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Poll

Yes: Memory based (Rio 800,NW-S4,Nex II,etc.)
[ 120 ] (11.6%)
Yes: CD based (Iriver,eXpanium, Rio Volt, etc.)
[ 210 ] (20.4%)
Yes: Hard disk based (iPod, etc.)
[ 243 ] (23.6%)
Yes: PocketPC etc. (capable for playing)
[ 25 ] (2.4%)
Yes: Mobile phone based
[ 14 ] (1.4%)
Yes: 2 (or more) different types.
[ 65 ] (6.3%)
No: Waiting for one with Ogg Vorbis support
[ 116 ] (11.3%)
Not yet, But I'm about to get one.
[ 64 ] (6.2%)
No
[ 174 ] (16.9%)

Total Members Voted: 1197

Topic: Do you have a portable (Read 125048 times) previous topic - next topic
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Do you have a portable

Do you have portable 'mp3' audio player?
'mp3' in quotes because some players support or will support different formats.

Personally, I don't have one yet, and I'm waiting for Vorbis support. That's my minimum demand...
Musepack support for quality music would be nice also, but I'm not sure how realistic it is to hope portable support for MPC.. Of course AAC also would be fine. WMA - who cares.

If there's not gonna be nice portable players, I'll go for PocketPC.


Edit. I'm not anymore waiting for Vorbis support, although it is always a plus. Now I'm more interestd in AAC-support. 
Juha Laaksonheimo

Do you have a portable

Reply #1
I'm very happy with my Rio 800, though it appears it will only ever support the mp3 codec. I'm a bit disappointed in this, but it was rather cheap; how could I expect it to have indefinite economic utility? That'd be asking a bit much. As a consumer in the capitalist economic system I'm supposed to believe that buying something new every two years is a good thing, right?

Do you have a portable

Reply #2
I'm waiting for one with a documented software upgradeable decoding section so anything can be supported.  The versatility to play mpc, ogg, mp3 or any other format no matter how obscure it might be is what I need before I get one.  Either tha or just mpc support

Do you have a portable

Reply #3
I have a Rio 500 and Rio Volt. I'm happy with mp3-only support, I've neither the desire nor the time to rip 50 GB of music again.

Do you have a portable

Reply #4
I own a Rio 500 and an iRiver Imp-250, both of which are serving me well. Looking forward to Vorbis support for my iRiver though

I don't see the point with supporting WMA. Why is having WMA support something to brag about? all it shows is how stupid the hardware manufacturer is and how they wasted so much time on supporting it.

Do you have a portable

Reply #5
still waiting for vorbis support...

Do you have a portable

Reply #6
i built an old K6-166 with 1 Gig HD into my car.
It plays mpc, mp3 , ogg.. does it count as a "portable" too ? 

Meista

Do you have a portable

Reply #7
Quote
Originally posted by gdougherty
I'm waiting for one with a documented software upgradeable decoding section so anything can be supported. 

A *documented* software upgradeable firmware?  You'll probably be waiting forever...

Do you have a portable

Reply #8
Quote
Originally posted by fewtch

A *documented* software upgradeable firmware?  You'll probably be waiting forever...


Well, something a tad more universal at least.  I'd be perfectly happy with something that could use winamp input plugins.  Of course, this would mean that users wouldn't need to upgrade to newer hardware just to get new media support, so companies might not like this as much.  A CD based player with this kind of support would get $300 or so from me though, so the player price could be bumped a little to compensate, IMO.  Maybe ina few years we could get DVD+R support.  4.7GB on one disk, hell yeah!

Do you have a portable

Reply #9
I own a Dioneer. It's a firmware upgradable cd player. The manual claims that it optionally supports aac , but its web doesn't say a word about it

Do you have a portable

Reply #10
Quote
Originally posted by gdougherty
Well, something a tad more universal at least.  I'd be perfectly happy with something that could use winamp input plugins.

That's a cool idea... wonder why nobody's implemented anything like that yet...

Do you have a portable

Reply #11
yeah, my friends and I had the same idea. Would be very cool!

Do you have a portable

Reply #12
Quote
Originally posted by fewtch

That's a cool idea... wonder why nobody's implemented anything like that yet...


Probably because of a few reasons.
1)  I imagine they can get away with a lower cost DSP in the units if they optimize the firmware code for their dsp and use proprietary stuff.  You'd need a decent processor to make sure you could handle whatever codecs people throw at the device.  Nothing too powerful really, but it probably couldn't be a basic DSP and at this point you're probably looking at something more akin to a pocket PC, but with more storage space.
2)  The forced upgrade I mentioned before.  flash cards and the like have been around since before the original RIO.  Why do we still see devices with a limited amount of fixed storage instead of completely modular systems?  Cost and forced obsolescence.  64MB not good enough to handle your 192Kbps files?  Sorry, have to shell out for a brand new player.
3)  I think this obsolescence is probably also the reson behind the lack of new codec support in the firmware updateable players.  They'd rather put money into making new things than making older things more useful.  It's all about those new sales.

Perhaps I'm being too cynical here, but really it must come down to economics.  If they could make a 50GB unit that plays every single codec, both lossless and lossy and sell it for $200, you can bet it'd be on the market.  Not very many people are willing to dump a bunch of money on these units, so cost limits what goes into them in order to help guarantee decent sales.

