What mp3 player should I get...

[VTECaddict]

meh, MP3's in 128kbps and up sound perfectly fine to me.

[eaglecatcher]

I like mp3s in 512kbps. Thats pretty decent sound quality.

[Ecmslee]

eaglecatcher, as long as you didn't tell iTunes to add DRM to your music when you were ripping them from CDs, you should have no problems using your iTunes imported music on other non-Apple players (provided that the player can play AAC). If you have mostly mp3s in your library then that would make things even easier since mp3s don't have DRM and virtually all portable DAPs support that format.

My sister has a 30GB 5.5G iPod (aka video iPod). Her impressions? She's less than impressed with the battery life. I haven't used the Vision so I can't say anything about it.

Also, since we're on the subject I'd like to add that the general consensus among the members on Hydrogenaudio is that a LAME encoded VBR mp3 at approximately 190 kbps is considered transparent (transparent = most people cannot distinguish the MP3 from the original in an ABX blind test). I am able to confidently ABX a ~130 VBR kbps mp3 song from my library. However when I tried to do that on the same song at 165 kbps I was basically guessing at whether I could really hear any differences between the original CD track and the mp3.

What this amounts to is that encoding above 190 kbps VBR mp3 gives diminishing returns. If you are encoding at bitrates higher than this you either have golden ears or are wasting space that you could otherwise be using to store more music.

Personally, I rip all my songs from CDs into FLAC (I have the space to spare). This way, I can listen to my music in lossless quality and encode to other lossy formats such as mp3, AAC, Vorbis, etc. when I need to without having to rip from the CDs again.

For anyone interested in learning more about audio technology, I would suggest visiting the Hydrogenaudio forums at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org.

Relevant links here-
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php ... Ogg_Vorbis
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=AAC
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=FLAC
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php ... ning_Tests

PS-
You can load RockBox firmware to the iPod which would then allow for it to decode mp3, AAC, Vorbis, ALAC, FLAC, Wavpack, and AC3. Although since you want to watch videos I guess this isn't that big of an advantage since video playback with RockBox is still in the preliminary stages.

[eaglecatcher]

I believe all of the music is saved into the itunes file on my harddrive, and I'm just going to highlight all, right click, and turn it into an mp3 format, and dump it into the creative file (if I get a zen). The ones that don't work, I'm just going to download illegally. its not my fault if iTunes sells me music that I can't play on anything but an iPod.

not like I'm gonna get caught anyway

[Ecmslee]

May I also suggest the Zune? It supports video, has a 3.0" screen, and plays AAC. If you go this route you wouldn't have to transcode from AAC to MP3. As long as your music is not DRMed you should be able to play them on the Zune without transcoding.

I believe there may also be a way to remove iTunes DRM from the music files. I haven't tried it myself since I prefer to buy actual CDs over downloading DRMed lossy music files. If this is something that you want to try you should run a search for "hymn".

Transcoding from lossy to lossy (AAC/MP3/etc. to AAC/MP3/etc.) is generally frowned upon in the audiophile community since it rapidly introduces more audio artifacts. This is the reason why I suggest that you try to keep your music as their original files if you have mostly AAC files.

One more thing, since you said you like 512 kbps MP3s (I'm assuming this means you have some 512 kbps MP3s on your computer), note that both the iPod and Zune state that they support up to 320 kbps for MP3 on their respective specification pages. I couldn't find the maximum MP3 bitrate supported for the Vision W.

[eaglecatcher]

I hate zunes. They are just weird to me. I liked them at first, and after toying with my friends, not good. They break easily too. My friend dropped his while I was at his house, and it broke. It fell maybe 3 feet. Even my iPod doesn't break from that.

[Prodigal Son]

This is mine:

http://www.thesourcecc.com/estore/Produ ... ct=1419923

I detest headphones.

[Gish]

No Mac support = BOOOO!!

[eaglecatcher]

I don't have a mac, and my parents will be buying me a computer when I head off to college, and they hate macs, so I wont have a mac for a long time. There will be something new by the time I get to own a mac.

[Gish]

I hate zunes. They are just weird to me. I liked them at first, and after toying with my friends, not good. They break easily too. My friend dropped his while I was at his house, and it broke. It fell maybe 3 feet. Even my iPod doesn't break from that.

