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[interested]

Hi

I'g going to buy an iPod or competitor.  Looking for the best site to learn about and compare alternatives.  

Thanks.

[LisaRCT]

sheesh, I was hoping to read some input here myself . . . with so many choices over such a wide price-range a little experience speaks volumes.

[p00n1s]

get an ipod

[LisaRCT]

ok, that's one vote . . . .

BTW, they don't charge ya by the word here  

[loraan]

I personally bought a Nomad Zen over the iPod, for several reasons:

1. Already owned a Nomad Jukebox (the original 6 GB model) and was happy with Creative as a company.
2. About $100-$200 cheaper than iPod for same or bigger hard drive (at the time that I purchased).
3. Has USB 2.0 version (iPod is only FireWire). My computers don't have FireWire.
4. Has external charger (as far as I know, iPod only charges through FireWire).

The iPod has these advantages that I know of (might have more, but I don't own one):

1. Slightly smaller.
2. User interface kicks ass (Zen's UI is usable but a little confusing).

Also, I don't know how well the Zen MC plug-in works vs. the iPod plug-in. I use Notmad Explorer, by Red Chair Software, to synch my Zen because I wasn't satisfied with the capabilities offered by the MC plug-in. If the iPod plug-in is very full-featured, then that might be a vote for iPod.

[Phil Lee]

I love my 10Gb iPod. I also love the way MC9 supports it. The synching support is fantastic (Thanks Steve). I never considered any other MP3 players when I bought mine.

To answer a couple of points raised by loraan:

1. The iPod can be charged when not connected to a computer.  It comes with an external charger that connects to the iPod via the firewire port.

2. The new generation 3 iPods will support USB2 when Apple release the USB2 cable in June.

[SteveG]

loraan,

In regards to the MC plugin, what features for Nomad Zen, what features are you looking for?

Steve

[loraan]

loraan,

In regards to the MC plugin, what features for Nomad Zen, what features are you looking for?

Gotta love J River  . Can't beat 'em for responsive support.

When I initially got the Zen, the Nomad plug-in was pretty buggy (at least for me). One issue was that it would only display like the first five characters of the file attributes. (I believe that that has since been fixed, by the way.) Another issue was that sometimes, after transferring, files would show up with "<UNKNOWN>" in their properties on the Jukebox even though they had tags, etc... in MC. The plug-in originally didn't have an option for "rename all duplicates automatically", but I think that that was added (actually, in response to one of my posts, I believe).

I tried everything I could think of to resolve these issues, including downloading the latest version of the plug-in and downloading the latest Jukebox drivers, but I couldn't resolve them. I should note that these problems never happened when transferring with PlayCenter (not that I'd ever insinuate that PlayCenter holds a candle to MC!!!).

So, ostensibly, these bugs have been fixed in the latest version of the plug-in, but I don't know because of this one thing that was a killer for me:

For some reason, MC doesn't seem to write the "track number" tag to WMA files. It stores the track number in its internal database, but if you go to "tag dump", it's not there. I've also confirmed this with other tagging utilities. This means that when a WMA file is transferred to the Nomad, track order is not preserved, and songs play back in alphabetical order. Yuck! IMHO, not writing the track number tag is not a bug in the Nomad plug-in per se, but it does make the Nomad plug-in essentially useless for me, because 99% of my music is in WMA format.

As you may have seen in other posts, my current solution is to use Notmad Explorer to transfer files. Notmad has the ability to read track info from the filename on-the-fly at transfer time. So I can tell Notmad to read the track number from the file name even though it's not in the tags. Personally, I'd rather see the track number tagging bug fixed than see "read tag info from filename on transfer" added to the plug-in. MC should have all the relevant information in its database, so if transfers are working properly, then there shouldn't be a need to read tag info from the filename.

Another thing that Notmad does that is really nice is show you the tag info that it is going to put on the player before transferring the files. This gives me a chance to tweak or fine-tune the tags if I want them to be different on the player than on the computer.

One thing it doesn't do that would be really cool is this: give me the ability to swap tags or to search-and-replace tags on the fly at transfer time. For example, I have many multi-artist albums. I use "Artist" tag for track artist and "Album Artist" for album artist. Nomad jukeboxes don't understand "Album Artist". So it would be really cool to automatically replace "Artist" with "Album Artist" at transfer time. Ideally, MC would let me use its standard "placeholder" syntax to define the value of each tag and then replace the tags as it transfers. That would let me, say, set the Artist to "AlbumArtist - Artist" and the name to "Year - Name" or something. Not that I'd want to do anything that silly, but you get the idea.

