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New mp3 Hardware
rbb writes "Another new hardware based mp3 player, the mozart music box for $499, has arrived.
Their Dutch reseller offers other hardware based MP3 players too, such as the Trackz! player.
I'm not going to get too excited about this one though, since it's anything but portable. However the price of $299 for the do-it-yourself-kit or $449 for either of the two pre-built kits sounds more like we're getting somewhere in hardwarebased MP3 land.
" I think we mentioned the Mozart awhile ago, but I'd
never seen Trackz! before.
Maybe you didn't read after the zooming image, but the thing is not a CD-ROM, but a DVD-ROM capable of reading DVD-RAM disks. I remember when the theory was that DVD-RAM would hold 5.6 gigs or something, but that equated to 6 1/2 days of music. I'm not sure what the stard capacity now is, but it's humerously large all the same. That's pretty spiffy if you ask me, now I just need to find the $500 for the player and the $700 for the DVD-RAM drive.
Buy a PSX for $99 and plug a MP3 Enhancer for it
for $59 and bingo, you have your self a Cd player
that can do mp3s with a GUI and can play stunning
nice games also.
Thats convenient and it works.
damn cheeper
You stupid fool, think about all these homeless RIAA employees errr... I mean artists! You pirates have had enough luck, it's payback time, in bucks!
You should pay us for every sound you hear, every bit you download and every storage capacity you buy!
Right here
:) )
(and don't close that pop up, you might miss it
RB
I don't know if you noticed the same as me, but that Trackz! MP3 player look very much like any clock radio that you can buy at Radio Shack or Walgreens, specially the red LED display... ugh.
OTOH, I'd very much like to be awaken by MP3 music...
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Click the "STOP" button on your browser to stop the annoying graphic. Works with IE anyways...
Has anyone actually purchased the MP-ROM from carplayer.com? Are they actually shipping? Do they work well? Is it worth the money?
Thanks
The I-Jam device looks interesting, but too bad it only has 32mb with it. From what I gather from their web info, it comes with some type of device to hook to your PC which you insert their Scan Disk cards into to transfer mp3's from PC to I-Jam? Sounds a bit easier than the Rio's method.
From their web page:
You may buy the products from the following company information.
USA Branch:
McPower USA, Inc. 560 S. Melrose St. Placentia, CA 92870-6327, USA
Tel: 1-714-993-6970 Fax: 1-714-993-6023
Email: GPELECT@aol.com
MiniDiscs still offer the best portable music solution. The only benefit an MP3 player has over Minidisc is that you can tranfer songs faster. With minidisc you have to record in real time. However, with an mp3 player, atleast all the ones out right now, you have very limited storage. blank minidiscs cost about $2-3 and can be rewritten over a million times, and store 74 minutes of stereo (148 mono) per disc. Plus the sound quality is much better. I can't tell the difference betweeen minidisc and CD, but my roommate, who's an audiophile and was the one that introduced me to minidisc, says that they sound about on par with 190k mp3s. The portable players are much cheaper than comparable mp3 players (if by comparable you don't figure in recording time). You can get a player/recorder that's only a little bit bigger than a rio for about $300.
And if you have about $800 lying around you could get a MD-ROM from overseas which will allow you to write to the discs instantly, and store up to 140 megs. Just recording discs overnight or when I've got an hour where I don't need sound on my computer is fine for me.
MP3 player still have a loooooooooooooooong way to go.
Nicodemus
How about just buying a fucking PC instead?
North America imports a lot of hardware from Taiwan. What makes this different?
From a legality standpoint, it should be ok. It doesn't record, so it should fall in the catagory of devices as the Rio and other portable MP3 players. The fact that MP3s are played from CD and not from RAM might cause some concern from the RIAA and their lawyers, though.
Perhaps the demand won't be as large here. MP3s on CD are certainly not widely available here, so access to a computer with a CD burner would be a requirement. Even so, I'd buy one to go with my stereo.
Now that AOL owns Winamp, do you think the RIAA will have an easier time of bullying them into supporting their new "CD watermarking" scheme? Future versions of Winamp may not play those "horrible pirated mp3s." Meanwhile, could the RIAA win lawsuits now that they have an alternative to regular mp3 players? I know this is somewhat off topic. Please excuse.
--
(sourceCode == freeSpeech)
How come the Dutch retailer is selling the
mozart box for $499, when the Suggested retail
price is $249?
Wait until the price goes down!!! - but beware of Diamond's new Rio - they're putting in that RIAA trojan.
Buy a laptop then. You can get a used one for $500 easily.
What I'm saying is this player is vastly overpriced. $300 would be a stretch. But hey, it's your money. But I'm predicting that this unit and possibly the company that produces it will be nonexistant in less than 6 months from now.
Oh jeez,
You must see this. There is a bizzarre parody of precisely the type of "personal" website that you speak of. It's in three parts (be sure to view them sequentially!:) Some unusual high-profile people in the graphic design world were involved...
http://www.tank20.com/MARSHA/
cheers.
http://www.mp3enhancer.com
the site's weird and a little buggy - but thats the one.
Ah, this is a little off-topic, but an extremely small MD recorder would be good for you (perhaps, read on)
That is truely where MD shines - good hardware.
