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Thread: MP3 players

  1. #1
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    MP3 players

    The "how do you take your music" thread got me wandering down memory lane... Perhaps some of you may recall that before apple "invented" the ipod, and before smart phones erased the mp3 player from the technology landscape, there was a pretty well stocked niche market in high end MP3 players... When I say "high end" I only mean that some thought was put into the quality of the audio output and feature set, and they were damn expensive! $500 was not out of the question.

    I was working for Sony Music in the late 90's and I still recall the day one of my tech friends clued me into to MP3's... I was immediately hooked. Not only on the format, which was awesome, but on the new peer file sharing services that had yet to hit most people's radar. It was a magical time for technology... I got my first "always on" internet connection at that time, and having never had anything but dial up at home, I had an insane compulsion to actually be using the connection at all times. I mean shit - it's always on! I should always be using it! And having the ability to queue up music and video downloads was the perfect way to do that. Every night I'd race home from work to see how many downloads had completed, and add more to the list.

    Before Apple decided that they should own your MP3 file system, so you could never really extract your music once you'd imported it to your ipod, players used a fat file system to store music and you'd just manage everything that way. And since CDDB didn't exist yet, every file you ripped had to be named, and every file you downloaded had to be renamed. ID3 tags existed, but was inconsistently supported.

    Gradually, as with any good technology, the masses get clued in, and fuck it all up. The napster debacle ensued, the iPod killed the MP3 player market, the file share networks got flooded with bullshit, queue the DMCA, blah, blah, blah...

    Anyway.. There were some great players back in the day. My top three were (in chronological order):

    Toshiba MEG50AS



    Music was stored on a PCMCIA hdd that could be removed from the player and inserted to your laptop (or adapter) for transferring music. Best sync setup ever.

    iRiver IHP-140



    Digital Audio Out - remote display and controls - support for about a million codecs. Best MP3 player ever.

    iAudio M3/M5





    Similar to the 140, but minus the digital out.

    Anyone else develop this addiction? Don't even get me started on RockBox!
    Last edited by stfu&gbtw; 10-07-2014 at 10:13 AM.
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  2. #2
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    Fuck you nerd
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    my first mp3 player was a creative zen. i think it had an actual disk drive in it, about the size of a deck of cards. i am still currently rocking a 1st gen ipod nano.

    funny to hear to OP bitch about apple locking shit down when sony basically shot themselves in the foot in the mp3 player market by doing the same thing but even worse.
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  5. #5
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    Still use mine for skiing. Creative MuVo 512 MB. Basically a USB flash drive with a AAA power supply and a sweet dot matrix screen.

    I've concluded that DJSapp was never DJSapp, and Not DJSapp is also not DJSapp, so that means he's telling the truth now and he was lying before.

  6. #6
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    Apple just discontinued the ipod Classics. I use mine on our living room sound system, it's probably in use 6 hours every day. Two weeks ago, they were for sale everywhere for around $230; now ebay is selling them for a lot more. Should have picked up a backup last month.

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    Quote Originally Posted by butterscotch View Post
    my first mp3 player was a creative zen. i think it had an actual disk drive in it, about the size of a deck of cards. i am still currently rocking a 1st gen ipod nano.

    funny to hear to OP bitch about apple locking shit down when sony basically shot themselves in the foot in the mp3 player market by doing the same thing but even worse.
    Nah, no sympathy for Sony. They couldn't help but step on their own dick trying to sort out the priorities of capitalizing on the MP3 player market, and protecting their investment in music publication. They should have been the most advantageously situated company to make it work, but they couldn't see it and it was a non-starter the whole way. And realistically, the Korean companies never adapted to western expectations for customer service and support. Besides which, it wasn't Apple's "fault"... The masses, who are idiots, fell in love with the scroll wheel and that was that.
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    Still rockin' my Shuffle. Its small size is the best for running/biking/skiing. The only drawback is the limited capacity.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Flyoverland Captive View Post
    Apple just discontinued the ipod Classics. I use mine on our living room sound system, it's probably in use 6 hours every day. Two weeks ago, they were for sale everywhere for around $230; now ebay is selling them for a lot more. Should have picked up a backup last month.
    WTF?! They don't even offer anything larger than 64gb now (the Touch)! So basically they discontinue the Classic and now their best offering doesn't even offer as much capacity as what they had 8 freaking years ago (the 80gb back in '06). Talk about a step backward. Glad I'm still rocking my 120gb Classic! Fingers crossed that this thing never conks out on me. It's been amazing all these years. Bought it back in '07 and the battery life is still great, and it still holds my entire collection of music and audio books. I'd understand the planned obsolescence if they were to offer something BETTER, but as of right now they don't have anything as good. I'm sure they're just trying to prop up their cloud offerings, but I guess Apple doesn't understand that some of us like our music when traveling and don't always have internet service.

    I'm also a huge fan of my old nano with the touchscreen. About as small as the shuffle but way more functional. Love it for running. Again, a step backwards with the newer model. What are you doing, Apple?!

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by AustinFromSA View Post
    What are you doing, Apple?!
    Planned obselence. It is their way. You should be in line for an iphone 6.

    Or for $55 you can get a Sandisk Sansa Clip + and a 32 GB microSD and have a 40 GB mp3 player.

    I lost mine, good little thing

    I've concluded that DJSapp was never DJSapp, and Not DJSapp is also not DJSapp, so that means he's telling the truth now and he was lying before.

  11. #11
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    I still have a few hundred data cds of shn files and a couple thousand cds of music.... although I have not listened to a cd in months. ETree and the old derivatives took way more of my time than I would admit.

