[diamondgeezer]

I'm thinking about getting one as a replacement for my ageing and somewhat wobbly CD player. What do I need to know - manufacturers to avoid and such. What experiences have you lot had with certain brands? And so forth.

[mikhael]

Don't bother with the solid state MP3 players except for use in the gym. Get a hard drive based one. I recommend the Archos myself.

Sandwich has a nifty CD player that also plays MP3s as tracks, so you can have both formats at once.

[Knight Templar]

I got rid of my CD player because it was so old, it eventually wouldn't play my CD's straight and would **** them to hell. Sandy Pointed me to iRiver.
 
 I was on a tight budget so I made the mistake of getting a small 128mb one. It was *only* $140 USD, but for another $60 or so, I could have gotten a 512mb or summat. I figured 2 CD's worth of music would hold me over wherever I went untill I realised I couldn't switch CD's in the car or wherever I went.

[Stealth]

yeah, i walked into wal mart the other day and they have those MP3 compatible CD players for like $70.00... they're supposedly "shock-proof", with a 60 second standby mode or whatever... i've never used one of them, but they seem pretty cool.

on my regular CD player (i only use it at school) the one side-effect is the spinning of the CD uses a lot of battery power, so i can only play a CD for 2 hours max

[Flipside]

I've got one of those CD based MP3 players, it suffers from the same problem It uses a lot of power on spinning the Discs and using the laser.
Hard Drive based ones are more economical, and solid state are the best of all on battery power, but you pay in storage space usually.

Flipside

[Thorn]

My Panasonic MP3/CD/AM/FM Radio lasts quite a while... I got this thing over a month ago, and I havent had to change the batteries yet... I use the thing every day almost, all features.. MP3, Radio and CD...
Just using plain coppertops...

[pyro-manic]

NetMD - about a CD's worth of MP3s on a disc. Then you can fit about five discs in your pocket, as well as the player. Sorted. Discs are a lot cheaper than the storage cards/sticks for MP3 players, anyway.

Although if you've got the cash I'd go for a 20Gb iPod....

[Taristin]

Originally posted by mikhael

Sandwich has a nifty CD player that also plays MP3s as tracks, so you can have both formats at once.

Would that be the Rio Volt?

I had one, but soon after upgrading the firmware on it, it stopped dead, and never started again.

It was great, played cda, mp3, and even wma's...

[J.F.K.]

Originally posted by Raa Tor'h


Would that be the Rio Volt?

I had one, but soon after upgrading the firmware on it, it stopped dead, and never started again.

It was great, played cda, mp3, and even wma's...

I seem to remember it being called the Slim-X or something... anyway, there's quite a few of those out now. In fact, I think my regular Discman plays MP3-CDs.

[Sandwich]

No, not the Rio Volt ( *barf* ) - the iRiver SlimX iMP-350. With its internal batteries, at around an hour of use per day, I get a full week's use, easy. Then just plug in the external battery pack for a total of 12 hours playback time (MP3 CDs).

But KT, thanks to your linking to the iRiver site, I ran across something they added to their product line. You see, my brother came back from the US with one of the new iPods, a 15Gb one. Nice and small, it is... Now, lookie here.

[01010]

Originally posted by pyro-manic
NetMD - about a CD's worth of MP3s on a disc. Then you can fit about five discs in your pocket, as well as the player. Sorted. Discs are a lot cheaper than the storage cards/sticks for MP3 players, anyway.

Although if you've got the cash I'd go for a 20Gb iPod....

Except OpenMG is a complete pile of ****e stability wise. My MD is playing up at the moment.

[kasperl]

Mp3 CD player should be the way to go. i own the RioVolt SP-100 (IIRC), and it supports MP3, WMA, and CD-Audio out of the box, and with a firmware patch it also supports M3U. i can't say anything about the battery's, since i only use it on the mains. but it's great, and if you get the SP-250, you also get AM/FM support. you fit about 12CD's on one disc, (depending on compression offcourse) so that shouldn't be a problem. it also supports directorys very well, you can browse them just as good as you can in explorer using the keyboard.

or you could do something with an HD, with the added advantage of an external HD for transporting huge files CD's couldn't handle. but with a cd thingy, you can also play plain audio CD's, so you can keep using any cd's you might already have.

[Knight Templar]

Originally posted by Sandwich
No, not the Rio Volt ( *barf* ) - the iRiver SlimX iMP-350. With its internal batteries, at around an hour of use per day, I get a full week's use, easy. Then just plug in the external battery pack for a total of 12 hours playback time (MP3 CDs).

But KT, thanks to your linking to the iRiver site, I ran across something they added to their product line. You see, my brother came back from the US with one of the new iPods, a 15Gb one. Nice and small, it is... Now, lookie here.

*cries*

I sdhould have saved me moneys

[Thor]

I just use my good old cd player, and burn fun filed disks of goodness.  not only is it cheap, but I enjoy trying to mix the perfect cd, which is sometimes a challenge.  CD-Rs are cheap enough (I got 100 for $30CDN)  and I use Duracell Ultra's, which last me a month, average an hour a day give or take.

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Thor
...and I use Duracell Ultra's, which last me a month, average an hour a day give or take.

i can get 2-5 hours max

[kode]

I use lithium batteries. they are expensive, but they last almost forever.

[Bobboau]

I got an adiophase cd player two weeks ago, I returned it last sunday, don't get adiophase, they suck
what you want is the panasonic sl-sx420 it kicks ass, on two AA baterys it will play a disk with about 200 mp3s on it for (literaly) a day and a half (37 hours) the only draw back is it is just slightly not loud enough, it just gets into my comfort zone (wich is admitadly high) on it's maximum volume seting, but I have not had the thing skip once, ever, even when I rattled it between two fingers for a few minutes trying to get it to skip

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Bobboau
... the only draw back is it is just slightly not loud enough, it just gets into my comfort zone (wich is admitadly high) on it's maximum volume seting...

Try switching to a different set of headphones - my brother has the over-the-head kind that have the earbuds that go in sideways - Sony, I think - and whenever we're both plugged into the same audio source he complains that it's waaay too loud.

[Thorn]

Originally posted by pyro-manic
Although if you've got the cash I'd go for a 20Gb iPod....

Its amazing how often PA applies to real life things.....