[dav2112]

Guys,I'm new to this mp3 stuff and need some advice.I fancy one of those new Sony Atrac thingys and was wondering how they work.Do you download all music from your PC?
Can you record from another source using an optical cable?
It says you can store up to 22 cd's(the EW95 model).Does this depend on what type of music file you use.
Or should I just go and get one and stop asking stupid questions

[Richard_T]

if it only plays atrac then your whole MP3 colection will have to converted to that format.
first of all, do you want to just take a few songs with you ( flash based player), quite a few ( mini hard disk - 4-6GB), or do you want your whole collection ( hard disk player 20GB and up)?

what format are your music files in?
do you have all MP3? WMA? or AAC?

what player are you interested in ( ie link to product)

[dav2112]

Thanks for the quick reply.
I am really only wanting something to use on holiday.The wife and daughter usually take a bulky personal cd player and a shitload of discs.I thought if I got something like the Sony EW95B(512mb) then I could stick a fair selection of their cd's onto it and let them fight over it whilst I lie about in the sun doing nothing.
My music collection is entirely cd's so changing formats isn't a problem.The only reason I fancied this model is because it's reasonably priced,small and quite smart looking and battery life of 70 hours.

http://www.avland.co.uk/sony/nwe95/nwe95.htm

[chrisjr]

All the Sony devices I've ever seen that can connect to a PC come with one flavour or another of Sony's SonicStage software. This allows you to drag and drop audio files from just about any source onto your player.

So for CD's you just bung the disk into the CD-ROM drive on your PC and tell it to copy the tracks over. If you have an open internet connection as well it can be told to go off and download the CD track listing from an online database. Very handy as it saves you all the hassle of naming the tracks yourself

[Richard_T]

I can see that your budget is £125

the SONY NW-E95 has a cpacity of 512MB and plays MP3 and Atrac, the site you lits has it at £125, amazon have it for £105

Based on a budget of £125 you can have the folowing players and probably a lot more if you research it in depth.

Creative MuVo Micro 1GB storage space ( almost double that of the sony) +FM radio with radio and microphone recording, 15 hour battery life, aprox 16 hours music, uses standard AAA batterys

Philips HDD070 2GB player for £117.98 (4x storage of the sony) FM radio, bui;t in battery - needds a charger

iRiver iFP-899 - 1GB FM radio £120 etc, etc

brand names to look out for are Creative labs, Rio, iRiver if you take a look round site like amazon.co.uk or even retial shops you can see the players on offer.
you should look at these things when buyiong a player

Capacity - you want the highest capacity for the amount youve got to spend.

Hard disk or flash, hard disks dont like being knocked, and a bad fall can kill a hard disk player.

Battery type, and charging oportunities - flash players generaly win if you cant get access to a charger, or a mians outlet, or you dont want to carry an aditional charger, as most hard disk players use built in, or custom batterys, with most flash based players you can go to the shops and buy new batterys (typicly AAA size) available all over the world.


One other bit of advice, if your copying ( ripping) your music colection to your P.C to trransfer to your player, make sure that its corectly tagged ( given data such as artist/album/track) as its being ripped, especialy if its being kept on your p.cs hard disk, well tagged mp3s are easier to manage, and if you rip your entire CD collection to your p.c, and decide to get a larger capacity hard disk mp3 player things should be a lot eaiser.
software for ripping CDs usualy comes with the player, and it usualy has ID3 tagging built in.


Also some flash based players will act as a removable disk, and no software is required in order for them to work with your p.c.

[dav2112]

Thanks Chris and Richard.Very helpfull.
The Sony is £100 from EmpireDirect which I think will take a bit of beating.The 70hours battery time is a big draw I think.I've got plenty of time to get something so I'll do some research on your suggestions.

Cheers again.

[Richard_T]

edit - extra info added.

[john2303]

i have just got a 20gb ipod which is the dogs you know whats!!!!

you can get the ipod mini from john lewis for £125

managing music through itunes is a doddle.

john

[NoEntry2k]

Im new to MP3 players too and i got one yesterday.

A few simple questions though - it stores the files as .wma files which i am told is the best way to get the most out of the memory. But why does it automaticaly store them as .wma and nor mp3 files? Is it because i used Windows Media Player and it automayically rips files as .wma?

