[shroomgirl]

Techno luddite....please help!

just discovering the difference between the two.....
I'm not interested in playing games nor in watching movies or videos via small handheld devices. So, it's music....probably 700-1000 song options is plenty...about 8mg should do it.

Youtube has some great recordings from the past....ie Neil Diamond 1972 or Melissa Ethridge singing "Piece of my heart" at a Janis Joplin event......picking and choosing great recordings through the years. Really interesting to hear the difference in concerts. So, being able to download off computer or from Cd's is important. It'd be great to be able to sort through songs easily....

So, for those of you into carting around music....what are the differences and what would you suggest?
TIA

[phatch]

The apple software is tricky and tends to include bloatware. For the same performance and specs, Apple products cost more but are often mor stylish and thinner.

I prefer Sansa and Cowon over Apple products. Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more! has good prices and selection and return policy.

The last few years, Costco has had a Christmas special on a Sansa player with good memory capacity at good prices.

[BryanJ]

i have a sansa and i love it. i dislike proprietary software, so ill never get an apple. got my 4gig player at target for $30 a few months ago. headphones sucked, but i dont like the in-ear style that came with it anyhow.

[phatch]

One thing Apple does is offer a simple CD ripping system. BUt it's not a very good quality system though I'm told it can be tweaked.

I use a free program from Germany call Exact Audio Copy. Introduction Exact Audio Copy The site and program have a good English interface. It supports a lot of formats including mp3

It's a deep program and I am no expert so I use some guides to help set it up like this one Exact Audio Copy Guide

Under the compression options topic is the MP3 section. Click that and it will give you configuration info. In step 7 "Additional Command Line Options" you'll set the quality of your ripped mp3. I'd recommend the 'Fast Extreme' preset. File sizes are larger but sound quality is very good.

On a disk in good shape, you can rip and convert a CD in about 15 minutes (depending on your hardware) One of my earliest CDs, Yes's 90215, is in terrible shape. It won't play on anything I've tried in a few years now. However, EAC was able to extract an no skip copy of the disc. It took a few hours though on a Pentium 4 system I was using at the time. Would be faster now but it goes to show what EAC can do.

[shroomgirl]

luddite remember....
my 17 year old nephew was giving me a brief tutorial a couple of days ago as I was dropping him off at a meeting.

Apparently both can record off a computer playing cds, both can accept Youtube recordings, but one (Ipod?) can only be used on your computer not anyone elses....and one is easier to find songs on, I presume the one with the bigger screen.

What's the current rule about downloading songs from the internet? Honestly I wasn't paying attention until now.

I'm not interested in silly ear plugs. But it's cool when nephew plugs his tunes into the car radio and I get to pick through his lineup.

Desirable attributes:
easy to use
can be played over computers & cars or just on it's own
can record from Youtube & CD's
battery that does not need juice all the time

Not needed nor wanted:
games
movies

TIA

[Filthy Habitz]

The best one for you would be a USB MP3 Player. You normally just plug it in and drag files.
Batteries are better then having to recharge all the time. I hate when your iPod runs out middle shift and your music less. There are plug in charges but with apple all extras cost money