MP3 player versus external hard drive - for music.

[Woochifer]

good prices for $CAD! I probably don't need to mention this but make sure your computer supports USB2.0 otherwise you're stuck with transfer at USB1.1 and that is painful. Make sure you post the before and after Sledge-O-Matic shots.

Definitely an issue, but not a dealbreaker. My laptop only supports USB 1.1, but after I plugged a USB 2.0 card into the PC card slot, the transfers with my external HD worked fine. Not sure if the USB 2.0 card though can charge/power up devices that draw their power from the USB port (such as iPods or those smaller external HDs that don't need external adaptors).

[emorphien]

Definitely an issue, but not a dealbreaker. My laptop only supports USB 1.1, but after I plugged a USB 2.0 card into the PC card slot, the transfers with my external HD worked fine. Not sure if the USB 2.0 card though can charge/power up devices that draw their power from the USB port (such as iPods or those smaller external HDs that don't need external adaptors).

Hmm no idea. I know the firewire cards don't.

[RGA]

I'm not the most computer savy -- I largely went with the one that owners seemed to like the best and that got pretty high reviews from PC World and CNET. It seemed the big downside was that the laptop isn't too fast and it's not great for games -- I don't play games on it anyway -- and I'm not in a big hurry.

It has 3 USB 2.0 slots

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...00245293&lc=en

For those interested in the external DAC/Headphone amp I found one that may be better -- still researching but it's called the Bithead from headroom - a bit more money but more portable http://www.headphone.com/products/he...head-clear.php and can run off of batteries.

[noddin0ff]

I'm not the most computer savy -- I largely went with the one that owners seemed to like the best and that got pretty high reviews from PC World and CNET. It seemed the big downside was that the laptop isn't too fast and it's not great for games -- I don't play games on it anyway -- and I'm not in a big hurry.

It has 3 USB 2.0 slots

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...00245293&lc=en

For those interested in the external DAC/Headphone amp I found one that may be better -- still researching but it's called the Bithead from headroom - a bit more money but more portable http://www.headphone.com/products/he...head-clear.php and can run off of batteries.

I checked the link. It says all your USB port are 2.0. You're good to go! USB has two standards that both use the same connector. 2.0 is the newer standard and transfers data up to 480Mb/sec I believe. The older 1.1 standard transfers somewhere around 12Mb/Sec. That's a 40x difference in how long you wait. 10 minutes with USB2.0 is 6 hours with USB1.1

[topspeed]

Stay away from that RCA MP3 player, RGA. A friend of mine had it and it sounds horrible. When he heard my Shuffle, he immediately returned it and got an iPod. AAC sounds much better than MP3, IMO.

Good luck on your new job.

[emorphien]

Stay away from that RCA MP3 player, RGA. A friend of mine had it and it sounds horrible. When he heard my Shuffle, he immediately returned it and got an iPod. AAC sounds much better than MP3, IMO.

Good luck on your new job.

Well I don't think any of this matters anymore but I've never much cared for the sound of the iPod on MP3 and while AAC is better sounding on it there are other MP3 capable players with better SQ still (look at creative, iRiver, Rio possibly Cowon but I've never heard theirs).

AAC is definitely better than MP3 at lower bitrate but high bitrate MP3s IMO are better still.

[dmb_fan]

This is totally unsolicited advice...

I'd think carefully about whether it's the right decision to rip to WMA lossless. I recently ripped all my CD's (800+) to Apple Lossless and couldn't be happier.

When searching for a lossless format, I considered many factors including compression and speed of conversion etc. But the big questions for me were things like, which format is going to be the most versatile in years to come? Which format is going to be around the longest? Which format plays best with other needs (like quick conversion to low bitrates)? And in all these questions, Apple Lossless seemed heads and tails the winner over any of the other lossless formats.

With Ipods flying off the shelves and millions of people downloading itunes, I feel confident that this format will be around for a long long time. And combined with an Ipod, you've got some serious power and flexibility. When you plug in an Ipod to your computer, Itunes will ask if you'd like to automatically convert songs to 128AAC before loading them on your Ipod. Easy as pie. And Itunes is sooo stable!

Anyway, that's my $.02.

-Adam