30gb+ options?

herbieflowers

So the Creative Zen 30g and 60g I was looking at have been discontinued, despite Komplett's best efforts...anyway is the Apple ipod the only other mp3 player worth considering? I'm not looking for a big-ass Archos with all that big-screen-watching-videos rubbish, just a player that can play music with a high storage capacity....

Are Apple reliable? Seem a bit flimsy to me (and from what people have told me) and the iTunes software is apparently a nuisance...any advice?

grimm2005

I'd say theres a few alternatives out there. It seems the best bet would be a Zune 80gb, i've heard nothing but good things. I'm sure phillips and sandisk probably have their own alternatives.
Theres always the 32gb Zen although its stupidly expensive because its flash based

herbieflowers

flash based? You can store more than 32g or summat? Yeah was thinking about the Zune, seems a nice piece of kit and reasonably priced too

Passenger

iTunes is pretty good actually, I've found it very straight-forward and easy to use compared to others.

Don't bother with a flash drive if you need a lot of music.

Creamy Goodness

greater capacity flash based players are becoming more affordable now, look at that 16gig creative zen at 200 euros a few threads down, 16gig's onboard then couple that with a 16gig SD card and you've got a 32gig flash based player with all the benefits of a flash based player and none of the headaches of a hdd based player.

herbieflowers

Passenger wrote: »

iTunes is pretty good actually, I've found it very straight-forward and easy to use compared to others.

Don't bother with a flash drive if you need a lot of music.

Yeah I'm wondering - what is it about iTunes that's so awful? It doesn't recognize all music formats (or as many) as the Zen software does...? Is this problematic for mp3 files and converting them (or am I off target here completely?!)

BanzaiBk

Generally when iTunes searches for music on your computer it will give you a prompt saying "Will iTunes convert ___file format music to AAC(itunes format) for your iTunes library?" and when you click yes it automatically converts anyway. A lot of the negative iTunes comments stem from ignorance (i.e. not using itunes frequently or at all) and/or Apple hatred. It works fairly well for what it does though.

herbieflowers

So there's no catastrophic problem with it then? All it takes is to convert them to the right format, what's the fuss?

Are the players themselves flimsy? If I drop it will it break? I'm used to rugged discmen and minidisc players...

BanzaiBk

Takes a few mouse clicks, maybe some people think that's a big issue

Flimsyness, hrm. Well they are fairly thin etc but I wouldn't think they are flimsy per se. Noone I know has had any issues with cosmetic failure apart from the obvious scratching. I have my own 2 year old iPod Video that has never given me an ounce of trouble, the metal casing on the back is scratched unmercilessly though. If you are looking at 30GB+ iPods (which would be the 80/160GB classic) they will have a hard disk drive, so if you drop it from any substantial distance like any other hdd product then the drive will more than likely die. Flash players like the new Nano will be more "rugged" in that sense.

lenovoguy

The big problem with iTunes is that it's bloatware! It consumes huge amounts of memory and processor time and tries to sell you things from the iTunes store at every opportunity. iPod's themselves are by far the easiest mp3 players to use, but they probably have the worst file format support of all the major mp3 players. Also, they inherit apple's typical strategy of elegant but completely impractical designs. The chrome back on the ipod looks great for the first 5 minutes until it gets smudged and scratched beyond belief.

As regards their reliability, they have gotten better as of late. The original ipod 5GB had an astonishing failure rate of +20% but this has been mitigated by the transition to flash media. I however have gone through several which failed for a number of reasons. I would recommend Creative's due to their nice integration with Windows explorer (no syncing application required!) and also they have much better file format support (wider range of video/audio formats). In my opinion they sound better but then that's subjective.

herbieflowers

yeah, it's just with the bigger capacity models being discontinued (60g) plus their move towards big screen video playback media players, I'm reluctant...possibly a Zune, but they have similar type software to iTunes I think (...?)

Dregon

lenovoguy wrote: »

The big problem with iTunes is that it's bloatware! It consumes huge amounts of memory and processor time and tries to sell you things from the iTunes store at every opportunity.

Thats not true, iTunes is using 50Mb of RAM at the moment, the same as Msn messenger and less than firefox. Also CPU is idling 2% with iTunes playing music.

herbieflowers

Right, so myth seems to blight Apple's name...is there anything inherently wrong or dysfunctional about Apple's products?!

lenovoguy

Yep, sounds about right - Im using Winamp as an iPod syncing app and it's using 17MB of RAM with <1 % CPU usage :-)

lenovoguy

Nope, and I didn't say there was either. What I said was that Apple's design philosophy seems to be based on making powerful, good looking machines that aren't especially sturdy. I've gone through about 8 iPod's and two macbooks which all exhibited faults or defects through no fault of my own. Three of my friends bought macbook pro's , and every single one of them developed hardware faults - the moo, warping cases, inappropriate CPU throttling, dying fans, dying hard drives. Considering that one of Apple's signature catchphrases is "it just works", i found it surprising.

herbieflowers wrote: »

Right, so myth seems to blight Apple's name...is there anything inherently wrong or dysfunctional about Apple's products?!

