Portable audio players

Iceman · 18th July 2001, 7:32 PM

Hey all

Ive always loved my discman.. but cds are too much of a pain in the arse.. expensive, large, annoying to cart around/change.. What other alternatives do I have to a discman? I can only think of two.. MD and MP3 players.. which of the two are cheaper and better value for money (as far as storage space/battery life etc goes)

and is there anything else im missing?

iconic · 18th July 2001, 11:26 PM

prob mp3 is not worried about sound quality.. md would be more expensive than cd i reckon

nisboy · 20th July 2001, 4:46 PM

MD beats MP3 if you consider the cost of the media.

I can get TDK 74m MD's for $3 each... How much for a 74min memory card? I know that there are some CD-MP3 players, but in my mind these are to bulky.

Battery life is also pretty good. I get about 20hrs from my Sony MZ-R900.... It can apparently do about 60hrs using MDLP-4 and an external battery. I believe that there are some newer units that have better battery life.

I don't mean to dis small MP3 players, its just that the memory cards are so expensive in comparison to MD.

I guess it comes down to how you would use the device... Would you 1) prefer to have a variety of music available to you on the road, or 2) just put up with what's in the player?? If you said option 1 then an MD is for you (unless you're rich). If you said option 2 then an MP3 player is for you.

Having said that, I am very tempted by the Iomega Hipzip

Funkdafied · 20th July 2001, 6:03 PM

who needs to buy extra memory??
even 64mb is enough...
i have a Sony DEJ611 (discman) and a Rio 600 (mp3 player)
If you download a lot of MP3s, on a daily basis, a mp3 player would be a good idea... im always updating the songs on my Rio mp3 player every week or so with about 15 new songs that i've downloaded.. my Rio600 runs about 10hours on 1 AA battery... and mp3 players are skip-free

(but then again, so is my discman) ... a MP3 player is a good option if you dont mind the quality.. generally, they're also cheaper, smaller and lighter than MD players

yeah...i use my discman a lot too.. compared to some other portable cd players its fairly small, and its really light... when i really like an album, i'll always buy the CD... and i dont know of any shops that sell albums on MD? it would be a pain to buy the CD then copy it to a MD..

Poddy · 21st July 2001, 11:33 AM

Minidisc is a much higher sound quality. It samples at 44.1 khz and its bitrate is 292162.5 bits/sec. if someone wants to work that out thatd be great i hate math! (sourced from http://www.maya.cz/minidisc/minidisc...q.html#bitrate) My vote would have to go to minidisc. The media is cheaper and i just cant see how i would be able to carry enough music around with me with an mp3 player. Most are like 64 meg - 128 meg thats about 8 decent sounding songs. With minidisc you get 74 minutes times however many discs you buy which are about 3 bucks. Minidisc has reached its saturation point and the marekt wont grow much more than its current state but that doesnt worry me as theyre still releasing new products. Basically minidisc is cheaper and better quality and if you have an optical out on your cd player sound is pretty damn close to the source. + you can put mp3s on there if you really want just play them through winamp or the like and record through your sound card. Best of both worlds!

Funkdafied · 21st July 2001, 2:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Poddy
It samples at 44.1 khz and its bitrate is 292162.5 bits/sec. if someone wants to work that out thatd be great i hate math!

heh....that would be 285.3kbps.
But bit rate doesnt mean very much.... Basically, its only telling you how good the compression is. Quality cant' be judged by bit rate...

petal666 · 21st July 2001, 5:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Funkdafied
who needs to buy extra memory??
even 64mb is enough...

I have a 6GB Nomad Jukebox and that isn't big enough.

Poddy · 21st July 2001, 6:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Funkdafied

heh....that would be 285.3kbps.
But bit rate doesnt mean very much.... Basically, its only telling you how good the compression is. Quality cant' be judged by bit rate...

