# MP3 Players



## py3ak (Nov 9, 2005)

I am looking to buy a couple of MP3 players, one for me and one for my wife. We're moving to Mexico soon so we don't have a lot to spend on them --but given that we'll be riding the Mexico City buses quite a bit we need something to keep us from going crazy being exposed to all the _norteÃ±o_ or whatever the bus driver happens to prefer.

So, any recommendations? We don't need anything really high-end. As long as it will play .wma and let me enjoy Hummel while others suffer Pedro Infante that's all I need.


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## gwine (Nov 9, 2005)

If you're considering having a Palm Pilot to use then they play MP3 through Real Player. If WMA is a necessity then a Pocket PC would be needed, unless you are willing to find other software besides Real Player. I use both to listen to music and sermons on the way to and from work.

I might add that you can get some pretty large SD cards (I have a 1GB in one of mine.) Some Pocket PC's can use Compact Flash and there are 4GB hard drives available.

[Edited on 11-9-2005 by gwine]


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## py3ak (Nov 9, 2005)

I do have a palm pilot --that leaves one mp3 player to be purchased. Anyone have any favorites?


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## BobVigneault (Nov 9, 2005)

Check out Overstock.com. They have some cheap ones and they can list them by best sellers with reviews. Blessings.


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## py3ak (Nov 9, 2005)

Thanks, Bob. I'll head over there now.


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## fredtgreco (Nov 9, 2005)

Ruben,

Walmart will have this Phillips 2GB player on sale for $100 on Black Friday:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3910156&sourceid=25646881801296591749

I don't know yet, but I would be surprised if Best Buy or Circuit City did not have lesser memory ones (256MB, 512MB) for very cheap that day.


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## cupotea (Nov 9, 2005)

And Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving?


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## BobVigneault (Nov 9, 2005)

Hey Fred, I'm still new on this planet. What is Black Friday?


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## BobVigneault (Nov 9, 2005)

ohhhhhhhhhh, Michael was answering while I was asking.


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## gwine (Nov 9, 2005)

My son works at Staples and they call the day after Thanksgiving "Green Friday" !


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## py3ak (Nov 9, 2005)

Thanks, Fred. Does anyone know if walmart.com or any other online store lowers its prices on the vari-colored Friday? 
Also, does anyone know about how many minutes/hours of music you get for what storage size?


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## Apologist4Him (Nov 10, 2005)

> _Originally posted by py3ak_
> Thanks, Fred. Does anyone know if walmart.com or any other online store lowers its prices on the vari-colored Friday?
> Also, does anyone know about how many minutes/hours of music you get for what storage size?



I recommend comparing prices at various places...amazon.com, buy.com, walmart.com, bestbuy.com, etc. 

http://www.newegg.com/ is my favorite online store for purchasing computer products. I sometimes use http://www.pricewatch.com/ just to get an idea of what the "bottom price" is.

Ok, now for a primer on minutes/hours and storage size...

256 Megabytes is the bottom of the barrel, 512 Megabytes is the next step up...

From there the size goes up to a Gigabyte. There are 1,000 Megabytes in 1 Gigabyte. I think you'll want a player with at least a Gigabyte or two of storage, especially if you plan on transfering very many sermons or lectures which can eat even a gig pretty quick.

The top two brands are Apple and Creative. I recommend a Creative player because you get "more bang for your buck". I recommend reading reviews. If you want to check out Creative's current selection of MP3 players, go here: http://www.creative.com/products/mp3/

I use an 'old' Creative Nomad Jukebox 2Lx with 20 Gigabytes of storage. I've used it at work for quite awhile now. It's only given me a problem one time (I had to manually wipe the hard drive clean), but it had to do with the Nomad Explorer software I used to transfer files to the player. I went back to using Creative Media Source Organizer, and havn't had any problem. 

One last thing should be noted, some MP3 players sound better than others, and the Creative player I use sounds great, however, I cannot play files encoded at 16 kbps 11 khz, which is fine with me, because that bit rate leaves much to be desired so far as quality is concerned, and the only format I know of which compresses files at that bit rate and can sound descent is the realaudio format, and I do not know of any player which can play realaudio files. I can't stand the metallic echo commonly found in low bit rate audio files. 40 - 64 VBR is about as low as I go, and that, only if the source is poor quality. I encode the Ligonier Ministries audio CD's I purchase at 128 kbps for my player. I wouldn't encode them any less than 64 VBR (that's variable bit rate, as opposed to CBR constant bit rate). 

[Edited on 11-10-2005 by Apologist4Him]


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## SRoper (Nov 10, 2005)

"Walmart will have this Phillips 2GB player on sale for $100 on Black Friday:"

As Philips is my employer, I feel obligated to point out that it is spelled with one "l."


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## bond-servant (Nov 10, 2005)

I have a Creative 'zen' mp3 player. It's been a good one. You can usually find predesessors (the 'zen' is probably one now!) for a good deal as the newer models are released.


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## fredtgreco (Nov 10, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Apologist4Him_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by py3ak_
> ...



Andrew,

One caveat. I believe that it is very difficult (if not impossible0 to find online sermons at 64kpbs or higher. I have found that stereo is not of much use in sermons, and that 32kpbs is actually high end. That is what I use on my sermons, and it is higher than most sermonaudio sermons. The file size just gets way to big for web downloading at more than that (my average sermon is 10MB). 10MB, or 20, or 30 is not much for an hour's worth of listening, but most websites don't have enough storage for it and many who download are still on dial ups.


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## Scott Bushey (Nov 10, 2005)

I use my Treo w/ a 1gig sd card. I have Real Player and Pocket Tunes. I believe the PT plays WMA as well.


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## VictorBravo (Nov 10, 2005)

I know it's not cheap, (~100) but my wife and I both have iPod shuffles and we think they are great. Small as a 5-pack of gum, light weight, easy to use. Right now, I have all the Brandenurg Concertos, a Brahms symphony, 22 hours of sermonaudio downloads, and Genesis 1-3 in spoken Hebrew. And there is room for more, even at 512 mb.

Vic


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