• TV
  • MOVIES
  • MUSIC
  • SHOWBIZ
  • SOAPS
  • GAMING
  • TECH
  • FORUMS
  • Follow
    • Follow
    • facebook
    • twitter
    • google+
    • instagram
    • youtube
Hearst Corporation
  • TV
  • MOVIES
  • MUSIC
  • SHOWBIZ
  • SOAPS
  • GAMING
  • TECH
  • FORUMS
Forums
  • Register
  • Login
  • Forums
  • Gadgets
  • Tablets and e-Readers
mp3 player info
dondon
20-09-2007
I have finally had to admit that I need to do something about my waistline and so I have joined a gym. I need something to listen to while I am there and I have never owned an mp3 player, so know very little about them.

I will almost certainly NOT be buying an i-pod. I am looking at Creative and SanDisk.

1. Most of the music I want to listen to is on vinyl or old CDs, so am I correct that ripping these to a digital format will not have any DRM problems on ANY player?

2. Should I store as wma or mp3 (or some other format)?

3. If I rip a track at maximum quality, can I then make a copy with lower quality for use in the player, but keep the high quality version for playing on my domestic hi-fi?

4. If I rip a track from a CD, can I rip it at different quality settings? I.e. can I rip the same CD multiple times?

5. Will any CD software do the above or do I need anything special? Any recommendations please? I have Windows XP Home SP2 and all updates.

6. Creative have told me that the Zen Nano Plus doesn’t have a keypad lock, so it could be a problem in the gym. Is this a common feature and can you recommend an mp3 player with built in radio tuner that has it? (Around £30 to £50 or so)

7. I am not interested in having access to individual songs. I will rip a whole CD or one side of an LP in one go. Is there a maximum mp3 or wma file size (or an advisable practical limit)?
GoochyB
20-09-2007
Originally Posted by dondon:
“ I will almost certainly NOT be buying an i-pod. I am looking at Creative and SanDisk.”

Very wise, there's no need to spend a third of your budget on the name.
Originally Posted by dondon:
“1. Most of the music I want to listen to is on vinyl or old CDs, so am I correct that ripping these to a digital format will not have any DRM problems on ANY player?.”

No, DRM is inserted when the digital files are created, so if you rip them yourself it's not a problem (but look out for things that look like CDs but are not compliant with the Audio CD standard because they have protection against ripping the files. These don't carry the usual Compact Disc Digital Audio logo on the case/insert).
Originally Posted by dondon:
“2. Should I store as wma or mp3 (or some other format)?”

mp3 is the safest bet, as it's pretty much universal, but if you're only going to be playing it on the one player, and that supports WMA, then WMA is generally acknowledged as being better quality for a given file size/smaller file sizes for a similar quality when compared to mp3.
Originally Posted by dondon:
“3. If I rip a track at maximum quality, can I then make a copy with lower quality for use in the player, but keep the high quality version for playing on my domestic hi-fi?”

Yes, although not sure what you mean by playing on your domestic hi-fi, since you still have the original media for that which will be at least as good quality as the ripped file. Is your pc hooked up to your hi-fi to play audio through it?
Originally Posted by dondon:
“4. If I rip a track from a CD, can I rip it at different quality settings? I.e. can I rip the same CD multiple times?”

Yes
Originally Posted by dondon:
“5. Will any CD software do the above or do I need anything special? Any recommendations please? I have Windows XP Home SP2 and all updates.”

Windows Media Player does it, in both WMA and mp3 formats, and there are loads of other free and paid for options around. If you have a CD burner with Nero or Roxio software then there may be a component of that which does the job. If you're recording from vinyl then some software has settings to remove clicks, hiss, etc, as well as automatically splitting the recording into separate tracks[although I see from 7 this isn't important]. I've used Audio Cleaning Lab Deluxe 11 (Amazon were selling it half price a while back).
Originally Posted by dondon:
“
6. Creative have told me that the Zen Nano Plus doesn’t have a keypad lock, so it could be a problem in the gym. Is this a common feature and can you recommend an mp3 player with built in radio tuner that has it? (Around £30 to £50 or so)

7. I am not interested in having access to individual songs. I will rip a whole CD or one side of an LP in one go. Is there a maximum mp3 or wma file size (or an advisable practical limit)?”