There is a lot of BAD ASS kit that is being released in japan. Go to http://www.minidisc.org to read up on the latest japanese units.
With regards to getting an extremely small recorder: The sony MZ-R55 is the one to buy. The price is around $350 msrp ($275 discounted street price?) and it is the top-o-the heap recorder at the moment. It's even pretty easy to get a hold of one.
With regard to recording at concerts:
Depending on the type of music you are recording (this applies particularly to symphonic music) using binural microphones (a tiny stero pair that can be clipped to your ears) can yield remarkable fidelity. You should check out this article.
Cheers!
>>Future versions of Winamp may not play those "horrible pirated mp3s."
I see that possibility as all-too-plausible, but you know that SOMEONE will hack the offensive code out of the new winamp before you can say "RIAA"
cheers!
The animated .gif on the "mozart music box" link _has_ to be _the most annoying_ thing I've ever seen on the web!
How about putting the player unit into a larger
enclosure and putting a hard drive or two in there
as well. A hardware MP3 encoder would be also nice, so you put in an audio CD and have it encoded and stored on the HD.
Also, I keep wondering why, oh why don't they use an alphanumeric display on this unit. knowing the song names would be very nice, and playlist feature would be just golden.
BTW... I think MP3 players are the ultimate "info appliance"... If I had a good one, I would not need to keep a second PC by my stereo...
mAx
They are gunna offer a unit for your car also! This is great. The only bitch I have about it is the player dosen't display the name of the song...just how many tracks are loaded. If they fix this with the car player then I will defiently buy one! Natas Check out the Lokigames Portal Page.
I mean, come on now... let's start seeing an option to transfer mp3 files to the bloody things via ethernet, usb, firewire, etc... but for the love of God get away from that pathetic parallel interface!
ppt tape drives, zip drives, camera interfaces, mp3 player interfaces.. let's just go back to skins, fire and rock tools, shall we? "NEW PARALLEL PORT 19000 RPM ULTRA SOOPER DOOPER HARD DISKS!!!! " *heave*
-'fester
i really couldn't use one of these things at all. i suppose i'll just have to wait until someone comes out with a portable (discman size) mp3 player that uses cd's....the greatest thing would be if it played audio cd's too. we'll get there...eventually.
Since the player is being marketed by a company in Taiwan, we'll never see it in any of the Berne convention countries. Piracy is legal in Taiwan and local companies like Son May Records do nothing but sell pirated CDs/VCDs/VHS/DVDs/CDROMs. Expect the RIAA to jump all over this to make sure this "pirate device" nevers sees the light of day anywhere else.
--
Cmdr Taco, not affiliated with CmdrTaco.
In the IP paranoid *all* consumer digital recording devices must implement SCMS (serial copy management system) which prevents copies being made from copies. Also (if it records, which this MP3 device does not), it must rquire specially altered media which is heavily taxed with the booty going to the RIAA. Consumer CD audio recorders implement all of these which is why they suck. No copies from a copy? Blank CDR media for $14USD. No thanks.
Gee, for less than $500 bucks I could buy a computer, and build my own. This is a waste of money.
The signal loss on an analog line over most long runs is terrible, particularly without properly shielded cable, which costs signifigantly more. Unless you were using an outboard DAC and running the digital signal to it, it could be problematic. Plus, someone like myself who is looking at DJing with MP3s would find something like this more convienient than lugging my computer to all of my jobs. I'll buy one.
The Mozart device looks like the same basic device as the MP-ROM at carplayer.com Carplayer.com also sells a few more accessories for it.
As I understand it from the description on the home page for this product, it:
A) Is totally independent from your computer.
B) Requires headphones or speakers.
C) Requires a CD-MP3, with no recording/encoding capabilities.
D) Is moderately priced.
Therefore, on my scorecard, the main use for this product is to play MP3s in your first-floor living room when your computer is in the third floor bedroom.
BUT
If you already...1) Have the MP3s (and have therefore already encoded your songs into MP3 format and burned them onto a CD), and 2) Have the speakers you want to listen to the MP3s on...then it wouldn't it probably be less expensive just to buy some cheap extension cords and converters, and then run speakers from your computer down to the first-floor? I have the same sort of thing done with my stereo in my house, and I don't think it cost more than $75-100.
-
I can't look at the picture if it keeps changing size!!!!!!
Although this newly released version is not portable by any stretch of the imagination [check out those physical dimensions!]... MacPower will be offering another model specifically for car use, the MP3-5200C which comes with a +12V 1.5 Amp adapter cable. Apparently available in July.
I don't think its worth holding your breath over though.
For real portable specs check out the I-JAM. The PDA of the MP3 world.
BLAMMO shaken not stirred
The Mozart/MP-ROM device is a little large to be fully portable, but it does read CD-ROM. It looks like the technology is almost there to get us a small CD-ROM reading mp3 decoding device.
What is stopping companies from making portable mp3 players that read a cd? I can understand that it would cost a lot of $$$ but then again what new technology doesn't.
That's one of the most wonderful things I've ever seen a web page do. Kick ass!
All you need to do is put your laptop in the living room and hook it up to the stereo system. You could do the same in your car as well.