What's your portable audio solution?

[Mozgus]

So I've been through hell with the Creative Zen last month. I can't possibly express how fucking awful this product is. Two in a row were worthless; ridden with lockups and other issues. Absolutely pathetic. Do not buy, people. Thankfully Newegg is refunding me instead of replacing it with another turd Zen, despite it saying no refunds on this item. I've given them 3 grand in a few years, so...yeah.


Anyways, I had a Meizu Miniplayer for a year but it took a serious beating at work pretty consistently, and thus the headphone jack broke. I soldered it back together for a 2 week temp fix, but the time came to find a new solid budget solution.


I went with the Sansa Clip 2GB. $50. Very simple stuff. I'm fucking sick of high tech players failing me. I want something low tech and reliable now. So far, I'm impressed. Damn good sound quality, very small, but not too thin, FM works well, 2GB is plenty for me. My one gripe is it has no folder viewing. If you have tagless music like me, you best get tagging, because if you put more than 1 album on here in seperate folders, it'll just combine them into one playlist, all out of order. But with tagged music, its pretty nice, so I'm motivated to finish tagging my 75GB of music that I gave up on months ago.


Also, what app do you guys use for portable audio management? I'm finally trying out Winamp's Library functionality with this and it works pretty well, but there might be better. The best feature is how it automatically converts any of my obscure music codec stuff to MP3 before playing it on the player. Very handy for all my sequenced game music file like SPC, NSFE, VGZ, and all that.

Edit: Nevermind, it actually fails to convert most game music. Only seems to work with VGZ and 2SF stuff.

[ubelaffe]

I found a 1g nano for less than $40 from a friend and it's been great so far. I had a really crappy rca player that used a AAA battery and it was crap. Functionality was fine, but it was slow and the battery made it a little fat in comparison with any ipod or zune. My friend has a Korean video-capable mp3 player that looks great, has headphones and an internal speaker. Bad thing with that one is that it got visibly beat-up from everyday carry...

[tbeeghly]

Just curious Moz, have you never tried an iPod? I'm not trying to start a fanboy war, just curious. I never thought I'd be stuck on one brand, but the iPod does exactly what I need it to do. I've had one since the first 5gig back in '01 and have been plenty happy with every model I own. The 5gig doesn't see much use anymore, but it still works. I have a 20gig 3rd generation that still runs great that I let my girlfriend use. I now use an 80gig Classic. Have had no problems with it so far. I too have a huge collection of music, and I enjoy having it all with me wherever I go, just in case. I also use a 4gig nano when I exercise. I'm interested to hear your opinion about the iPod, Moz.

Also, I picked up a pair of the Sony NC-60 headphones about a year ago for $120 off Amazon. Amazing cans, perfect for just about every use, except exercising, as they're ear muffs. If you're looking for a good pair of phones, definitely give them a look.

[Mozgus]

Just curious Moz, have you never tried an iPod? I'm not trying to start a fanboy war, just curious. I never thought I'd be stuck on one brand, but the iPod does exactly what I need it to do. I've had one since the first 5gig back in '01 and have been plenty happy with every model I own. The 5gig doesn't see much use anymore, but it still works. I have a 20gig 3rd generation that still runs great that I let my girlfriend use. I now use an 80gig Classic. Have had no problems with it so far. I too have a huge collection of music, and I enjoy having it all with me wherever I go, just in case. I also use a 4gig nano when I exercise. I'm interested to hear your opinion about the iPod, Moz.

Also, I picked up a pair of the Sony NC-60 headphones about a year ago for $120 off Amazon. Amazing cans, perfect for just about every use, except exercising, as they're ear muffs. If you're looking for a good pair of phones, definitely give them a look.

My iPod/Apple friends haven't done a good job of convincing me to switch over, what with their hardware being just as faulty as the stuff I've come across. Also, I've heard a few times now that iPods requires iTunes to be installed, and since I dont even like WMP being installed on here, there's no chance I'm letting that blasted thing in. I just don't like Apple's strategy of holding your hand and treating you like an infant during the process of transferring some files. I can handle that on my own.

[tbeeghly]

I agree 100% with the holding hand deal. There are some of us who aren't completely technologically illiterate, and can convert their own music and transfer it themselves, but there are a lot of us who have no idea what the fuck an mp3 is. That said, sometimes it is really convenient to just plug in your iPod, let it automatically dump/upload what you want, and be on your way.

[Niode]

If you have a Mac then not having an iPod is stupid. They work straight away, all the other PMPs require workarounds or beta software and it's just stupid. I went from my perfectly good Creative Zen xtra (that I custom modified to 80GB, like to see anyone do that with an iPod...) to an iPod Classic 160GB. Purely because the only piece of software that was compatible with zens was buggy as fuck. (there was a minor issue with the battery not charging, but I could have found a replacement if I really tried)

I've just got an iPhone and I no longer use my iPod since getting a car, so if you wanted a 160GB Classic I would sell it to you brand new in box with everything (except headphones, obviously).

[RemyC]

I enjoy Ipods because: i can double up my audio player as an external hard-drive (comes in handy very frequently), Itunes is easy to organize files with, AND you become a part of the apple community!!!!

[Mozgus]

If you have a Mac then not having an iPod is stupid. They work straight away, all the other PMPs require workarounds or beta software and it's just stupid.

Tell that to my friend who owns a C2D macbook and an ipod, and it just stopped detecting her ipod one day, forever. The ipod still works on their 500mhz Windows XP machine, lol.

I enjoy Ipods because: i can double up my audio player as an external hard-drive (comes in handy very frequently), Itunes is easy to organize files with, AND you become a part of the apple community!!!!

1) Nearly all players can be used as hard drives.
2) There are countless file/tag organizing tools that are better than itunes out there, and most are free.
3) Is the Apple community any less douchey to you if you own Apple products? Because, they tend to treat the rest of us like neanderthals.

[fastbilly1]

I am sorry to hear about your problems Mozgus, I do hope you find a suitable solution soon.

I use an ipod simply because when I was looking for another mp3 player I wanted one that would be easy to get a new battery and accessories for. If I had thought it through alittle more I would have ended up with a Palm Lifedrive instead, but you live and learn. Now I have my ipod and palm and that covers most anything I need on the go. Granted the final straw for me buying one was that awesome warranty that Best Buy had on them for a time - Any issue means I can turn it in for a refurb, if they dont have my kind anymore I get a new one. I have used it a couple times now, no hassle, in and out, sadly it is no longer offered.

[xraydash]

I've actually had good luck with Creative products. I've got an older (and bulky) 30GB Nomad Zen Xtra that's still going strong. Mostly I use a cheapy ($19 "refurbished") 1GB Zen Stone that I got last xmas for music on the go. There's really nothing to it, it's so tiny, and I actually like being limited to just a handful of albums. As with the piles of games I have, sometimes I'm paralyzed by the sheer amount of choices available to me on the Xtra and/or my hard drive. I do rotate stuff through my Stone all the time.

I use foobar as my media player. It takes up barely any resources, which is important because my computer is kind of old, and is a breeze to use as far as tagging and general music file management is concerned. I can't use it with any of my Creative players though, so that is a drawback.