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Fourteen Digital Music Players Reviewed
prostoalex writes "The PC Magazine reviews 14 digital music players that can play MP3, WMA or AAC files. The editor's choice among the models compared includes Apple iPod Mini and iRiver iFP-390T. The editors decided to conduct a single review of both Flash- and HDD-based music players. Of special interest is the battery life test as well as sound quality test. Even though the entire article is published online in HTML, the summary of the features is available in PDF only."
earbud quality != player sound quality
My Rio Karma is full of 20 GBs of ogg vorbis encoded lovin' .
It has about 13 hours of battery life, and can talk by USB 2.0, USB 1.1, or even 100mbit ethernet. When I plug it into the ethernet, it runs a webserver with a java applet that allows you to send and receive software.
It works on any operating system with a VM/java plugin without a hitch. I use it in Linux and didn't have to set up anythign when I got it.
Don't know why they didnt review it...
They didn't even review the Rio Karma? Are they smoking something? If there's one player out there which has repeatedly been shown to be the genuine iPod beater it's the Karma, yet a supposedly "thorough" group test doesn't even mention it.
For the uninitiated:
* 16 hours battery life
* 20gb capacity
* Smaller than an iPod
* Plays AAC, WMA, MP3, FLAC, OGG, and more (Audible coming soon)
* Fully supports GAPLESS Vorbis, FLAC and mp3 playback. This is unique among portable players and a very big deal for a lot of people.
* USB2.0 & Ethernet connectivity
* Fully supported under Windows/Mac/Linux - works on any platform with Java & Ethernet
* Best of class sound quality
* Full 5-band parametric EQ
* On the fly playlists, Rio DJ (randomisation, new tracks, old tracks, most played etc)
* Crossfade between tracks
* The thing just ROCKS
I will be writing to the editor...
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
"iTunes is incapable of displaying file types"
Give these guys a thesaurus! What do they think the "kind" column is for in "view options"?
And is it really worth reading a review that sees anything worthwhile in: "The 3.4-ounce iPod Mini has more EQ selections than any other player"?
It seems odd that they didn't include a review of the Neuros Audio unit. I have the unit with the 20G hard drive, and although the firmware is a little wobbly, it's a great unit with a cool feature called HiSi, or "Hear it - See it" that lets you identify a song on the built-in radio or even on a P.A. system through the internal microphone.
The review lists "dedicated software" as a minus for the iRiver iFP-390T. Wrong! Here is the UMS update. My 390T looks just like a disk drive to my Gentoo box.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
The frequency response curves on all those headphones is absolutely horrific!
Do yourselves a favour - buy the cheapest player and get a pair of headphones for $30. It'll sound way better than anything with the supplied headphones.
I think I'll be sticking with my 'old school' MiniDisc Walkman (and yes it is a Sony, so yes I can call it a Walkman) and my Grado SR60s. Mmmm. Expensive.
C-x C-s C-x k
It is the Digisette, as another poster says.
:)
I have a Digisette DUO-DX AR-496 digital music player. It supports MP3 and WMA and AudioBook formats, though I've only used it with MP3. Note that it can also record MP3s on the fly, using an audio-in jack. Useful if you want a digital tape recorder in a pinch. It also has a headphone jack and sounds great as a stand-along portable player.
It comes with built-in 96 MB flash memory. It has an expansion slot for an MMC upgrade. Note that the manual and website might just mention a 64 MB upgrade, but I -confirm- that it works with a 256 MB MMC. With about 350 MB of music on it now, I have more music than battery life (which is about 5 hours).
I drive a convertible, and I would never consider putting a custom stereo into it. My wife has a nifty iPod, but her stereo retransmit thingy gets a lot of static, and the whole arrangement is much more cumbersome than a single unit I can drop into the built-in tape player. Despite what some reviews of the product have said, you can skip tracks without taking the thing out of the tape deck.
While I would have tried a 512 MB MMC if I had found one, I think 256 MB were the largest made before the shift to SD whatever, which it does not support. I would eventually like more space than I have now, but it is perfectly usable as is for my commutes to and from work, with the nice variety of happy music I can sing to on a nice Spring drive in a convertible in Texas. It makes commuting fun.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I own a Rio Nitrus. Some of the things I like about it are:
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Choosing between it and the Karma was tough for me, but I decided the iRiver had cooler features and was just a hair more open; not to mention that iRiver has a good track record for upgrades. They've publicly announced fixes for some problems with shuffle and playlist creation that should arrive in May, and by June the IHP series should have gapless playback like the Karma.
Breakfast served all day!