I hope nobody gets the idea that I'm being ungrateful here. J River has been super responsive to my needs. When I complained about the "auto-rename" feature, somebody posted an updated plug-in literally within a few hours! But that track # problem is a real showstopper for me.

[Kurt Young]

I too am pleased as punch with my iPod.

It works BEAUTIFULLY with MC -- all of my smartlists are on my iPod now.

My 15GB "generation 3" iPod is smaller and lighter than a half-used bar of soap and has my entire music library on it.  I can put it in any pocket (well, not the "5th pocket" on my jeans, but... any other pocket, ).  This means that I have music on hand for any occasion, and never have to plan ahead for it.  No bag, no case, no CDs, no pouch.  My entire music library (okay, 15GB of it, anyway) fits in my front shirt pocket.  

The UI is nice, very easy to use, but I've never used a Zen (or any other Creative product) so I can't say that it's better.  I'm not totally pleased with Apple as a customer; I hear that Creative has MUCH better support, but then again, that's conjecture too.

USB2 is coming out (via the purchase of an additional cable) in late June, aye.  And aye, the iPod comes with a charger that you can plug into the wall.

[SteveG]

loraan,

There is something screwed up in the current MC version regarding tag saving. Prior to this being introduced (recently) the tagging for wma should have worked. If you can, please watch for a new version of MC which will resolve the tagging and then let me know if your issue with the plugin goes away.

Thanks,

Steve

[loraan]

Thanks, Steve. I'll keep an eye out. In the meanwhile, MC is still about ten thousand times better than everything else on the market combined for managing a music library and playing music. Gods bless J River for making such a fine product.

[Wobbley]

Dear Interested,

Don't waste any more time; go buy an iPod and be done with it.  There is no other hard drive-based MP3 player on the market that even comes close the iPod.  And, for those USB 2.0 users, the 3rd Generation iPods DO support USB 2.0 (with purchase of optional cable at a cost of, I believe, $39.95 from Apple's website).  Let me just share this with you...

I have an iPod (actually two now, the very first scroll-wheel 5 Gig, and a new 3G 30 Gig), and several of my other friends have iPods.  One friend of mine, who didn't already own an MP3 player, and whose only computer was a work-provided Toshiba laptop, decided he would buy an MP3 player.  This was about 2 weeks before the new 3G iPods came out, so he was looking at the 20 Gig iPod (which was priced at $399 before the new 3G iPods came out) and anything else that had at least 20 Gigs of storage.  I told him to get an iPod (remember this was BEFORE the new 3G iPods came out with USB 2.0 support), but he had the following concerns (basically in his words):

1) I have to buy a PCMCIA firewire card if I get an iPod, whereas my Toshiba laptop already has USB ports (granted, they were USB 1.1 which is slow as f__k when trying to transfer 20 Gigs worth of MP3s...)

2) If I take my iPod somewhere (i.e a friend's house), they probably won't have a firewire card so I won't be able to give them MP3s or copy their MP3s onto my iPod

3) The iPod costs $399 (again, the 20 Gig version), but the Nomad Zen (the 20 Gig from Creative) costs much less (I think it was MSRP of $299, or something like that)

I agreed that he had some well-founded arguments against getting an iPod, none of which had anything to do with the way the iPod looked (superior, perfect, a work of beauty), or the way it sounded (best audio chip/processor hands down), or the navigational ease of the MP3 player's OS (which, I believe, is an EXTREMELY important consideration when you acknowledge that you are going to have to navigate through 4,000+ MP3s on the fly...the way in which you navitgate through the artists, albums, songs, etc. must be as informative yet efficient and intuitive as possible)...

