It would also be nice if someone could find a site with comparisons between different MP3 players.

As a bonus, you could also try to find a decent set of small, portable speakers to carry around with me. I wish the poor people of china to share my musical joy.

[edit: as a note, I have no fucking idea what's good or bad in the MP3 player business today. Assume I'm an idiot while describing them, I'm sure that won't be hard]

Niklas fucked around with this message on 08-11-2004 at 08:33 PM.

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nem-x had this to say about Robocop:
I would never spend heaps of money on an mp3 player though.

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Early birthday/christmas present since I won't be here for either

Oh yeah and the actual Firewire transfer rates are higher than USB2. The only thing the iriver has over the iPod is the FM tuner. Which I have never cared about since radio around here sucks.

The only other realistic competirors are from Iriver, Rio, and Creative.

The iriver has a quite counter-intuitive interface, has subpar audio quality, is not cheap, and is more of a geek's toy. If you like all the added features, they're a redeeming factor, as well as the optical output for use with an outboard DAC (if you're an extreme audiophile). Iriver's CD-mp3 players are excellent, but their HDD based players leave me wanting.

The creative players have had some success as the bargain option, but they're not as user friendly, have had some considerable quality issues, and the sound quality just isn't there. If budget were a real constraint, then I'd suggest you look here, but the zen line is just not that great. (the old massive njb3 was excellent however).

The Karma by rio is THE iPod competition. It's attractively priced, the bundled earbuds don't sound horrible (stock ipod buds are little different than any stock buds, Rio includes Sennheiser MX300, which are quite well respected for the price). Rio offers excellent file format support (it supports almost everything, including FLAC, my favourite format), excellent develloper support over at riovolution.com, excellent headphone output with a parametric equalizer. The navigation is also quite good.

Comparing the iPod to the Karma, you'll see that the iPod offers a couple portable ways to get a line-out (Pocketdock and sik imp), and the iriver doesn't. This may or may not matter to you. It provides a convenient way to attach either speakers or a headphone amp, but the headphone out is acceptible for non-critical listening. The interface on the ipod is better, and the formfactor is (imo) better. The sound quality on the ipod is a little more analytic, the rio a little more euphonic. The bundled buds on the ipod are crap, on the rio respectible. Build quality isn't an issue in either, but the iPod I'd feel a little more comfortable with in terms of standing up to abuse. The rio streets at about $250, so price could factor in here (as well as the additional cost of buying replacement headphones for the ipod).

Realistically, the ipod is the superior player, but the rio won't disappoint. I think it all really just boils down to price. Are you willing to pay for the added convenience of the ipod? Also consider that the ipod is an analytical sound, it's a lot less "fun" sounding than the rio (out of any sort of good headphones) and a lot more "precise" and "accurate". That may suit your listening preferences, it may not.

As for portable speakers... I'd need a little more input here. I'd be tempted to just tell you that it's not worth the price. For what you hear out of them it's pitiful. I'm not being elitist, i'm being realistic. You'll be taking something that sounds like a decent budget home source and making it sound like bad AM radio. Will only one additional person be listening at any given time? Give me details here to work for (and a budget). Also, battery powered?

Again, you've probably done more research than I have, but I was under the impression that the iRiver was fairly high up on the audio quality scale from the reviews that I read when I was in the buying process

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Naota Nandaba's account was hax0red to write:
I thought the iRiver's only competitor for audio quality was the Dell DJ and the Creative (they both use the same sound technology iirc, feel free to correct me)?

Again, you've probably done more research than I have, but I was under the impression that the iRiver was fairly high up on the audio quality scale from the reviews that I read when I was in the buying process

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I'm just going off what I'd heard with my own ears.

Cruise over to Head-Fi and see what the fuss is about. I've had a chance to compare the same material out of all four players using both the headphone out naked and with a good headamp, and I preferred the ipod and the karma. Comparing both to a good home rig (NAD 542-> emmeline XP7) is no real contest, but they deliver easily 75% of the sound quality, in a much smaller formfactor, at a lower price. They're both great portables. I'm not so much a fan of the iriver or the creative's zen (aka dell DJ).

if you want a really informed opinion, ask this same question in the portable forum over on head-fi (or just use the search function/scan through the first dozen pages).

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Naota Nandaba was naked while typing this:
I thought the iRiver's only competitor for audio quality was the Dell DJ and the Creative (they both use the same sound technology iirc, feel free to correct me)?

Again, you've probably done more research than I have, but I was under the impression that the iRiver was fairly high up on the audio quality scale from the reviews that I read when I was in the buying process

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Uhh, yeah, I'm positive Burger's got it mixed up a bit. The iRiver and the iPod are the same price at the 20GB and 40GB levels, and iRiver supports the richer ogg format. The interface is also pretty easy to use.

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When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Burger said:
iPod has the best user interface, great aftermarket support, excellent software interface (iTunes), and a powerful, clean, analytic headphone output (it's rumored that steve jobs is half deaf and that's why the iPod has such a robust output level).

