Which Mp3 player ?

[cowboy]

Which MP3 player would you recommend.

Ipod Shuffel 1gb
SanDisk SDMX1 1gb
Samsung yp-mt6z 1gb

They are similar in price, features wise the Apple seems to be lacking.

Between the Sam and Sand, the only negative is the Sam isn't Mac
compatible.

Your thoughts

[topspeed]

I s'pose it depends on what you want to do with it. I use the Shuffle for trips to the gym and it's perfect for that. For me, I could care less about the ability to see what song is playing, but for other's this is an important feature.

I went with the Shuffle for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the price. I also liked that the interface seemed was very intuitive (important for those of us that are pretty inept on a computer), there are far more peripherals for iPods than any other player, and the Apple AAC format sounds much better as a compressed format than MP3, which to me sounds like the music is underwater in 128 encryption. My friend had the Sammy and after he heard my shuffle, sold it and bought a 20g iPod. The SQ on the Sammy is simply horrid. I haven't heard of the SanDisck so I won't comment.

Hope this helps.

[gulmer]

Check out Perception Digital PD-1000 1.5G HDD Jukebox,MP3,WMA
w/voice recording.USB 2.0 interface for fast drag and drop transfer,also
has line in recording jack.Built in equalizer,9 play back modes and for a great price,I've been using one for 3 months without any problems.

[plextor guy]

the best all-around mp3 player on the market in my opinion. It splits the difference between bulkier juke box players and solid state players. It's a UMS device and will show up as an external drive in pc's and Mac's. Audible compatible, 5 GB's (~4.6 useable), great sound quality (better than my 2g iPod), bookmarking, voice recording, amazing battery life, iTunes compatible, high quality fit and finish and very durable. Not one skip or any damage after 8-9 months of hard use. The form factor is perfect for portable use and about the size of a credit card albeit a little thicker. It will cost a little more than the Shuffle for example but not by much. It can be had for about 170 if you look around.

[stan2]

the i-river hardware often gets top reviews for sound quality. they come in a lot of sizes. you might look into their stuff.

[cowboy]

OK some of my criteria,

I didn't want a Hard drive so that eliminates a lot of the high storage
units, from what I found 1g is about as high as you can go without
getting into a HD.

Also, the price range of the 3 I mentioned is compatible, around
140-160 ish.

Sound quality is definately a concern, the comment about the
Shuffle vs others, ? can you play some of these others in
different modes (compressions) ? that will improve the quality ?

[topspeed]

Sound quality is definately a concern, the comment about the
Shuffle vs others, ? can you play some of these others in
different modes (compressions) ? that will improve the quality ?

Technically, increasing your bitrate will improve the sound. However, you now have chewed up a lot more storage space and can't load as many tunes. Being an audiophile, I was terribly concerned about sound quality and had pretty much resigned myself to burn everything at near lossless compression rates. A friend suggested using the default (128) rate and if I didn't like it, I could always burn it again at a higher rate. Well, aside from all my posturing about how important sq is, I've found 128 to quite adequate for my usage. The music doesn't sound like it's underwater, there's no warbling, and I've burned 4 complete discs onto the 512 Shuffle and have used less than 1/3 of the available storage. One thing I've found to be incredibly stupid is the arm band Apple sells for the shuffle. Why in the world did they make it white! I guess they expect people to not sweat when they are wearing it at oh, say the gym. Talk about putting form before function.

[cowboy]

Anyone have any #'s on the percentages of compression ?

Mp3, wav, floc etc vs Full .

And what the cut off is. I heard one of these usse about 60%
still high, but that you can't distinguish the sound difference ?