considerations for choosing a player, and I've been very close to just what-the-heck dropping $500 or whatever on the iPod...
I've tried to Google it but I find reviews that say "easy to share music among friends" right next to "I can't get my music off the thing".
Try this : www.archos.com and the open source version... http://rockbox.haxx.se/
Karma? Sorry, i don't believe in superstition. http://talk.thinkingmatters.org.nz
- Superior interface and usability
- Smaller
- Lighter
- Clean, elegant interactivity with Macs (via iTunes)
- Firewire
- AAC rather than WMV. Therefore: iTunes Music Store (!!)
- AAC rather than WMV. Therefore: far nicer DRM
Creative claims longer battery life (14 hours vs. 8) though.Is this enough? I dunno. Since the iPod 10Meg is the same price as the Zen NX 30Meg, another interesting question is whether the features above are worth 20 megs. For me, that second answer would be yes, but different people have different needs.
The Archos Jukebox Recorder 20 just kicks iPod (and all others) Ass. Lessee:
"the ipod can recharge its batteries over firewire"
Can USB do that?
Alot cheaper than the Etymotics ($150-700 price range depending on model?). Probably not as good as the Etymotics, but they sound pretty darned good to me. Slightly less bass but much better midrange and treble response and much cleaner than the Sony Fontopia MDR-EX71SL Headphones.
The advantages of the in-ear designs: increased bass response, more precise sound reproduction, greater driver efficiency, and greater sound isolation from ambient noise (ie. great for airplane use) that results in your not needing to turn your music up nearly as much thus preserving your hearing. The downside is that you shouldn't really use them in situations where you would need to be able to hear some of what is going on around you (ie. jogging outdoors, cycling, driving, skiing, etc). The rattling of the very stout cables does transmit some noise to your ears if you're doing something very active (like running/jogging) so I like these less for when I'm doing cardio, but they are just fine for other less impact/jarring activities at the gym.
Review at Extreme Tech.
DaveC
There are no stupid questions...just stupid people.
Sure E2c's, best performance for the $$ IMHO. Full post about them. DaveC
There are no stupid questions...just stupid people.
USB 2.0 is 480Mb/s peak. FireWire 400 is 400Mb/s sustained.
The FUD is companies claiming that USB 2.0 is faster than FireWire 400.
(And USB 2.0 can't even compare to the newer FireWire 800...)
"Can you direct me to the rumor site (or Apple announcement if its official) regarding being able to record?"
How To Record Right Now With New iPod.
If I had to choose between the player that supported MPEG-4 AAC (an industry standard that already has Free encoders, such as FAAD already available) or WMA (Microsoft's proprietory audio format, designed by them to take control of digital audio), I know which one I'd pick.
Just take a look at the Neuros - it stacks up against, and IMHO beats, all the others out there. I haven't bought one yet, but as soon as I can scrap the cash together I will. There are too many reasons why this is the best jukebox for me to list here. Have a look...
http://www.neurosaudio.com/
You will only question getting an iPod until you get one. That statement makes sense, I promise ;-). In other words, you will rarely get an iPod user who will say "it sucks," but you will meet Creative owners who will say "don't buy one." I used to (still have, except it broke) have a Creative Jukebox (1st gen) and it was the most clumsy, counter-intuitive thing in the world. I just got a 15 gig iPod along with my TiBook (they give a $200 rebate to students for that combo). I absolutely adore my iPod. I don't run OS X on my laptop, I run Linux and gtkpod is an awesome application. It does everything I need it to do for the iPod. Two friends of mine have bought iPods since I got mine. They were *that* impressed with mine.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Please, Apple, build in Vorbis support for your iPod. I have 30Gb of my own (i.e. not downloaded) Vorbis files, and am putting off buying a portable player in the hope that you'll come through.
Think of it: no licence fees, and *one* extra sale guaranteed!
All my CD and mp3 players in the past have let me change tracks and adjust volume, even turn them off, just by touch through my jacket pocket. Will the ipod do these things as well if I get used to the feel of how much to slide along the non-moving dial? Or will I have to look at the display to see what I'm doing?
The included apple bud headphones dont suck. In fact they're pretty good for bud style headphones. But let's face it, to get the best sound out of the ipod you need better headphones. I see plenty of people using the blindingly white buds and wonder why they havent bothered to think about better headphones. Ripped mp3's will never have quite the same sound as a real cd, but you can still ramp up your sound quality (and i dont want to hear some crap about how a higher bitrate is just as good as cd quality, no one wants to rip at 392 kHz).
b TopicID=64&productID=0020100005 [headphone.com]. You'll never know they're buds. Of course you could probably buy groceries for a month with that money but who needs food when you have an ipod?
With my gen 2 10 gig ipod i use a pair of Grado SR60 headphones. Probably the best set of phones you can use with out an amp for less then $100. I highly reccommend them for any portable player. You will never want to go back to anything made by Sony (very overrated in the headphone market IMHO). Theres no point in going with an expensive set of headphones since in the end you're listening to mp3's.
If you need buds like a crack addition for some reason then shell out the $330 for Entymotic ER-4P http://www.headphone.com/layout.php?topicID=13&su
If they do the same thing than just save your money. There is not point in getting the more popular one if you can get the same qualities in a cheaper one.
When out and about, I use a pair of Sony MDR-EX70s (now replaced by MDR-EX71s. They sound OK, a little heavy on the bass, but they effectively block out outside noise, and you don't annoy others with leaked noise. At home I use Grado SR60s. I doubt you'll get those within your budget though.
I can't stand that Audible only supports their own player and the iPod on OS X. I've got a Tungsten T, which would be GREAT for audio books (there is a player for it too), but Audible don't allow you to use the Tungsten player if you use OS X.
I got the second generation ipod, the one just before the docking version. You can not make an on the fly playlist, you have to just select an album. Not too big of a deal, untill you notice that the "new" ipod has this "new product enhancment". The problem being that it is not an enhancment, it belongs in all of the ipods. The ipod uses firmware, apple SHOULD distribute an update... but they would rather ram you in the ass for $500 to get one stupid feature that should be in ipod #1.
I hate apple, the end.