True but the more bits a second the more headroom the song has.
Ive got a few audiophile system testing cd's if you will and the mp3 versions i encoded @ 44.1khz and 128kbps (just for the heck of it) didnt contain some of the more acute notes and sounds. Just one of the pitfalls of mp3 i suppose.

nisboy · 23rd July 2001, 9:55 AM

Quote:

Quality cant' be judged by bit rate...

That's right. You need to head over to http://www.minidisc.org, where you can find some links to mp3/CD/MD comparisons...... The result?? No audible difference between CD and MD, but MP3 had noticably poorer quality. Of course they could have been using a poor quality encoder, I can't remember.

btw Poddy, have you heard that the next generation of Sony MD players will have USB ports and allow quck uploads of music onto an MD. Have a look on minidisc.org, I think its been mentioned in the last 2-3 months.

I personally love MD and MP3. I own a MZ-R900 and I'm building a linux box to play MP3's in my car.

Fortigurn · 23rd July 2001, 5:53 PM

MD whips. A good MD player won't cost more than most portable mp3 players, allows excellent audio quality, gives you the option of recording from mike, and provides unchallenged storage media price/performance.

The only thing I have against MD is the 1 x recording.

Poddy · 24th July 2001, 9:05 PM

Yeah ive seen them

thanks for the heads up though Nisboy. No matter how hard i try to fault Sony they still make the best MD players. I was lookin at some the other day @ Sydney Hi Fi, they had these tiny lil Sony's that looked so damn kewl.

kula · 25th July 2001, 11:02 AM

If your comparing the codecs,
MP3 munches Attrac.
big time.
the only reason MD can sound better is the higher bitrate.

Compare a 256kbps+ Mp3 to MD, and the P3 will be better.

gene · 25th July 2001, 6:46 PM

I believe one point to consider would be 'time'.

By this i mean, recording MD's is a pain the the arse, (one-to-one recording). Take you a whole 74mins to record a 74min MD.

With an MP3 player you simply drag and drop. It still takes a few minutes but its much faster and much more convienient.

The quality you'll get from an MD will only be as good as your source of recording, even slightly poorer. I know that most of my recording comes from my own MP3's. However, not to worry if you are one of those people that owns a trillion CD's and an optical cable.

Poddy · 25th July 2001, 10:24 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by gene

However, not to worry if you are one of those people that owns a trillion CD's and an optical cable.

Hey he is talkin about me there! 78 Legit cds all purchased and an optical cable comin from a top of the line technics cd player

Iceman · 26th July 2001, 10:00 AM

How bout if my soundcards got an optical out?

18th July 2001, 7:32 PM	#1
Iceman Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Brisbane (nth), Australia Posts: 6,304	Portable audio players Hey all Ive always loved my discman.. but cds are too much of a pain in the arse.. expensive, large, annoying to cart around/change.. What other alternatives do I have to a discman? I can only think of two.. MD and MP3 players.. which of the two are cheaper and better value for money (as far as storage space/battery life etc goes) and is there anything else im missing? __________________ _,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_ WTB: Cisco 1801-M PM me Please rehash my posts and pass them off as your own ideas! Triple points for doing it in the same page of the thread. Plagiarism is the sincerest form of copyright infringement.

21st July 2001, 11:33 AM	#5
Poddy Rainman Studios Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: In The Mix, Sydney Posts: 2,187	Minidisc is a much higher sound quality. It samples at 44.1 khz and its bitrate is 292162.5 bits/sec. if someone wants to work that out thatd be great i hate math! (sourced from http://www.maya.cz/minidisc/minidisc...q.html#bitrate) My vote would have to go to minidisc. The media is cheaper and i just cant see how i would be able to carry enough music around with me with an mp3 player. Most are like 64 meg - 128 meg thats about 8 decent sounding songs. With minidisc you get 74 minutes times however many discs you buy which are about 3 bucks. Minidisc has reached its saturation point and the marekt wont grow much more than its current state but that doesnt worry me as theyre still releasing new products. Basically minidisc is cheaper and better quality and if you have an optical out on your cd player sound is pretty damn close to the source. + you can put mp3s on there if you really want just play them through winamp or the like and record through your sound card. Best of both worlds! __________________ www.myspace.com/midsummerlights