Ripping CDs is automatically done track by track. Not aware of a maximum file size.
Ugg
20-09-2007
For vinyl I'd recommend "Audacity":
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

It's free and very straightforward to use. If you want, you can save the .wav files and then re-rip at whatever bitrate you want later. You can rip a side of an LP at a time, and then easily divide into tracks later if you want. This saves the whole "getting up from the sofa" bit as well once you've got the files on your PC - although if you're planning to go to the gym maybe you'll want to keep doing that!

As GoochyB said, there's lots of CD ripping software around - the chances are you'll get some with whatever player you get, and the chances are also that it's not as good as something that you could download for free.

On the "keyboard lock" thing, that may not be a problem - I have a Sandisk Sansa player, and I don't think that you could knock any of the buttons by mistake. It might be a bit heavy though ((it's got a solid metal backplate) - a cheap and cheerful plastic one might be a better option.

One problem that you might not have encountered if you haven't ripped CDs before is that some CD manufacturers make CDs appear as data CDs to a PC and will prompt you to install some "helpful" software to stop you ripping the CD the way that you want. Disabling autoplay on the CD drive may get around this.
Phantom Flan Flinger
20-09-2007
Originally Posted by dondon:
“7. I am not interested in having access to individual songs. I will rip a whole CD or one side of an LP in one go. Is there a maximum mp3 or wma file size (or an advisable practical limit)?”

The file size depends on what rate you rip the CD's at. Obviously, the higher the rate, the bigger the file, the less songs you'll get on your player.

Most people rip at 128Kbps or higher.
What I'd do, is rip the same song at 64, 128 and 192 and then stick them on your player and listen.
See what differences you can hear in the music and decide what you're happy with and then stick to that quality.

Dave.
toasties
21-09-2007
Originally Posted by dondon:
“
2. Should I store as wma or mp3 (or some other format)?

3. If I rip a track at maximum quality, can I then make a copy with lower quality for use in the player, but keep the high quality version for playing on my domestic hi-fi?

4. If I rip a track from a CD, can I rip it at different quality settings? I.e. can I rip the same CD multiple times?”

IMO rip and store ın a lossles format such as FLAC. This ıs lıterally maxımum quality because no data ıs lost. You can then transcode the files to a lossy format such as mp3. If you rip to a lossy format and then transcode to a lower quality lossy the result is lower quality than if you ripped to the low quality to begin wıth. Once you have the files rıpped in a lossless format you can transcode as much as you want taking away the need to rerip the CDs ever again

Originally Posted by dondon:
“5. Will any CD software do the above or do I need anything special? Any recommendations please? I have Windows XP Home SP2 and all updates.


7. I am not interested in having access to individual songs. I will rip a whole CD or one side of an LP in one go. Is there a maximum mp3 or wma file size (or an advisable practical limit)?”

Use EAC to rip the CDs. İt is the undisputed best ripper out there and its free. You have the choıce to rıp an entire album as one track. İf you make a CUE file at the same tıme you then have the option to make indıvıdual tracks later on very easily
joshua321
22-09-2007
Originally Posted by dondon:
“I will almost certainly NOT be buying an i-pod. I am looking at Creative and SanDisk.”

Correct decision in my humble opinion - paying for features/quality rather than fashionability is wise.

Originally Posted by dondon:
“1. Most of the music I want to listen to is on vinyl or old CDs, so am I correct that ripping these to a digital format will not have any DRM problems on ANY player?”

DRM is usually only present in music purchased online. A small number of CDs have copy protection but this is very rare.

Originally Posted by dondon:
“2. Should I store as wma or mp3 (or some other format)?”

WMA is considered superior to MP3 at usual ripping quality (eg 192kbps) but at high quality (eg 320kbps) MP3 is often favoured. As you are not planning to buy an
i-pod, you can consider WMA to be as universal as MP3. Lossless formats such as FLAC arguably sound better (to a trained ear) but they are not supported by many players and are more for audio enthusiasts. They also take up more space on your player.

