Mp3 Players

[Pike]

Im looking at getting one, I'm concidering the Creative Nomad II MG, can anyone recommend any others?

Cheers

Carl

[Pike]

After chatting with Kwee & co I've decided to go with the Sony MZ-R70DPC Minidisc player as they "0wn". Does anyone know where I could buy that model from in the UK, I've only found prices in dollars.

Cheers

Carl

[Mr_Slidey]

Rio500. If you look on http://www.pcindex.co.uk you'll probably find them for under £150. They're 64mb, and has great playback. No advanced features like radio or voice recording tho...

[-[Raven]-]

Pike, if you can afford it, go for the MZR90/91. It retails at £250, but I picked mine up from http://www.letsbuyit.com before xmas, but they're looking to go bankrupt now, so I'd steer clear of them. But I did get mine for £194 (p+p inc.).

Its the lightest recording MD in the world, and its playing time is longer than most (up to 29 hours with an AA battery to complient the heavy duty rechargeable one inside). Normal playing time is around 12 hours, and 3 to fully charge. I swear by this thing, plus its got an optical input so you can get pure digital copies of dem mp3s :smokin:

[dirtymb]

get an mp3 cd player, theyre mint. made by niko but a few more are being released soon.
they play normal cd's too,which is better than those stupid smart card things.
they are £95 quid the media is 60p a cd and you can fit over 135 tracks on one cd.
which is lovely

[-[Raven]-]

All these mp3 players are silly, unless you can get firmware upgrades.

Because, you see, the successor to mp3 has already been announced. Titled imaginativly, mp3pro, its much higher sound quality, and around half the file size of current mp3s. Its expected to make its first public debut around April of this year.

Which is why I got a minidisc, as it records from any source. I don't think current decoders will be able to handle mp3pro files, but it apparently should be as easy as flashing a chip on your hardware somewhere.

All too much hassle if you ask me :)

[Pike]

The Sony MZ-R70DPC has digital in from pc via the usb port, thats what has thrown me to this model, still can't find it anywhere tho ;(

[[)REA[)]

Don't understand why anyone would wan't to buy somthing that could hold just a single hour of 'near' CD quality when you can by a minidisk for nearly the same price as the good ones. Pain in the arse ripping then downloading the music every time you want to change the CD. What if you are going away for a while?. Anyway, has anyone been into a branch of Dixons recently and looked at how crap they all are? Appart from maybe the Sony memory stick one, they all look like they came out of a christmas cracker. So cheap and plasticy.
If I were you I would wait for the next generation MP3 players to arrive (quite soon i think) that will hold loads. I hear that some are going to use IBM's new micro drive (don't think that any do yet, but might be wrong). 1 gig storage and the same size of a CF card. Neat. Mind you, probably quite expensive.
I brought an MP3 player. Had it for about a week then swaped it for a minidisk player. Best thing I ever did.
Just record my downloaded MP3's onto my MD. I'm thinking about one of those adaptors that lets be store and play MP3's on my MD. As for them nasty cheap looking CD players that play MP3's - you need a backpack just to carry them arround in. Their Massive!

[Calzor Suzay]

I've always come to the same conclusion most of you guys have, There pants, big pants. Most you can ever squeeze on most of them was about 96mb, the nomad has a HD I think so it has more but still eughhh. I went down the MD route aswell, I suppose this option is only any good if you have a Soundcard thats capable of throwing out an optical sigal, if not it works out expensive. Also formats are going to change every couple of years as things progress so they go out of date quick but thats PC's for ya :)

[Pike]

Can no-one help me find a Uk dealer that sells the Sony MZ-R70DPC?

[dirtymb]

my sisters mp3 cd player didnt need a backpack to be carried round, its the size if a normal one, and holds loads more than 30 mins of music for a 25 quid stick.
and md playerz are only good if u have digital out.
its not drab silver either, dont know what possesses companies to make things silver, i think they look awful and drab.
theres my say MDs players are expensive , memory flash cards suck ,cd's are cheap .
oh and it plays vcd's too, so if u have acces to a high bandwith connection you get free music and movies.
there we go

[Edited by dirtymb on 13-01-2001 at 12:32 AM]

[Calzor Suzay]

No they haven't got them but Av-Store (http://www.av-store.co.uk) pretty much carry the whole of Sony's stock at knock down prices, maybe the dpc version isn't out, give'em a mail... :E

[The Laughing Cow]

MP3 pro is spost 2 be compatible with MP3

[chub]

those mp3 cd players are poor quality sound compared to md`s (sony that is). i have a sblive 1024 with digital out so what do i need to make it record digitaly?

