What should i get IPod or something else?

JBoyle4eva

Mossy Monk wrote:

wtf?
once on your ipod you can delete the songs from the pc

Well my brother is telling me that he has to save the songs on itunes and has to keep them there. Otherwise, if deleted from itunes=deleted from ipod

Mossy Monk

coreilly1 wrote:

they also double up as an external harddrive for holding files

as does the ipod

cormie

To rip CD's you should be using Exact Audio Copy with the Lame codec set at VBR.

If you want the best MP3 player out there, well the Cowan iAudio X5 is it. Once rockbox is out for the iRiver H3XX then that may be better than the X5. However, if you want the best device in terms of functionality playing and recording MP3's (optical in/out being a big plus for some users) then the iRiver H1XX with rockbox is the best. It can be bought much cheaper than the X5 and at the moment has more functions than the X5 in terms of MP3 playback (crossfade/gapless/replaygain support etc etc)

Get yourself a nice pair of earphones too as most, if not all, included earphones with all mp3 players leave much to be desired.

wHatsErname

get the creative zen micro i have it and its brilliant

Civilian_Target

2c.

I got a Rio Karma - and when I smashed it up in a bike accident in June, I took another look at what was out there, and got another Rio Karma. Fantastic player, good battery life,easy to use, good sound off it, nice dock and you can copy stuff back onto your computer, with the not-too-intrusive software. The only downer is, it doesn't show up as a drive in windows, so its crap for file transfer.

Honorable mentions should go out to the Iriver H-series, and the Cowon X5 - they're what I'd buy if I couldn't get a Karma.

Civilian_Target

cormie wrote:

To rip CD's you should be using Exact Audio Copy with the Lame codec set at VBR.

EAC is quite the ripper OK - and if you want MP3s, lame is the way to go. I use it with the AoutV vorbis encoder though - excellent compression quality at a good size, and much easier on my DAP's battery!

cormie wrote:

Get yourself a nice pair of earphones too as most, if not all, included earphones with all mp3 players leave much to be desired.

Mine came with Sennheiser MX400s - as buds go they seem pretty good.

cormie

Civilian_Target wrote:

2c.

I got a Rio Karma - and when I smashed it up in a bike accident in June, I took another look at what was out there, and got another Rio Karma. Fantastic player, good battery life,easy to use, good sound off it, nice dock and you can copy stuff back onto your computer, with the not-too-intrusive software. The only downer is, it doesn't show up as a drive in windows, so its crap for file transfer.

Honorable mentions should go out to the Iriver H-series, and the Cowon X5 - they're what I'd buy if I couldn't get a Karma.

Rio Karma has a beautiful gapless playback feature too, changing tracks is a pleasure. Before RockBox hit the iRiver H140 (the model I own) everyone on the iRiver/misticriver forums were always going on about gapless playback and how much they wanted it, even over on the fly playlists. I never saw what the fuss was about until I heard my friends Karma changing tracks. Then RockBox introduced gapless/crossfade to the H1XX and I haven't looked back since. Listening to music without gapless/crossfade just isn't the same. I was at a party the other day and somebody had their iPod hooked up and everyone was dancing away, you only notice how good gapless is when you don't have it, if I had my H hooked up the music would have been non stop, woooo! It's like an endless, non stop mix of your entire music collection.

Even though the H140 is about 2 years old, amongst all the advances in MP3 players since it was released, I'm still not tempted to upgrade (and I'm a big upgrader when it comes to MP3 players, I've had loads of them, I upgraded an mp3 discman I had after about a month of owning it, and I'm not well off either, it's just something I like to keep on the edge of because music is a big hobby of mine). I am tempted to upgrade to the 60GB iAudio X5 if it's released though. But until a 60/80/100GB MP3 player with the functionality of the H1XX and a firmware as good as rockbox, at a decent price is released, I'll be sticking with miRiver;)

melekalikimaka

i cant believe there are people trying to defend ipods...

bounty_hunter

melekalikimaka wrote:

i cant believe there are people trying to defend ipods...

Ditto. I'm so stunned I can't even bring myself to argue with them.

cormie

I think a good fact to go by is the way that iPod have the biggest name in MP3 players but yet most of the suggestions here are against them. It just goes to show that it is just their marketing that has got them the name, I mean people don't know what an mp3 player is but they know what an iPod is. Fair play to them too, good business. For the consumer however, it's bad as there are much better players for better value.