Dregon

lenovoguy wrote: »

Yep, sounds about right - Im using Winamp as an iPod syncing app and it's using 17MB of RAM with <1 % CPU usage :-)

Ah sure whats an extra 33MB of RAM or 1% CPU usage theses days;)

lenovoguy wrote: »

Apple's design philosophy seems to be based on making powerful, good looking machines that aren't especially sturdy. I've gone through about 8 iPod's and two macbooks which all exhibited faults or defects through no fault of my own.

I agree here, I've gone through four iPod's in the past 2 years, none of the faults caused by me. To be fair to apple though, they replaced each one without asking any questions(except the last one, was out of warranty when it broke:()
Even though they are prone to breaking, it's not stoppping me getting a new iPod classic for christmas:D

lenovoguy

I know, I just have a hatred of bloatware because it's generally avoidable and is the sign of laziness on the part of developers or using crappy RAD tools. One area where apple excel at is software, OS X, iLife and iWork are excellent which is ironic given that Apple are a hardware company who make faster, more reliable software than Microsoft, a software company!

Gran Hermano

Can't believe the amount of people on this thread happy with allowing
iTunes to convert their music into an 'Apple-friendly' format.

I've spent almost 300 euro on Shure IEMs and made sure I've ripped my
CDs properly with EAC, the last thing I want is Apple converting my
music collection to an inferior format. Converting my CD collection into
80GB of mp3s is a time consuming task, especially if converting properly.
I rip my CDs once and do it at alt preset extreme, no way I'm letting
Apple undo my work. And nor do I want to go through the hassle
of having to convert my music and video to what Apple deem a
suitable format.

Converting from one compressed format to another seriously reduces
sound quality - but then again some people probably are happy using
the stock earbuds that are bundled with their MP3 players.

herbieflowers

So the solution is Creative? All my music is on an external hard drive anyhow...

Creamy Goodness

gran hermano, i'm with you on this all the way, but see we are in the minority here. i've a pair of shure e3g's and find they are great but you say to anyone in the general target audience of mp3 players that you spent > 100 euros on headphones they'll be like "wtf what a waste of money".

some people just like convience and itunes does that when it works, although if i'm ever setting up an ipod an itunes for a complete computer illiterate i always have it set to 192kbps mp3 format, at least that way the files aren't crappy apple .m4a format.

myself i rip all my cd's to V0 mp3 standard.

Crucifix

Does the iPod not play mp3s?
I thought it did, and only WMA and the like would need to be converted to an apple format.

pleasant Co.

it does support mp3, cremo said whenever he sets up itunes for someone that he always sets it to rip to mp3 as default, rather than .m4a... however aac (in the m4a container) is quite a better format, which is supported by many many DAP's now and most music playing mobile phones.

Timans

I agree, it's got be VBR for me.

Listen to OK Computer on 120kbps then listen to it on 320kbps. The difference is amazing.

And then add to that Shure e3g's!

herbieflowers

VBR? So Apple converts to a lesser format, which players don't? All of my music is on an external hard-drive in wma...

Creamy Goodness

herbieflowers wrote: »

VBR? So Apple converts to a lesser format, which players don't? All of my music is on an external hard-drive in wma...

VBR = variable bit rate, basically it varies the bit rate throughout the track so like quiet bits will have a low bit rate and the parts of the song that have a lot going on will have a high bit rate. it helps keep the file size down whilst getting a good quality mp3.

it's true every program that comes with a mp3 player converts to a lossy format, the problem with apple's is pretty much ipod's are the only players who can play them.

you'd would also have a problem if you went for an ipod as you'd have to reconvert you music again as ipod's don't play wma's.

herbieflowers

Cremo wrote: »

it's true every program that comes with a mp3 player converts to a lossy format, the problem with apple's is pretty much ipod's are the only players who can play them.

Why would that be a problem?


Would you have any alternative recommendations as to a good player?

Creamy Goodness

well it's a problem because some people i know get a reccommendation to use itunes to rip cd's. they get through about twenty cd's on itunes default settings (m4a) and then try to put them on their creative/archos player.

the good players around these days are

Archos 605
ipod 5th gen with rockbox installed
creative zen (that smallish one not sure the exact name for it).

i shall be getting one of them 32gb zens when they come out for these reasons.

1. it's tiny.
2. it's 32gig and it's flash based.
3. plays divx/xvid files.
4. has a memory card slot so you can boost the memory of the player.

slight downside is that it doesn't work natively with unix based OS'

Dregon

herbieflowers wrote: »

Why would that be a problem?

Because you would have to convert all your music to mp3/AAC so they would play on your iPod, and that would result in pretty bad sound quality.Then if you ever decided to switch to a non-apple player,and all your music was AAC, you would have to convert them to yet another format, which would result in even worse sound quality.

herbieflowers

Cremo wrote: »

well it's a problem because some people i know get a reccommendation to use itunes to rip cd's. they get through about twenty cd's on itunes default settings (m4a) and then try to put them on their creative/archos player.

the good players around these days are

Archos 605
ipod 5th gen with rockbox installed
creative zen (that smallish one not sure the exact name for it).

i shall be getting one of them 32gb zens when they come out for these reasons.

