[Dave]

Not interested in IPODs because of reliability problems with batteries, so was thinking of the Creative 30GB model

Using my Egg credit card & a certain discount code I can get price down to £160...sounds good

Anybody had any experience of these ? Any good ?

[stepheno]

I bought my wife a Creative Muvo - only a paltry 1gb but sufficient for her needs. My main consideration (after reputation, quality etc) was batteries. Now some MP3 players have rechargeable batteries but you have to put it in a USB port to charge. My wife is not technically minded and as she travels a lot she wanted to be able to just use AAA so that dictated and narrowed the choice. The rechargeables are fine if you are alweays near a 'puter.

[orangepeel]

i don't get this.

why do u need that much space?

i used to have a 150gb in car and it was a NIGHTMARE trying to find anything i wanted to listen to.

Navigating your music is a major problem in ALL mp3 players. The more music the bigger it's a pain.

What I do is i buy an mp3 player that takes the same memory cards as my cam. I have a couple of buckshee cards, too small for serious photo outings but plenty big enough as photography backup and as a removable storage for music.

I then get a cheap ass mp3 player...
Advanced MP3 Players - SnowFox XT105 SD Card MP3 Player

for £25 and i can use it in car and on person.

I fill up my 2 512mb cards with albums I wanna be listening too (usually my latest ones). About 5 - 7 on a card and then swap em as required.

I've never understood the point of either small fixed size players or the large ones. For small fixes sized ones you usually outgrow the space quickly. For large ones I find they limit navigation of music too much. I prefer to use my PC to manage my music.

I've got a 250GB USB HDD filled with my tunes. I never listen to 80% of it so it can happily stay in the house. I just make a special effort to make my home system easily navigable...

orangepeels PC Services (OPCS) - 0870 766 9715
when logged in as admin I can control whats playing as well as selecting tunes for my SD card for outings

[Dave]

Good points you make there OP & the little player is amazing for the money

Only reason I looked at 30GB model we because it wasn't much more than smaller sizse models, plus had the boys toys for video etc (not that I would probably use those features much), plus I would use at home to listen to music on headphones. Just shows how easy it is to follow the mainstream route

Your option has got me thinking now. I currently have a 4GB microdrive card for camera, which like you said is great way to have ultimate flexibility. I also want to get a palm PC with built in GPS at some stage. Maybe I could find one that also produced good music playback of MP3's & have evrything in one device Oh no, I've opened a can of worms for myself now

[Dave]

Forgot to say I also wanted to make sure music playback was decent. I've listened to some MP3 players & have to say I'm not impressed. I had heard good things about Creative from this perspective. How do you find that little device you have ?

[orangepeel]

Originally Posted by Dave

Your option has got me thinking now. I currently have a 4GB microdrive card for camera, which like you said is great way to have ultimate flexibility. I also want to get a palm PC with built in GPS at some stage. Maybe I could find one that also produced good music playback of MP3's & have evrything in one device Oh no, I've opened a can of worms for myself now

In truth, I tend to use my HP IPAQ in the car (for music). It takes the same memory as my MP3 player and camera. I bought a little peice of software that runs on me IPAQ to play the music. it can handle my playlists which I create for each album on the PC. I could have used Media Player but to be honest I'd rather suckle from satans teet. Which is much the same thing

The little mp3 player is more portable than the IPAQ however so I use that when out on my bike or walking. It hangs from a cord round your neck - not irriatating on the bike but I can imagine it is if you run.

The sound quality of the IPAQ blows the little mp3 player clean out the water. It's got better bass and handles the higher frequencies much better. In truth the little mp3 player kinda sucks sound quality wise. however that doesn't bother me so much... I couldn't tell u specificly what's pap about it, just it's not as good as the IPAQ.

I had a 64mb Rio years ago and that sounded nice. I believe the CL kit does tend to sound quite good too. Also.. ipods they do have good sound.

However at the end of the day, we are talking about MP3 here and I have old cassettes that still blow MP3 clean out the water in terms of both dynamic range and stereo separation. Everything just sounds wider and clearer.

I only got into mp3 for the convienience nothing else. It's nice to have that music taking up a hard drive instead of several ugly wall cabinets or shelves. But I make a point of never listening to any of my original CD's, cassettes or LP's as it just makes me feel sick

[Dave]

Cheers OP. Interesting you say about comparison of MP3 vs other formats. A while back when I had a decent Linn system, I compared a £1800 CD player vs MP3 off my laptop being fed through aux leads to the same setup.

I was actually staggered how good the MP3 rips were, vs original CD recording. It was mainly the bass end that was lacking. Maybe I was too drunk that night to notice properly.....mm, it was a moving in party, so probably is very true

Do miss the sound though from the old LP12

All the Linn system is gone now & stuck with just a £100 Dab radio ......oh how things change with kids

[Dave]

You'd laugh. My niece just came round to see if I could rip her new CD's to MP3 so she could put it on her little MP3 player. When I connectd it, it automatically started playing a song.....it sounded awful. Whe I asked her what was wrong she said she's been recording all her songs off the radio via the built in microphone to date

Now I could tell the difference in that sound quality