That said, we immediately went to Best Buy (we were out of town and he had to have one right then) and we found the Nomad Zen, open box (Best Buy term for something that's been purchased by someone else, but returned) and I think he paid about $225.  I again explained the speed (or lack thereof I should say) of transfering files from his laptop to the Nomad using his laptop's built-in USB 1.1 ports.  So, he opted to buy (for $54.99) the PCMCIA USB 2.0 adapter.  We walked out of Best Buy with him having spent around $320 or so (including tax) and we proceeded to head back and setup (and play with) the Nomad Zen MP3 player.  Now, because I have had an iPod since they were first introduced, I am obviously biased because I am familiar with it, how it works, usage, etc... and when we opened the Nomad, I was immediately disappointed by it's weight.  Given the size and weight of the iPod (and the 3G iPods are even smaller and lighter) I had, the Nomad was a brick (even though it is a relatively small MP3 player).  I felt "cheaply" made despite its weight and the small, black, thumb-manipulted scroll wheel was a nuisance, forcing you to hold the Nomad Zen in a particular way in order to operate it comfortably (which, was not comfortable for me, and I am 6'6", which should indicate to you that I have fairly large hands).  The screen on the Nomad was too small, and only showed a few lines of text at a time, which required more scrolling than I was used to performing on my iPod.  I won't go into driver installation issues because that's a problem that can be attributed to his OS, the OS version, and too many other factors to consider, but needless to say, we had a rather unfortunate time installing the drivers and getting the Nomad to work with Windows.

Now, to end, about a week after he bought the Nomad, Apple released the new 3G iPods.  I bought one 10 minutes after they were available on the website, and when my friend found out, he immediately returned the Nomad that night and waited until the iPod debuted at the local Apple store and he bought a 30 Gig.  I asked him if he had it to do all over again, having owned both the Nomad and the iPod, what would he choose?  He just sort of smirked and that was enough...he knew I had been right all along...

Moral of the story?  Buy an iPod...

[Doc_Holiday]

I am a first time iPod user.  So if you want an easy to use, great looking, good battery life, and best MP3 player get an iPod.  Nothing comes close to the new ones.  Now people will try and sell you a Zen but remember that there just mad that can't afford an iPod.  iPod's cost a bit more are a well worth the extra $$$$.  

[loraan]

One other factor that affected my decision: Zen supports WMA. At my purchase time, I don't think that iPod did.

[Kurt Young]

One other factor that affected my decision: Zen supports WMA. At my purchase time, I don't think that iPod did.

Aye, the iPod does not support WMA.  Never has, and I doubt that it ever will.

[JimH]

But if you have a WMA library, MC can convert it to MP3 as it uploads.

[Kurt Young]

But if you have a WMA library, MC can convert it to MP3 as it uploads.

 

Aye... aye it can.  I was hoping someone'd say something about that.  I almost put it in, but felt that I'd come off as too evangelistic.

Me?  Naaw!!    

iPod + MC all the way!

[kiwi]

But if you have a WMA library, MC can convert it to MP3 as it uploads.

Cool.  So can it also do the same for APE files?

I see no reason to keep MP3s around if I can just create them as needed.

I guess it could cause syncing to take a lot longer... and the MP3s aren't that big anyways.  But it would still be cool...

Kiwi

[loraan]

But if you have a WMA library, MC can convert it to MP3 as it uploads.

Sure, but what would a WMA-to-MP3 transcode do to the quality?

[GrumpyNick]

Sure, but what would a WMA-to-MP3 transcode do to the quality?

This is my concern also. I've had a 10GB IPOD for about four months, and I love it to bits. I have ripped the majority of my CDs as WMA and I'm undecided about converting to MP3 or re-ripping. When downloading to the IPOD I just create a smartlist of MP3s only, and then select my music from that. Does anyone have any recommendations for optimum MP3 settings when converting from 96kbps WMAs?

Cheers

Nick

[SteveG]

Kiwi,

Yes, MC can transcode APE as well.

[LisaRCT]

OK iPod wins hands-down based on what I have read here.
What about capacity? Has anyone found in real-life use that they actually could have gotten a smaller capacity?  Or regret not purchasing a larger capacity?  In theory it seems that 'bigger is better', but . . . .

[loraan]

Does anyone have any recommendations for optimum MP3 settings when converting from 96kbps WMAs?

Wooh. 96 Kbps WMA is, in my humble opinion, the lower threshold for listening quality with WMA. If space is at a premium, then 96 Kbps is listenable, but I can tell the difference in a side-by-side comparison with a CD. The problem, for me, would be that even the best transcoding will degrade quality to some degree, and if 96 Kbps WMA is already at the lower end, then transcoding to MP3 would probably push it into the "unpleasantly distorted" range.

But, putting that aside: in general, people say that WMA 8 gets approximately equal quality to MP3 at approximately half the bitrate. So 96 Kbps WMA is approximately equal to 192 Kbps MP3. In reality, it's not that simple, since WMA and MP3 do different things to the sound to compress it.