[-[Raven]-]

You need a mini disc recorder that states it has either a digital/optical in port. You need an optical cable (doesn't usually come with yer MD unfortunately) :E. You need yer SBlive 1024.

Plug it all in, then sort the rest out for yerself, cos I ain't got a clue after thta point :)

Got me MD, but no optical cable or, more importantly, no sound card either :E

[Calzor Suzay]

My MD came with the cable I just plug it in the front of the Live Drive II Toslink connection :)
I'm trying to find a 10m toslink to toslink connection to plug my PC into my amp so if anyone comes across one let me know :E

[Karve]

Is MP3 at 128bit rate equivelant to CD quality?? It sounds pretty similar to me when turned into a wav file and burnt onto a CD.

[Calzor Suzay]

Also for a kewl plug-in for Winamp try this (http://www.winamp.com/customize/detail.jhtml?componentId=36143) :naughty:

[-[Raven]-]

:eek:

Oooh err :naughty:

[[)REA[)]

MP3's can have the sample rate as a CD (128bit), but its a 'lossy' compression - which means they can never be as good quality. But you can hardly tell the difference mind.

[Pike]

which technology removes sounds masked by others?

[[)REA[)]

Look what I found - http://members.aol.com/adfrydland/public/pc2md.htm

Could be the answer for people who want an optical out on thier PC without the expense of buying a new sound card. Looks a bit amature at that site but there must be other people who make them.

[Anubis]

Creative did make one themselves several months a go, it is called a digital output module (CT4801) I have been using it on my SB Live 1024 player for yonks and its great. :D

You plug it into the digital port on the sound card then you have two optical digital output ports available for your mini disc cable (Toslink, I think)Squareish one :laugh: :dork: . You also get two coaxial connectors as well, I haven't used these though.

I can't seem to see them on the Creative site anymore but someone else might fair better with emailing or calling them.

I hope this helps.

:)

[chub]

so i cant connect my MD directly to the digital out on the sb live 1024? or can i? or do i need that adaptor thing? if so how much will it cost? dont really know what i am on about! all i know is that i record with digital out of my hifi but only analog out the one of the speaker out puts on my PC.

[-[Raven]-]

I think the output from the SBlive needs an adaptor of some sort to get the, erm, knob, into the erm, right shape for your mini disc, or, erm

yeah.

[Calzor Suzay]

I think most MD recorders only accept an optical connection, i.e. the ones that look like laser pens but don't shine a beam so they aren't as much fun :)

[--Prodigy--]

Yep, any modern MD recorder is going to have an optical input. I have the Sony MZ-r90 and although there is now an ever so slightly thinner one that's slightly lighter it's still the mutts nutts, especially when I bought it nearly a year ago :)
As for soundcards - the only cheap decent one I know of with an optical output is the Sonic vortex 2 - it's a damn good card with optical out. I prefer it to my SB live 1024 - which didn't have an optical output either. Tosslink connection is what you need and you'll have to either get one of this dodgy adapters (I say dodgy, they probably work fine) for it or get the Creative Live Drive II (which comes with the Sound blaster platinum). As for the sound quality - MD is unsurpassed. As far as your ear is concerned it sounds exactly the same as the source you record from.

I was thinking of getting an mp3 player ages ago, but that was before I researched the matter properly.

Oh and the SB live 1024 doesn't have an optical output - the digital output is digital, but not optical (look at it, there's no red light there). You need to get it converted using an homemade jobby or the livedrive.
Oh and the MD players will accept an analogue connection too - and if you've got good cables, a good source and you set the levels right it sounds almost as good as digital. So you can get a 3.5mm jack to 3.5mm cable and plug it from the line out of your current SB 1024 card and put it into the line in on your minidisc but you'd be better of getting a sonic vortex 2/converter for your card and recording digitally.

[-[Raven]-]

I'm currently using a 3.5 to 3.5mm jack, cos I ain't got a TOSLINK jobby yet, and I'm certainly impressed enough with that :) Can't wait to see what extra quality I'll get from an optical cable (plus that fact I can use the synchro record thingy :E)