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I agree on all those points except for the software.

I hate using iTunes to move stuff to my iPod. The program feels like it runs slow.

Personally, I use EphPod.

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Waisz wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
Uhh, yeah, I'm positive Burger's got it mixed up a bit. The iRiver and the iPod are the same price at the 20GB and 40GB levels, and iRiver supports the richer ogg format. The interface is also pretty easy to use.

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wait, so you want me to pay the same amount for a player that's less intuitive, less sleek, and has worse audio quality? I feel that the iriver and the creative are on par with eachother, and the creative's redeeming quality is that it IS cheap. Thus it's a strike against the iriver that it isn't.

Yes, it's a nice shiny toy that does lots of extra things, and it has a nifty optical out, but if all you want is something that plays music, the ipod is a better bet at that price.

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Burger had this to say about Tron:
wait, so you want me to pay the same amount for a player that's less intuitive, less sleek, and has worse audio quality? I feel that the iriver and the creative are on par with eachother, and the creative's redeeming quality is that it IS cheap. Thus it's a strike against the iriver that it isn't.

Yes, it's a nice shiny toy that does lots of extra things, and it has a nifty optical out, but if all you want is something that plays music, the ipod is a better bet at that price.

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Less intuitive to who? Again, I don't see any problem with it. Sleek... yes, there's how you find someone who's in it for the pop part of it. Instead of keeping it in your pocket (which iRiver and ipod can both do just fine) you've got it out, showing it off or running around like an idiot swinging it up and down. That's really good for hard drives, I hear. And again, the ipod has less audio quality, as far as I'm concerned. If you wanted to encode everything into 500kbit ogg, you could definitely blow the ipod away.

But let's not forget the real appeal of the ipod: the idiotic image. Look at me, I pirate mp3s! I use an apple, so I'm sticking it to the man! Yes, which one is the shiny toy, again?

Waisz fucked around with this message on 08-12-2004 at 03:52 AM.

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When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Waisz said:
Less intuitive to who? Again, I don't see any problem with it. Sleek... yes, there's how you find someone who's in it for the pop part of it. Instead of keeping it in your pocket (which iRiver and ipod can both do just fine) you've got it out, showing it off or running around like an idiot swinging it up and down. That's really good for hard drives, I hear. And again, the ipod has less audio quality, as far as I'm concerned. If you wanted to encode everything into 500kbit ogg, you could definitely blow the ipod away.

But let's not forget the real appeal of the ipod: the idiotic image. Look at me, I pirate mp3s! I use an apple, so I'm sticking it to the man! Yes, which one is the shiny toy, again?

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I found the interface counter-intuitive, and the general impression I've garnered from talking with folks that are very much into portable-audio is that they share that opinion.

As for audio quality, have you ever compared the two side-by-side? with the same music? with what headphones?

When I compared the two, I was using a set of etymotic ER4p (I was in a mildly noisy environment) and I compared music that I was familiar with. Using both 320kbps MP3's and losslessly encoded audio files (oho! now there's something better than 500kbps OGG!!!). I found that the iRiver was a bit dark (overemphasis on the midbass), had a rolled off bottom end (less low bass than there should have been) and had a compressed soundstage (poorer stereo separation). The apple sounded much flatter and more analytic, excellent soundstaging and instrument separation for a portable. It was a little dry though (my tastes run to a more lush midrange).

If you're going to go with 500kbps OGG files to "blow the ipod away" why not just use lossless files? it's marginally larger, and as the name implies, lossless.

As for being a "trendy, flashy toy". You can work the controls on the ipod through a layer of jeans, leaving it in your pocket, or you can just use the remote!

And I'm sure that the ipod conveys an image of a rebellious music pirate much better than any other given DAP. Sure it's trendy, but since when is that a BAD thing if it's deserved popularity?

And even if we concede the point that one has higher possible audio quality than the other, the fact is that most people that are using it on the go aren't going to be taking a good set of headphones with them. I know I wouldn't. I carry around a set of $10 Sony earbuds instead of my Sennheisers just for the sake of practicality. I'm sure there are much more portable forms of high quality headphones, but I'm not about to buy another pair just for this.

I'm probably not getting nearly as much out of my iRiver as I could be with some better headphones, but at least it's serving its purpose for me.

And as for stock earphones, I'd probably by new ones anyway. Stock usually sucks on most things, be they discmen or whatever.

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Niklas's unholy Backstreet Boys obsession manifested in:
I've been recommended the iAudio M3 by a friend, any comments?

And as for stock earphones, I'd probably by new ones anyway. Stock usually sucks on most things, be they discmen or whatever.

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from what little i've garnered from other people's impressions, it's a solid player, but never having played with one, I can't comment personally.

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Skaw had this to say about Cuba:
Another Apple vs. The World! Thread!

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I have nothing against apple.

Alidane fucked around with this message on 08-12-2004 at 07:41 PM.