Civilian_Target

melekalikimaka wrote:

i cant believe there are people trying to defend ipods...

They're not a bad player - easy to use, pretty, fashionable, robust, very portable and they do a good job of playing MP3s. They're just not the best at playing music.

Mossy Monk

JBoyle4eva wrote:

Well my brother is telling me that he has to save the songs on itunes and has to keep them there. Otherwise, if deleted from itunes=deleted from ipod

missed this

tell him go to edit >> preferences >> ipod and change the setting so that he can delete the mp3's once on his ipod

why are people horrified that someone might defend the ipod? they are made to play mp3's and guess what? you can guess

Doctor J

Got an ipod as a present a few weeks ago, have to say I think it's fine. Sound quality is good, you can manually set the volume of individual files in playback (very, very important), itunes is piss easy to use (especially when you look in the menus ) and yeah the battery life could be better but I can just charge it up off the PC in work so that's no biggie, overall no complaints here.

melekalikimaka

Civilian_Target wrote:

They're not a bad player - easy to use, pretty, fashionable, robust, very portable and they do a good job of playing MP3s. They're just not the best at playing music.

in all fairness very few players aren't fashionable, robust, very portable and do a good job of playing MP3s, only they cost less, sound better, and ipod haters wont snigger at you and stick 'kick me i've an ipod' pages to your back as you walk around :rolleyes:

Mossy Monk

does it really matter what someone buys

i bought an ipod to play music and guess what it does, plays music. the sound is good (once you replace those awful headphones) and it is portable. who gives a flying **** if it is fashionable or not. whats next, people looking for a yellow mp3 player to match their watch

coreilly1

But its the extras that count.It might look good and play music but the fact that you can't go onto a random PC and nab MP3s off it makes a difference.i like to like to nab MP3s off my buddy's comp after he has downloaded them as he does with mine!

Doctor J

And I have no issue with paying people for their work.

The ability to preset playback volume of any track is the best feature I can think of when it comes to an mp3 player.

Jimi-Spandex

Nightwish wrote:

i have a sony nw-hd and its a beauty. only thing is the software, which is sonic stage, sucks

Have to agree there, sonic stage is very annoying to use. As for the player itself, I must say I'm quite happy with mine, damn good sound quality, astounding battery life.

cormie

Doctor J wrote:

And I have no issue with paying people for their work.

The ability to preset playback volume of any track is the best feature I can think of when it comes to an mp3 player.

This can be done with the iRiver H1XX series with rockbox too using replaygain. Rockbox can do almost anything thinkable when it comes to playing MP3s. You're basically paying more for less for an iPod.

melekalikimaka

I think we are getting off the point, a simple answer to your question is
SOMETHING ELSE

JC 2K3

I got an iAudio X5 20Gb for €280 inc. postage off eBay.

I is a happy bunny

Rcuomo

id definitely go with the iriver, i have a h340 and its got great sound, tons of space (40gigs), will take all sorts of sound files, and an unofficial feature is on misticriver.com you can download a programme to play video files on the iriver...i watch a couple of episodes of scrubs or simpsons, or even dvds, ace ventura i just put on it recently, going into work most days...
the ipod has the market cos of good marketing... my mam asked me what the iriver was when she saw it, i told its called an iriver, it's an mp3 player. she didnt understand that but the minute i said its like an ipod she knew...

coreilly1

Rcuomo wrote:

id definitely go with the iriver, i have a h340 and its got great sound, tons of space (40gigs), will take all sorts of sound files, and an unofficial feature is on misticriver.com you can download a programme to play video files on the iriver...i watch a couple of episodes of scrubs or simpsons, or even dvds, ace ventura i just put on it recently, going into work most days...
the ipod has the market cos of good marketing... my mam asked me what the iriver was when she saw it, i told its called an iriver, it's an mp3 player. she didnt understand that but the minute i said its like an ipod she knew...

Yeah,was on a recent flight to New York when they asked the passengers to turn off all Ipods during take off and landing.Didn't have the balls to keep listening to my iriver though

tinka

i've had my iPod for about three years and i've been really happy with it. as i type, it's happily charging away. yes the original earphones are sh*t but i have the in-ear ones now, much better quality. a friend of mine has a creative zen and i still can't get over how heavy it is! the little ones are nice but don't hold very much music on them. i've never had to turn my iPod off during take off etc and i've flown quite a bit with it. but it's your decision, i think it just depends on the person...