Regardless of the exact bitrate-to-quality ratio, most people do agree that WMA gives superior sound at lower bitrates than MP3, so you would definitely want to use a higher bitrate than 96 Kbps MP3, if your WMAs are 96 Kbps.

[Dan Da Man]

Capacity?  I'd say bigger is better on the iPod.

However, the smallest one (10GB, currently $299) does not come with the handy accessories, such as the nice black case, the remote on the headphone line, and the dock for your desk next to your computer.  These alone may be worth spending the extra $100 and getting 5GB more.

Otherwise, the capacity issue is all up to you.  Currently, my collection is at about 18.8GB.  I could get a 10 or 15GB, but then I cannot store all of it on there.  Of course, I don't really need to listen to all of it, but here's a the beauty of having it all on there:

One time, I was talking to a friend about music.  I was saying something like "This is a band I've been listening to, and they really sound good."  Of course, I had to describe what I thought the music sounds like (which I suck at).  I thought to myself, "If I had an iPod, I could pull it out of my pocket, hand him the headphones, and he could listen to it."

Also, methinks if you get one that does not hold your entire music collection, you might spend a lot more time changing what songs you have on there.

Of course, these musings are from a person who still hasn't gotten their iPod, mostly because I'm waiting for the USB2 support, which should come in a couple days.

Dan "da Man"

[kiwi]

I have a 5 gig iPod... the original.  I absolutely love it!!! It's definitely the best MP3 Player out there.  Best UI.

Plus now that it has USB 2.0, it should be backward compatible to 1.1 making it connect to just about any computer.

I want one of the new iPods.  

[TimB]

iPod is, IMHO, the best way to go.

Apple are pretty smart about design and UI and when you get to small format products these are two key issues.

...oh and (storagewise anyway) bigger is always better.

-=Tim=-

[LisaRCT]

OK, I see that the general consensus is the "bigger the better" (ahem, storage-wise anyway   ), and it appears that it is a better value in $ spent vs. time transferring files.  
I had considered that fitting my entire library on the iPod was a good way to judge, BUT my library continues to grow . . . .
It already surpasses the 30gb mark, so I am forced to select portions and perform occaisional transfers / file swaps anyway.  
It looks like I will not be able to 'have my cake and eat it too'.  That only leaves the size/weight comparisons of the 20gb vs the 30gb iPod , and here I have a bit less concern as I have an advantage over shirt-pocket users . . . a purse    
Of cause there is the cost/value (which I believe is about the same $-per-GB).
Now I just need to find a dealer and see how the two feel in my hands and says 'Buy ME!' . . . . .  
oh yea, and come up with the cash     ?  :-/    

Listening to Grateful Dead - Shakedown Street - Fire on the Mountain
on MC9, of course . .  . . (which she is still paying for on her credit card along with the 200GB hard drive)  

[KingSparta]

I don't think I would ever by an IPOD due to it has a hard drive and i have not seen what the reaction of joging and damage to the hard drive when doing so.

I think a better MP3 player would be the new Rio 256megs with a build in radio.

[LisaRCT]

I don't think I would ever by an IPOD due to it has a hard drive and i have not seen what the reaction of joging and damage to the hard drive when doing so.

I think a better MP3 player would be the new Rio 256megs with a build in radio.

 Jogging . . . YIKES . .  not this girl!   LOL

Radio?? Eeeeewww . . .  not unless it is RadioParadise.com  

But thanks King, I will consider the physical hard-drive question . . .  any comments on that?

[Kurt Young]

Preach it!  Aye!

The iPod has a teeny little hard drive in it.  To take it running or jogging would be, in my most humble of opinions, folly.

People who buy a hard-disk-based MP3 player for the sole purpose of exercising with it have bought the wrong player.  If you must have music when you run, get a solid-state CompactFlash (or similar) based player.  

No moving parts means no heartache when you permanently damage your iPod's hard drive due to running around with it while it's spinning.

[AndyCircuit]

Dropped a hd by accident on the hard floor once. Two day later it was in the waste bin.
BTW, as a craftsman I got exercises all day long so the iPod hd would move more than me  

[LisaRCT]

Hmmm, valid points, I don't run or jog but who knows what may come about.
Back to the drawing board??

[Mysticeti]

I wonder what the iPod manual says about jogging?

I would think that they'd give you some idea about how much punishment it can take (jackhammer operator: no, walking the dog: sure).

Btw, the Apple store site offers an iPod armband which speficically mentions jogging so I would think that's an approved activity.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?family=Accessories&subCategory=Music

Cheers!