24th July 2001, 9:05 PM	#11
Poddy Rainman Studios Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: In The Mix, Sydney Posts: 2,187	Yeah ive seen them thanks for the heads up though Nisboy. No matter how hard i try to fault Sony they still make the best MD players. I was lookin at some the other day @ Sydney Hi Fi, they had these tiny lil Sony's that looked so damn kewl. __________________ www.myspace.com/midsummerlights

26th July 2001, 10:00 AM	#15
Iceman Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Brisbane (nth), Australia Posts: 6,304	How bout if my soundcards got an optical out? __________________ _,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_ WTB: Cisco 1801-M PM me Please rehash my posts and pass them off as your own ideas! Triple points for doing it in the same page of the thread. Plagiarism is the sincerest form of copyright infringement.

18th July 2001, 11:26 PM	#2
iconic Awaiting Email Confirmation Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: brisbane Posts: 146	prob mp3 is not worried about sound quality.. md would be more expensive than cd i reckon

20th July 2001, 4:46 PM	#3
nisboy Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Bangkok Posts: 133	MD beats MP3 if you consider the cost of the media. I can get TDK 74m MD's for $3 each... How much for a 74min memory card? I know that there are some CD-MP3 players, but in my mind these are to bulky. Battery life is also pretty good. I get about 20hrs from my Sony MZ-R900.... It can apparently do about 60hrs using MDLP-4 and an external battery. I believe that there are some newer units that have better battery life. I don't mean to dis small MP3 players, its just that the memory cards are so expensive in comparison to MD. I guess it comes down to how you would use the device... Would you 1) prefer to have a variety of music available to you on the road, or 2) just put up with what's in the player?? If you said option 1 then an MD is for you (unless you're rich). If you said option 2 then an MP3 player is for you. Having said that, I am very tempted by the Iomega Hipzip

20th July 2001, 6:03 PM	#4
Funkdafied Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Sydney, NSW Posts: 774	who needs to buy extra memory?? even 64mb is enough... i have a Sony DEJ611 (discman) and a Rio 600 (mp3 player) If you download a lot of MP3s, on a daily basis, a mp3 player would be a good idea... im always updating the songs on my Rio mp3 player every week or so with about 15 new songs that i've downloaded.. my Rio600 runs about 10hours on 1 AA battery... and mp3 players are skip-free (but then again, so is my discman) ... a MP3 player is a good option if you dont mind the quality.. generally, they're also cheaper, smaller and lighter than MD players yeah...i use my discman a lot too.. compared to some other portable cd players its fairly small, and its really light... when i really like an album, i'll always buy the CD... and i dont know of any shops that sell albums on MD? it would be a pain to buy the CD then copy it to a MD..

23rd July 2001, 5:53 PM	#10
Fortigurn Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: taipei.tw Posts: 11,963	MD whips. A good MD player won't cost more than most portable mp3 players, allows excellent audio quality, gives you the option of recording from mike, and provides unchallenged storage media price/performance. The only thing I have against MD is the 1 x recording.

25th July 2001, 11:02 AM	#12
kula Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 52	If your comparing the codecs, MP3 munches Attrac. big time. the only reason MD can sound better is the higher bitrate. Compare a 256kbps+ Mp3 to MD, and the P3 will be better.

25th July 2001, 6:46 PM	#13
gene Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Melbourne Posts: 76	I believe one point to consider would be 'time'. By this i mean, recording MD's is a pain the the arse, (one-to-one recording). Take you a whole 74mins to record a 74min MD. With an MP3 player you simply drag and drop. It still takes a few minutes but its much faster and much more convienient. The quality you'll get from an MD will only be as good as your source of recording, even slightly poorer. I know that most of my recording comes from my own MP3's. However, not to worry if you are one of those people that owns a trillion CD's and an optical cable.