Originally Posted by dondon:
“3. If I rip a track at maximum quality, can I then make a copy with lower quality for use in the player, but keep the high quality version for playing on my domestic hi-fi?”

Yes, although even the high quality version is unlikely to sound as good as the original CD or vinyl. Rule of thumb: the higher the quality, the larger the file (the more space the track takes up on your player).

Originally Posted by dondon:
“4. If I rip a track from a CD, can I rip it at different quality settings? I.e. can I rip the same CD multiple times?”

Yes

Originally Posted by dondon:
“5. Will any CD software do the above or do I need anything special? Any recommendations please? I have Windows XP Home SP2 and all updates.”

Most software that comes with a player is quite straightforward, e.g. Creative offers MediaSource which allows you to drag and drop tracks straight from the CD to your player. The other option is to create a music library on your PC (copy tracks from CD to your PC and then to your player). This is also quite easy to accomplish using Windows Media Player, which recognises common devices such as those made by Creative. You just need to experiment to see which programme and method you like best. Creative MediaSource also allows you to record from an external source (e.g. vinyl) to the line-in on your PC and can even eradicate pops and clicks. This takes some practice but can work quite well.

Originally Posted by dondon:
“6. Creative have told me that the Zen Nano Plus doesn’t have a keypad lock, so it could be a problem in the gym. Is this a common feature and can you recommend an mp3 player with built in radio tuner that has it? (Around £30 to £50 or so)”

This is not quite true. The Zen Nano Plus does not have a physical lock SWITCH, instead the keypad lock is one of the on-screen menu options. This simply means it takes slightly longer to lock and unlock as you need to press a combination of buttons rather than just one (the same as locking and unlocking a mobile phone). The Zen Nano Plus takes an AAA battery rather than being externally charged, comes in 1GB or 512MB and features radio recording. Also consider its newer sibling the Zen Stone Plus, which has an external lock switch, charges externally (through PC or wall charger as extra), comes in 2GB, and has a radio from which you cannot record (good price on Amazon). I have a Zen Nano Plus and consider the radio to be very good for such a small player, though it is unlikely to work well in the gym because of electrical interference.

Originally Posted by dondon:
“7. I am not interested in having access to individual songs. I will rip a whole CD or one side of an LP in one go. Is there a maximum mp3 or wma file size (or an advisable practical limit)?”

In this case you should keep your player in normal play mode rather than shuffle, to hear the songs in order of track number. If your player organises music into folders, you could then have one folder per album. If your player organises music by 'artist/album/genre' lists, you can just select the name of the album you want to hear from the list.
A lot of software (e.g. Creative MediaSource) will allow WMA ripping up to 192kbps and MP3 up to 320kbps, so for maximum quality 320kps MP3 might be a good bet, or even WAV (great quality but files are huge). Lossless formats will give you smaller files and better quality, but a lot of portable players won't play these. Practically, for pleasurable everyday listening, on a high-capacity player I would rip at 192kbps WMA, on a lower capacity player at 128kbps WMA. Obviously it is a balance between quantity and quality (they are inveresely proportional).
haggler
22-09-2007
for what its worth i have creative sandisk and sony players . the best for gym is the sony nw 202 f as it has a way of stopping you knocking buttons to change track accidentely it also has a step counter mileometer and a stopwatch so you can set time to exercise for then a loud beep comes thru phones when it goes off . sony software is dire however but they are getting rid of software reliance soon allowing drag and drop to player . sandidk and creative work with napster to go so allow millions of albums to be accessed
VIEW DESKTOP SITE TOP

JOIN US HERE

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Hearst Corporation

Hearst Corporation

DIGITAL SPY, PART OF THE HEARST UK ENTERTAINMENT NETWORK

© 2015 Hearst Magazines UK is the trading name of the National Magazine Company Ltd, 72 Broadwick Street, London, W1F 9EP. Registered in England 112955. All rights reserved.

  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Complaints
  • Site Map