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    Quote Originally Posted by stfu&gbtw View Post

    Before Apple decided that they should own your MP3 file system, so you could never really extract your music once you'd imported it to your ipod,
    I never really understood this complaint because the music is always stored in a logical manner on the computer. Sure its via itunes, but all you need to do to copy is go in via the file folders & copy it.

    Apple became & still is so popular because their shit is intuitive & so easy to use for the non-nerds & less tech-literate. You nerds can't pull your heads out of your assholes long enough to figure this out

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    ^^^ Agreed. And there are programs that let you extract the files from an iPod back to a PC. iTunes won't let you, but plenty of freeware exists to do it.

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    iPod didn't kill the RCA/etc mp3 player market, iTunes for Windows (2004) did. everybody then tried to make their own "iPod killer" but they were all too damn expensive (Archos) or too bulky (Creative Zen and Zen M) or seriously derped in some way

    the iPod (until recently sold as the Classic) was well known for being a piece of overpriced shit, but with the Windows release of iTunes Music Store, it was really the only thing that *worked* without messing around with formats and tags
    holy fucking shitballs

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    Quote Originally Posted by jamesp View Post
    I never really understood this complaint because the music is always stored in a logical manner on the computer. Sure its via itunes, but all you need to do to copy is go in via the file folders & copy it.

    Apple became & still is so popular because their shit is intuitive & so easy to use for the non-nerds & less tech-literate. You nerds can't pull your heads out of your assholes long enough to figure this out
    It is now, but that wasn't originally the case. On early ipods, the sync would rename all the files and reorder them in randomly created directories. At that time, the only way to know which files were which was through the itunes database.
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  16. #16
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    when did that change? I've had the same ipod since 2004 (? maybe), & yes the same ipod still going strong & used daily. First sync'd on a PC then on Mac since. Music was always arranged randomly on the ipod but always in a logical manner on the actual computer.

  17. #17
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    Not sure exactly. At one time, all the data was completely obfuscated. Gave up on the ipod ages ago. Owned one for a week in 2003 or so and sold it. Bought a gen6 off ebay several years ago because it was supported by Rockbox. It was okay, but the scroll wheel was still retarded.
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    Quote Originally Posted by stfu&gbtw View Post

    iRiver IHP-140



    Digital Audio Out - remote display and controls - support for about a million codecs. Best MP3 player ever.
    Agreed.... I still have mine from 2000 was it?.... Great quality. Easy to use. NO BULLSHIT (itunes) SOFTWARE to hassle with. Plug it in on any computer and it shows up as a external hard drive... shwing over your music or what ever and off you go.

    Still using mine.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by TomCrac View Post
    Agreed.... I still have mine from 2000 was it?.... Great quality. Easy to use. NO BULLSHIT (itunes) SOFTWARE to hassle with. Plug it in on any computer and it shows up as a external hard drive... shwing over your music or what ever and off you go.

    Still using mine.
    Yep... and probably one of the nicest "feeling" devices I ever owned. The finish, buttons, etc all just conveyed a sense that you'd bought a really high quality device. Similar to the Apple stuff, but geared toward people who actually gave a shit about the technology. And no BS to buy after the fact either.... Shipped with a fantastic leather case. I still have most of my players, but all the disks are dead. My last 140 disk crashed in about 2012 and I just switched over to the phone.

    However, that was not the first phone I used as an MP3 player.... Anyone remember this gem?

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  20. #20
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    Sony eventually learned that proprietary files won't work.

    This was the best mp3 player I've owned:



    It came up as a hard drive, had a decent interface and the sound quality was actually quite good. It'd still be using it if it hadn't been stolen from my car.

    Maybe I'm in the minority, but I still like having an MP3 player around.

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    Quote Originally Posted by DJSapp View Post
    Planned obselence. It is their way. You should be in line for an iphone 6.

    Or for $55 you can get a Sandisk Sansa Clip + and a 32 GB microSD and have a 40 GB mp3 player.

    I lost mine, good little thing

    I still use mine^^^ for skiing and in places where there is no cell coverage (since it's smaller, lighter, more indestructible and has better battery life than my iPhone).

  22. #22
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    Meant to mention.... Zune.

    I had/have one, like new because it was such a pain in the ass to use. Nice feeling device in the hand but terrible "I want to control your experience" software. Plug it in to a different pc and it automatically would start deleting my stuff. F that.

  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Flyoverland Captive View Post
    Apple just discontinued the ipod Classics. I use mine on our living room sound system, it's probably in use 6 hours every day. Two weeks ago, they were for sale everywhere for around $230; now ebay is selling them for a lot more. Should have picked up a backup last month.
    You want a 120GB 7th Gen classic, color black? I've had one sitting collecting dust for over a year. Saw your post so put a charge on it to see how it was doing. Been playing non-stop audio as a test for the last 36 hours and it's about to die. So it still has plenty of battery love. $150 shipped to lower 48 paypal gift, insured. You get first dibbs, I'm PMing you too. If you say no by Monday, it is open to anyone that wants it or it's going to fleabay.
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  24. #24
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    Thanks, but I'll have to pass. Funny timing; found out an hour ago i'm moving, and plan to set up my system differently in the new place.

    Thanks though!

  25. #25
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    My first mp3 player was an (at the time un-heard of) 20GB Archos Jukebox:



    Now I have one of the 80GB iPod Classics, but I rarely use it. I just fuck around with my playlists and load them onto my phone.

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