I dropped one of the old touch sensitive ipods (the ones with 4 buttons above the "wheel") while I was riding my bike pretty fast a few years ago. It hit the groubnd, and I looked back in time to see it cartwheel down the road and slide to a stop. Picked it up and it was still playing!

[the dumblonde]

Hmm. The zen looks interesting, but i'd stick with an iPod for one reason that in my mind trumps almost everything else:

they're freaking troopers when it comes to impact damage!

Other players may have better features, but for me i just want my music. I've a had the 80GB iPod since January (birthday gift) and as usual everything that i had gripes with before Apple has fixed. This is my 4th iPod. I had my last one for almost 4 years. I was getting ready to just replace the battery (which is less of a pain than you would expect), not wanting to shell out for a new pod with an unnecessary full color screen, but my Mom surprised me for my birthday.

I understand why people gripe that iPods have battery issues. Because they did. Notice the past tense. The battery life on this current generation so far is phenomenal. I estimate i was getting well over 20 hours per charge. Which for me meant charging every 3 days. Not a hassle at all when most people have to charge their cell phones almost everyday.

As for mention about sound quality, file quality (and directly related file size) has been discussed above depth above. I'd like to add that buying a better pair of earphones can go a long way if you more picky about sound quality. The standard ear buds that come with every portable audio player i've every encountered have been average or below. So railing on Apple for not offering better ear buds is unsubstantiated. I personally like the stock ear buds for daily usage. Decent sound quality, comfy and i don't have to worry about an expensive pair of ear buds breaking because of daily abuse in and out of my bag.

If you really want all the other feature don't get an iPod. But if you want a music player that can take as much abuse as you can deal out, (I have been constantly amazed by the drops and other accidents my iPods have survived.) buy an iPod.

[GarySheehan]

My big gripe about these players are that they don't play good audio formats. I mean, some of us DO like formats other than relatively inferior MP3. For example, my favorite codec nowadays is FLAC . Before that, I used Ogg Vorbis.

Rockbox open firmware FTW! Rockbox plays OGG Vorbis and FLAC. Rockbox is available for iPods and several other players (like my iRiver iHP-120).

Rockbox is awesome!

http://rockbox.org

[dklkse]

Hmm. The zen looks interesting, but i'd stick with an iPod for one reason that in my mind trumps almost everything else:

they're freaking troopers when it comes to impact damage!

Other players may have better features, but for me i just want my music. I've a had the 80GB iPod since January (birthday gift) and as usual everything that i had gripes with before Apple has fixed. This is my 4th iPod. I had my last one for almost 4 years. I was getting ready to just replace the battery (which is less of a pain than you would expect), not wanting to shell out for a new pod with an unnecessary full color screen, but my Mom surprised me for my birthday.

I understand why people gripe that iPods have battery issues. Because they did. Notice the past tense. The battery life on this current generation so far is phenomenal. I estimate i was getting well over 20 hours per charge. Which for me meant charging every 3 days. Not a hassle at all when most people have to charge their cell phones almost everyday.

As for mention about sound quality, file quality (and directly related file size) has been discussed above depth above. I'd like to add that buying a better pair of earphones can go a long way if you more picky about sound quality. The standard ear buds that come with every portable audio player i've every encountered have been average or below. So railing on Apple for not offering better ear buds is unsubstantiated. I personally like the stock ear buds for daily usage. Decent sound quality, comfy and i don't have to worry about an expensive pair of ear buds breaking because of daily abuse in and out of my bag.

If you really want all the other feature don't get an iPod. But if you want a music player that can take as much abuse as you can deal out, (I have been constantly amazed by the drops and other accidents my iPods have survived.) buy an iPod.

iPod: The quintessential MP3 player for klutzes everywhere.

[eaglecatcher]

my brother bought a Zen Vision W a couple days ago, and it should be here today. I'm gonna wait and see if I like hisbefore I got drop 250 bucks on an mp3 player i've never seen. I've used the ipods,and they're alright, but I want to see if I like these better.

[Nychold]

my brother bought a Zen Vision W a couple days ago, and it should be here today. I'm gonna wait and see if I like hisbefore I got drop 250 bucks on an mp3 player i've never seen. I've used the ipods,and they're alright, but I want to see if I like these better.

You will. Creative makes some of the best stuff.