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Portable MP3 Hardware Sales Up
prostoalex writes "In December of 2002 only 12% of US music downloaders owned a digital music player, while for this year the number has increased to 17%. Jupiter Research expects the sales of the digital music players to double this year, while another research agency notes a remarkable shift towards paying for music. Even the music industry tends to agree that online music stores are a boon and expects the Web sales to really take off in 2004." (And the sales of Ogg-capable hardware are up, too, since there finally is some.)
It shreds the iPod in every way. Plays WMA and OGG like the iPod doesn't. 20GB drive, records standard like the iPod doesn't, has built in radio as the iPod doesn't, mic input (yes it records standard) true SRS surround sound, USB2.0 like the iPod doesn't, digital and analog audio out, the sexiest case on a portable music player ever, and all for $370.
go to http://www.outwardsound.com/products.php/7/278/ for a look.
Damn Moronic Editors
they could, of course (hopefully before someone else says it!) be making (ordinary red-book audio) CDs from those downloads... no portably mp3 player required, hehe. :)
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
You mean "Vorbis", not "Ogg". As has been pointed out many times, Ogg is the "container", and Vorbis is the audio codec.
</pedant>
Ydco co
right now seems like a good chance for me to say thank you to all who provided useful comments and tips in the article posted earlier this week on the lack of discounts available for the Apple iPod.
alas, I still have not been able to find a decent deal. Many have pointed to apple's refurb'd items store, but it's out of stock on ipods. the best thing I've got right now is that Target will give you a $15 gift card when you buy an ipod.
my best hope is that some marketer at Apple will see the original post and the responses and perhaps have a change of heart in what seems to be their "no discounting" policy, and how the cheaper prices offered by their competitors might be beating them in the market.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
www.neurosaudio.com
The iPod can record with a Belkin add-on mic. It records right to disk, so you can record hundreds of hours of stuff.
I dunno. I have an older car (1995) that only had a tape-deck/radio. Since I have a large collection of music ripped to MP3 format, I was growing more and more dissappointed that I could not listen to my music in my car. I started investigating replacing the in-dash radio with a CD player that would read MP3's. Still, this was an imperfect option for me, cause I would still have to deal with CDs which are a pain in the butt to keep from getting scratched, out of direct sunlight, away from extremes of hot and cold, etc... I had resigned myself to dealing with this, as it was certainly better than nothing...but having burned mp3 cd's in the past, I realized that 700megs of music (+/-) is but a fraction of my collection and at best, an mp3 cd player was but a fractional step in the right direction.
So, I resigned myself to spending some cash and started researching players. Then I stumbled across this guy, and I got excited. For $229 bucks I could house 20gigs worth of music. It broadcasts audio on the FM dial, so all I had to do was tune my radio station to the Neuros broadcast station and viola, music instantly available. ...it beats the hell
outta ripping apart my dash to play mp3 disks.
What's even better is that at $229 it cost less than most of the in dash mp3/CD players I was looking at. So, I took the plunge...
Haven't had a complaint yet. Works exactly as advertised. Support folk are excellent, price was great. It's not the sleekest, or sexiest player on the market, but the damn thing is cheap, versatile, and open source. Check it out if you want a solution to playing mp3's in your car. This little thing will let you play 'em anywhere. I'd take one of these over an iPod any day.
http://www.neurosaudio.com
For those who only have a car stereo with a CD and no tape deck or audio inputs. Try this gadget:
b /
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/64f
Seriously, I listen to a ton of live recordings (from etree.org), and I need a player that has good support for lossless codecs.
Hence, when I buy later this month I am getting the Rio Karma, which supports FLAC. Much of the etree-seeded live music is coming in FLAC format these days, so using such a player will give me my crispy tunes on the go, no muss no fuss.
I haven't seen anything about the iRiver or Neuros supporting FLAC, though that may be in the works.
Bryan
...the iRiver iMP-400 looks promising
No uploading required. Just pop in your OGG/MP3 CD and you're away.
Ogg Vorbis support is in the works (via afirmware update), and can happily co-exist with the other codecs in firmware.
These guys seem pretty serious about vorbis. It's great to finally see a manufacturer taking this position.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
The point is, mp3 player's can HOLD your entire cd collection in a little box big enough to fit in your pocket. I just recently got mine for an early Christmas present... 20 GB. The only place I still use CD's is in my car. And I wouldn't if my car still had a tape player, because then I would buy an adapter for my mp3 player. But otherwise, I either listen off the computer or mp3 player, because they can hold EVERYTHING. CDs are obsolete in my opinion. Even if I did buy a CD, I just rip it and never take it out the case again. It's a waste.
The Present is the point at which time touches eternity. - C.S. Lewis