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Revenge of the iPod?


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We all keep music on our phones, right? But lately there's been a surge of interest in personal music players. Maybe some of it's nostalgia (iPods selling on eBay), maybe some of it's headphone jacks being eliminated, maybe it's just that some people like dedicated portable music players.

 

But this one takes the cake. At $999, it's more than a high-end iPhone. But check out the review...the guy seemed genuinely impressed. Hmmm...

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Seems like a nice bit of kit, but $999 is a lot of dough and probably beyond most folks' budgets

 

The car I drive at work (Skoda Fabia) has a USB socket. My entire music collection is currently on an SD card. I bought a USB adapter and now I can listen to anything from my collection as I drive around the leafy lanes of Lancashire

 

Spent a good few weeks ripping my CD collection to the SD card at 320kbps. Sounds great in the car. The SD card cost me about £30

 

I don't want to listen to music as I'm walking around. I want to hear what's going on around me

 

I have a very good Denon CD player at home and some excellent headphones. That and the SD card in the car at work is how I listen to music. I don't need a $999 portable music player

 

:wave:

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We all keep music on our phones, right? But lately there's been a surge of interest in personal music players.

 

But this one takes the cake. At $999, it's more than a high-end iPhone. But check out the review...the guy seemed genuinely impressed. Hmmm...

 

It's less than an iPhone, too, in that it's not a phone and it won't run WaveMachine Auria. I've seen a few of these high end portable players in the >$600 range. Some have wood trim on the case. You can hook up your $1200 headphones and listen in luxury while you're getting where you're going in your self-driving car.

 

They're really good D/A converters and have really good headphone amplifiers, but you need really good headphones in order to appreciate them, and then you need to be in the right place at the right time. I play music off my phone through a cassette adapter to my car radio when I'd driving along on the Interstate. It works just fine.

 

 

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The retro-gear movement already started with vinyl, refurbished iPods being sold on eBay, and hi-fi fans seeking vintage gear on which to play their vintage albums (as covered in the most recent newsletter). There are people who still listen on cassettes.

 

At least people are drawing the line at 78s...at least, I think so...

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I bought a Walkman (yes, they've gone digital). It's tiny, can accept a huge memory card, and needs no proprietary software like iTunes (which I dislike) to get tunes on and off. Plug it into the computer and it just looks like a USB flash drive. Drag and drop.

 

I play it through the AUX input of my car, and it sounds quite a bit better than my iPod did. I have over 10,000 songs on it culled from my LP, CD and Download collection (I d/l mp3s from Amazon and the like to avoid iTunes) and it goes in my car wherever I go. I call it "Radio Bob".

 

Pros: Sounds better, easier to get tunes on and off, small size

 

Cons: USB cable is expensive if you ever need a replacement, the screen is too small to easily read the song info while driving (and sometimes unsafe so better left unread).

 

Why a USB player and not my phone?

 

I'm not addicted to my phone, it's an occasional call, GPS, and pocket Google. I can stick the Walkman to the dash and let it play without taking the phone out and in it's case. Also, over 10,000 songs at last count, and I keep adding as I rip old LPs to mp3 files. OK, I admit it, I'm a music junkie.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

 

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I bought a Walkman (yes, they've gone digital).

 

Cons: USB cable is expensive if you ever need a replacement, the screen is too small to easily read the song info while driving (and sometimes unsafe so better left unread).

 

Does it have an unusual connector on the device that requires a special Sony cable? USB-A to Micro or Mini USB cables are practically a dime a dozen these days.

 

I used to carry NothingFamous name-I-can't remember MP3 players, never a Sony, once a Toshiba that I left behind on an airplane and of course it was never found, I think lastly a Polaroid. Before that, I carried a Nomad Jukebox 3 and before that, a CD player. Now I just carry my phone. I play radio shows on it, each "song" runs for two or three hours, and I delete them after I hear them, so being able to pick out a song out of ten thousand isn't important to me. And now I have to carry only one device instead of two, and only charge one battery instead of two.

 

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