[Kurt Young]

Well aye, they cushion it and buffer the music and do everything they can to make it as jogging-friendly as possible.

But Apple can tell me a million times that it's okay to take a hard drive on a jog, and I will tell them a million times that they're smoking crack.

I'm sure that if you say that the hard drive was destroyed by jogging with it that they'll honor your warranty and fix it.  But why not avoid the headache altogether and leave the hard drive at home when going out for a run, eh?

You know how your cheeks (the ones on your face, heh) tend to bounce up and down every time you take a stride?  That's physics hard at work, sending a kinetic shockwave through your entire body and everything attached to it every time your foot hits the pavement.  No matter how you hold that thing, it's gonna get a steady stream of shocks through it; odds are that hard disk is gonna be spinning at some point when one of those shocks hit.

The 5GBs were, for some reason, much less prone to freezing/breaking due to a jog.  But most other models of iPod (haven't heard about the new ones yet) just don't "sport" well.

I reccomend an iPod for "chilling" or commuting or virtually any activity in the world.  Except exercise or any other environment that will result in it getting constantly jostled.  I reccomend a RAM-based player for running or exercise.  Even though you shouldn't run with a hard drive, the iPod is still the best player out there, IMHO.

[fex]

For jogging I us my noname player with 128 MB. One hour is enough.  

They are really cheap at the moment (around 60 USD in Switzerland). They are not really heavy. No Problems with rain, dropping or else. No problems with this really heavy harddisk. And my iPod is safe.  

[KingSparta]

CNET Does Not Recomend IPOD For Jogging

http://electronics.cnet.com/electronics/0-6342420-1305-7654493-1.html?tag=st.ce.6342420-1304-7654493.dir-rev.6342420-1305-7654493

ZDNet Does Not Recomend The Ipod For Jogging

http://new-reviews.zdnet.co.uk/review/18/2/124.html

other than that i think the IPOD does real well

=====================================

Jogging Mode:

what would be nice is if the IPOD would hold 10 gigs or so and also have 256megs of flash and allow it to activate the hard drive only when transfering music from the internal drive to the flash when the user requests music from the drive or work in the standard ipod mode

[tbone66]

http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/iFP-390T.asp

I bought the version prior to these when I was looking for something to take to the gym, on the road (running), etc.  These units are absolutely awesome!  The 128mb and above versions also have an FM Tuner.  A voice recorder is built in and it can record from the tuner as well.  Five band EQ with a user setting and several presets and the sound is good.

The new versions also support any file type, not just music, so it's a great way to carry files to and from wherever.

Sorry to sound like a commercial, but these things are awesome!

The only store I've seen them in is Best Buy.

Their support is awesome as well - constantly tweaking and adding additional features to perfectly stable  firmware.

And they are less than their Rio counterparts.

Tbone

[tbone66]

Forgot to mention they're only one letter off from our favorite software publisher!!  

Tbone

[dkan24]

I have the NexII from Frontier Labs http://www.frontierlabs.com/NEXIIe.html#Features
and think it is great.  The sound quality is excellent and you can expand the storage via Compact Flash.  I currently have a 1 GB CF card.  It cost $109 and I got the 1 GB from Dell for $160.  

I have compared the sound quality to my friend's IPOD and the NexII won hands down.  You definately can jog with it, it hardly weighs anything.  A nice review here:
http://hardware.mp3.com/hardware/individual/3282.html

[Endymion]

1) The IPOD does indeed use its ram to buffer the hard drive.   The hard drive fills the ram and then shuts down; I believe you get about 20 minutes of music before the hard drive spins up again.

2) The manual does say that the IPOD is built for active use.  I've been jogging with it with no problems. YMMV.

3) I bought and returned a nomad zen earlier in the year.  Main reason was the display was so tiny I had trouble reading it.  Its user interface also was annoying and the size was a bit too large for comfort in my pocket.

4) I bought a 30G IPOD 3.0 recently.  The size is perfect.  The user interface is very nice (I love the touch-button and jog wheel system).  I love the download speed over the firewire interface and the USB2 support so I can use it with my laptop at work (synchronize my calendar and contact lists to the IPOD).   The large screen size is kind to my eyes.   It charges though the firewire port or has an external charging unit.  I've run frequency sweeps on it in the lab and it has better bandwidth than my old nomad jukebox into a headphone load.  I've run RMII distortion tests on it and it does very well.   It sounds great.  Highly recommmended...


John