Hmm, see the Archos, big screen doesn't appeal, I mean, it's just I have no interest in watching stuff on the move so it would be (somewhat pointless)...I basically want something to put all my music (70g) on

Creamy Goodness

of course no one in their right mind would transcode their music, they'd just re-rip it again right?

please tell me i'm right here?

BanzaiBk

Gran Hermano wrote: »

Can't believe the amount of people on this thread happy with allowing
iTunes to convert their music into an 'Apple-friendly' format.

I would agree, I was just trying to give info the the op. I only use iTunes for podcasts. I use my Trekstor Vibez for any music I want to listen to with music ripped at 320kbps, mainly because the iPod doesn't give me the clarity I want unless I go down the RWA/DAC route. I use a cardas mini-mini -> go vibe -> etymotic er6i for a "portable" music setup and a Beresford TC-7510->Singlepower PPX3 Slam-> Grado RS-1 for my home audio.

grimm2005

Cremo wrote: »

1. it's tiny.
2. it's 32gig and it's flash based.
3. plays divx/xvid files.
4. has a memory card slot so you can boost the memory of the player.

just a heads up in case you hadn't heard, while the player will play divx/xvid files, it will only play them if they are encoded at a 320x240 resolution unlike the Vision M which would play them regardless of their native res.
This was one point that put me off the player as i'd have to re-encode the xvids i already have so i've opted for an archos 605 as my next player

Creamy Goodness

true actually, but i was coming short on ideas on why to buy so i threw that in it's worth it for the other three points, i don't watch video on and media player as anytime i'm using it i'm on public transport surrounded by butch people of both sexes with dodgey ronnies.

herbieflowers

Yeah, so do you think it's worth getting a media player and just stuffing it with music (and ignoring the whole video aspect of it?) Archos' seem like a good option

grimm2005

herbieflowers wrote: »

Yeah, so do you think it's worth getting a media player and just stuffing it with music (and ignoring the whole video aspect of it?) Archos' seem like a good option

i'd say it depends mainly on if you mind how big/thick it is compared to a device which is made purely for music with video as a gimmick/secondary function.

imo, if your purely looking for a music device, it probably wouldnt be worth it.

its still a pocketable/small enough device (seems to be comparable to a DS lite, possibly a bit thicker depending on whether or not you go for an 80gb+ version)

i'm getting an 80gb 605 tomorrow for christmas and so i'll be able to give you a better opinion on it when i've had a chance to play around with it. also if you wanted i could take sum pics of it alongside my 30gb Zen Vision M if you wanted to see a size comparison.

pleasant Co.

jebus, there's a fair bit of misinformation in this thread!

First off, many many many players play m4a (aac) these include apple, sony, archos, creative, cowon, iriver, samsung... it will become the new mp3 in not too long I imagine, so there's that bit sorted, apple are not pretty much the only players that play aac (m4a)

Next up, transcoding: the process of changing a WMA to AAC, while this is something I never recommend, the chance of the end user actually being able to tell the difference between a transcode and the source lossy file are extremely low... this whole "You'll loss a hell of a load of quality" craze goes a bit to far, if you've ever tried it you'll know. I mean you lose quality, yes this is true, and if possible just re rip from the cd, but if your lazy and just wanna transcode, chances are you won't notice anyway.

OK, so there wasn't really that much misinformation....I just wanted to hammer home that the AAC format is very well supported by many DAP's (and every new DAP is supporting it as standard) so transcoding to a compatible format is rarely needed.

herbieflowers

So which player do people think is most suited to my needs?

pleasant Co.

I like the Creative ZEN, a bit expensive right now though (32gb that is)

If I read correctly all you're files are a mix of mp3 and wma?

Do you want to buy from a shop preferably? or would you be willing to order online?

grimm2005

herbieflowers wrote: »

So which player do people think is most suited to my needs?

Personally, i'd reckon the 80gb Zune 2 sounds perfect for your needs, with the criteria you've given us. Its meant to be a great device and i'd say you could get it for a very decent price.

I've only used the Zune 1 (friend got one of the net) for a few minutes but it seems like a pretty cool device and i'd say its all been improved upon in the Zune 2. The one area i couldn't pass judgment on is it's software but i'd imagine its similar to WMP (and i'm sure it supports that for syncing aswell)

herbieflowers

Mactard wrote: »

I like the Creative ZEN, a bit expensive right now though (32gb that is)

If I read correctly all you're files are a mix of mp3 and wma?

Do you want to buy from a shop preferably? or would you be willing to order online?

Yes mix of mp3 and wma and it doesn't bother me whether it's online ordering or not...I had the 80g Zune in mind grimm2005

pleasant Co.

If you're willing to order online then I'll put my vote towards the Zune 80 too... you run windows XP/Vista I assume?

herbieflowers

Yeah, Vista unfortunately...

pleasant Co.

ah right, that's grand so.... the Zune, ZEN, ipod will all work hassle free...

Now, you just gotta choose... I'm sticking with the Zune80 vote..
merry xmas