Also i have a 256mb player and have so far put one 45 minute album on the player which is using up 16% of the memory - does this sound correct? Im guessing it is, so i should get about 5 albums on the player, but i just want to check i am doing it right and getting the most out of the player.

I have a Sumvision M18 player by the way.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[sancheeez]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoEntry2k

Im new to MP3 players too and i got one yesterday.

A few simple questions though - it stores the files as .wma files which i am told is the best way to get the most out of the memory. But why does it automaticaly store them as .wma and nor mp3 files? Is it because i used Windows Media Player and it automayically rips files as .wma?

Also i have a 256mb player and have so far put one 45 minute album on the player which is using up 16% of the memory - does this sound correct? Im guessing it is, so i should get about 5 albums on the player, but i just want to check i am doing it right and getting the most out of the player.

I have a Sumvision M18 player by the way.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Yup.

AFAIK, WMP rips to WMA format.

4-5 albums on a 256mb player sounds about right if you're ripping at average quality (128kbps).

Obviously, you could increase the amount you can fit on it by reducing the quality of the rip, and thus the filesize, but it won't sound as good. Just a matter of deciding whats acceptable to you really.

[NoEntry2k]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sancheeez

Yup.

AFAIK, WMP rips to WMA format.

4-5 albums on a 256mb player sounds about right if you're ripping at average quality (128kbps).

Obviously, you could increase the amount you can fit on it by reducing the quality of the rip, and thus the filesize, but it won't sound as good. Just a matter of deciding whats acceptable to you really.

Oh ok thanks, how do i alter the quality of the rip? Is this done by changing the settings in Windows Media Player? How do i do this?

If 128kbps is average at what point can you start to tell the low quality?

[Willith]

In windows media player, go to Tools > Options and look for the Copy Music Tab at the top. (If you've got windows media player ten, look for the tab called rip music) and near the bottom, theres a slider which lets you either increase the quality or decrease the file size. i'd choose 192kbps but if your listening through headphones then i doubt there'd be much difference between that and something lile 128kbps.

Apparently wma is so good, that a 64kbps WMA sounds like 128kbps MP3.

[NoEntry2k]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willith

In windows media player, go to Tools > Options and look for the Copy Music Tab at the top. (If you've got windows media player ten, look for the tab called rip music) and near the bottom, theres a slider which lets you either increase the quality or decrease the file size. i'd choose 192kbps but if your listening through headphones then i doubt there'd be much difference between that and something lile 128kbps.

Apparently wma is so good, that a 64kbps WMA sounds like 128kbps MP3.

Thanks for the information, really useful.

I might try 64kbps on my wma files then and see how they sound - might be worth it as it could double the number of songs i can have on the player.


Out of interest can you convert existing mp3 files to wma files?

[Willith]

Yea, but it probably wouldnt be worth it if the MP3 is 192 or less. The converting will degrade the quality, but hey! i think this tool should work for you.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...r/default.aspx

EDIT: Ok if your gonna change a mass number of MP3's and want to do it easily then maybe you should do a google search on a better tool. All i know is that the one above can do it with effort

[dav2112]

NoEntry2k,

I've been looking at the Sumvision player on the net but it doesn't say what type of battery it uses or quote battery life.Do you have any info please.
BTW,it looks a tidy player for the money.I liked the look of one of the iRiver ones with the same spec but it was almost twice the price

Cheers.

[barmy_army008]

Like dav2112, i've also been considering the 512mb Sony. But I was wondering, would it be worthwhile for me to order one off of Amazon.com for instance? I found this one as an example;

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...ics&n=13873661

A 1gb player which would cost about £72. I presume that there are no 'regions' as such with an mp3 player. Do you think its a good ides?

[OneyOneOney]

creative muvo player 1gb is £109.99 from amazon.co.uk. ive just ordered that

[NoEntry2k]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dav2112

NoEntry2k,

I've been looking at the Sumvision player on the net but it doesn't say what type of battery it uses or quote battery life.Do you have any info please.
BTW,it looks a tidy player for the money.I liked the look of one of the iRiver ones with the same spec but it was almost twice the price

Cheers.

Its a great player, excellent value for money.

Iy takes a single AAA battery and you should get about 8 hours of playback from it. Having a built in radio was a must for me and this has a very good tuner in it.

The fact that this cost me £42 with p+p makes this a very good buy.

PS - rip you music at 64kbs and you will get about 100 songs on it and the quality is still fine.