Do you have a portable

Reply #13
I own the original Rio 300, original Expanium, SlimX, and my Compaq Ipaq.  I love my SlimX and use it with my Ety ER-4Ps.
Kimberly aka
Baroness Sylvia von Zurich (the only Goldwater Conservative) endorses the Meadow Party's Bill and Opus for the 2004 Presidential election!  A sometimes dead cat and an overweight penguin who looks like a puffin couldn't possibly do any worse than a Shrub.

Do you have a portable

Reply #14
Quote
Originally posted by JohnV
Do you have portable 'mp3' audio player?
'mp3' in quotes because some players support or will support different formats.

Personally, I don't have one yet, and I'm waiting for Vorbis support. That's my minimum demand...
Musepack support for quality music would be nice also, but I'm not sure how realistic it is to hope portable support for MPC.. Of course AAC also would be fine. WMA - who cares.

If there's not gonna be nice portable players, I'll go for PocketPC.



An iPod.

Do you have a portable

Reply #15
First I bought a Rio Volt. No Power and lousy EQ curves. Next I bought a Intel Pocket Concert. This had more power bur ate batteries for breakfast and also had a very audible buzzing sound on softer passages of music.

It also had a 15.5Khz rolloff but I couldn't really hear this with the Sony earbuds I was using at the time.

I wound up buying a Sony D-FS18 cd player. It plays cd-rw discs and allows me to use Shibata-sans eq and a light crossfeed filter for a HRTF. Power to burn and greater than 20 hours with NiMH batteries at full power.

I can only carry about 20 tunes when I run, but the sound is very good.

Do you have a portable

Reply #16
Yikes, Sony is evil .

I got one of those AVC Soul players (almost the same as the Rio Volt) and am fairly happy with it.  For the price, it's not bad at all.  Yeah, the EQ rather sucks and it doesn't get very loud, but its very light on batteries.

Compare it to one of the first generation players like the Genica, it's unimaginably better... but the players are improving all the time.

Do you have a portable

Reply #17
I own an iRiver SlimX, and am quite impressed by its performance. In addition to the many features it already has, it may turn out to be the first portable player to support Ogg Vorbis (through an upcoming firmware update).

Right now, as I write this, Paul Van Dyk's "Politics Of Dancing" (Disc 2) is absolutely killin' it in my SlimX.

Do you have a portable

Reply #18
I got a Rio Volt CD/MP3 Player and I am perfectly happy with it. Sure, there are some small downsides like the display or the somewhat limited volume... but all in one it does it's job well and iRiver even announced to provide Ogg Vorbis support with a future firmware!

I don't care about recent memory-based players - don't use it for jogging and the memory is much too small and overpriced.  I prefer the CD based solution over memory and hard disk, because of it's flexibility and cheapness and I realy don't need gimmicks like an integrated receiver, 20 hours anti-shock memory, a cigarette lighter, the ability to watch a DVD on the lcd-display, a GPS locator , etcetera...

Do you have a portable

Reply #19
Yeah, I got the Rio Volt too.  I'm very happy with it.  They seem to have been continuously updating the firmware, and with each new version great new features are added.

I listen to it through Grado SR-80s and a homemade headphone amplifier (CMoy pocket amp on Headwize.com)...

I couldn't ask for a better sounding, more convenient portable system...

Do you have a portable

Reply #20
I own an Archos Jukebox Recorder. It came with a 6.5 g drive, which I have upgraded to 30 g. All of my own encodes are mp3s (alt preset extreme) and they sound fabulous. Besides the capacity, the best thing about this player us that it has digital (S/PDIF) output so you can bypass the cheap analog path (which actually sounds as good as any mps player I've heard) when connecting to your home stereo. The unit handles mp3s only - this is becuase the Micronos (sp?) DSP chip only does mp3. My impression is that chip makers are only going to build-in encoder/decoders that are marketable (mp3/WMA/???). The AJBR (as their generally called) is firmware upgradable for track-handling and sound adjustment, but not for encoding.

Do you have a portable

Reply #21
@sdiamond
How did you manage to upgrade to 30 Go? I'll soon receive a "standard" 20 Go...
j@ce deHodossy
\"ici tout n\'est qu\'ordre et beauté, luxe, calme et volupté\"

Do you have a portable

Reply #22
I just got a RioVolt SP90 for my birthday a few days ago. So far, this thing has been great. So great I am switching from using Musepack to MP3's again (encoded using --alt-preset standard of course).

Only drawbacks of this unit is the low maximum volume, no official firmware updates (even though unofficially there is a hack that will allow you to use SP100 and iRiver updates, works great, I use those), and a stupid remaining time issue with VBR files (showing that a 5 minute mp3 is 8 minutes long for example).

I'll keep using this until it goes obsolete (meaning Sonicblue or iRiver release a new product supporting OGG or Musepack, instead of a firmware update that provides playback support for those formats).

I can only imagine what it would be like to someday have portable DVD players that play Musepack or (gasp) lossless files.
iTunes 10 - Mac OS X 10.6
256kbps AAC VBR
iPhone 4 32GB

Do you have a portable

Reply #23
jace112,

Here's a link about doing upgrades on the Archos Jukebox. the article is about a Jukebox 6000, but it worked well for my Jukebox recorder. I've done two of these (20 gig from 6.5, and 30 gig from 20 gig) and haven't had any problems.

http://www.funmp3players.com/reviews/modify/

If you haven't already, check out the forum at this site too. There are excellent comments and suggestions.

Do you have a portable

Reply #24
@sdiamond
I check it out !!!
Really cool...
Thx
j@ce deHodossy
\"ici tout n\'est qu\'ordre et beauté, luxe, calme et volupté\"