MP3 player or MiniDisc

[Ryan Lintker]

Well, the holiday season is fast approaching, and gifts are to be received and given, and on many lists are digital music players.  I have a Rio mp3 player back from the early days, it was allright but it had its limitations, small amount of memory, limited display, slow transfer rate, etc.  I've been looking at MiniDisc players and they seem to be more fitting.  Record from multiple sources, cheap cheap cheap media, etc.

My question is:  What do you have?  What do you like about it?  What isn't so great?  Which is better?

[Michael Kennedy]

Well, here's what I have for an mp3 player: I have a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 PDA (runs Linux) and I just got a 256mb CF card for it to store mp3s and other files.  It works beautifully and it's not just a one use item.  I can listen to mp3s, write some programs/notes/papers with it's built-in keyboard, and I can play Spider Solitaire when class gets too boring.  :)

[Peter Motyka]

Yes, mindiscs are cool, but they are of limitied use.  Unless you find a model that has a full PC integration package, they are pretty useless with digital media.  I heard it is possible to store data on them... But this has been refuted by many people.

Forget it, the topic of using MD to store data have been done and dusted a million times in alt.audio.minidisc (did you not read their VFAQ? ;-). It is *not* possible to store data onto an audio MD, period. Sony did at one point release data MDs for PCs, but these are slow, expensive, not widely available outside Japan and the most stupid thing they've done is that it's not compatible with the audio MDs, you have to fork out a stupid amount for a 140Mb blank medium. As a storage medium, Zip probably blows its socks off.
Sorry.

Overall, it would add an extra step to your digital media library.  You would have to sit there as each song played and recorded to the minidisc.  This of course will only work nicely if you have a optical output on your sound card.  Unless you have the need to record alot of live music in a high quality format, you might want to stick to a mp3 device.

Peter

[Matt Osmoe]

I have an archos 6gb USB hard drive/mp3 player. It is pretty sweet. The newer ones have up to 20gb and can play videos. I have also heard of ones that come sans the hard drive and any notebook drive will do. The transfer speeds aren't too bad, 10mb won't take anytime, but a gig will take a while. I would go for a hd based just becuase of flexibility and compacity.
   Matt

[Ryan Lintker]

Well, Sony has some that connect via usb that have you use their software to put mp3s, wav, cd audio into their proprietary format and onto the player.  I don't know if that is what Peter meant by full PC integration, but it should cancel out the sound card factor.  A full blown PDA would be nice, but way out of budget.  How is the sound quality on those anyway?  I'd like something that's light and can handle a day or two in the tractor in the spring even with some serious power hop going on.  (Air ride seats and four wheel drive can lead to some headaches.)  A hard drive mp3 player would be sweet, but how well do they take jolts?  Battery life?  Would you take one running?

[Michael Kennedy]

Yeah, the PDA/mp3 player can get pricey and have less battery life and storage space than the "cheap"est iPOD, but if you're going to get a PDA anyway it sure is nice.

The Zaurus, btw, has a stereo output and appears to be no worse in quality than my SB Live! card at home.  Of course, I'm not using 5.1 speakers, but with my cheapie ear buds everything sounds wonderful.

[Matt Osmoe]

hd/mp3 players - Batery life is pretty good, I ran it from Edwardsville to U of I and back with out a problem. It never skips and I have dropped it a couple times w/o damaging it.

[Guest]

I'm not an expert or anything, but I like my RCA Kazoo mp3 player.  It's small and light, and comes with an armband, so I can wear it at the gym, which was the reason I wanted one.  On the downside, batteries go pretty quick, but I can fit over an hour of music on it when I put in a SmartMedia card.