i pod or creative's zen?

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 11:01 am

just to clarify a little... maybe this happens only in Italy... you know... people here ask for money everytime they can
regards, Lorenzo

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 12:19 pm

Timo wrote:Equally, giving someone advice to buy an Apple Mac computer, enabling them to buy/use an iPod - for merely allowing them to listen to music at the end of the day - isn't both ludicrous nor excessive?

Back on topic, I don't own an mp3 player nor know much about their interfacing and DRM, but after an initial scout around on the net some makes could be: Cowon, iRiver, Creative Zen, Rio audio, M$ Zune, and of course the iPod.

Call me stupid, but in my mind an mp3 player should play any mp3/mp4, that's it's job, not inflict restrictions on what you can and can't play as if it were some backseat grandma. That's the criteria I'd choose if I were to look for one.

it was a flippant comment, I know but I like the bigger picture

Having converted to mac 4 years ago from Windows gives me a perspective

all I can say is mac is the definition of computer happiness

I don't waste anytime with multiple device considerations, spec obsession, etc. Thats what I like.

YMWV

chinard · Post by **chinard** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 1:22 am

i swore off the creative labs mp3 products years ago for 3reasons.

1) no mac or linux support. you cannot mount the player on anything but window$
2) horrible handling of id3 tags. i mean dreadful! it mangles all of your artist, album, and description info.
3) cant use it as a hard drive to dump files onto

i really like the ipods.
they work and are reasonably reliable
the DAC's are pretty damn good so they sound good.
theres shitloads of softwre support
theres shitloads of accessories

i'd stay away from the sony ones. its just a matter of time before sony surprises the world with their next rootkit.

same thing with the M$ zune.. too much DRM.. no thanks.

another good alternative is archos media players, a friend of mine at work has one and apparently they are pretty reliable.
OS support is irrelevant.. its a hard drive... you dump you files into a folder.. done!

sewa · Post by **sewa** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:33 pm

Finally I got myself a Sony:

http://www.sony.de/view/ShowProduct.act ... ry=NWA+WMT

the fact that its Windows Explorer compatible was a deal breaker for me. The sound quality is very good too, to some extend because of excellent earphones supplied with it.

Being in the store I tested several hi-fi units as well. One of them was so good that I suddenly felt an urge to upgrade my home hi-fi (which is old and of medicore quality). At the and I walked out of the store with a pair of these:

http://www.monitoraudio.de/product.php? ... product=57

as my old amplifier was not quite up to the task, I bought a new one today:

http://www.marantz.com/new/index.cfm?fu ... p&type=amp

I'm really excited to test the whole setup this afternoon, so I'm leaving the office as soon as I can.

Cheers
sewa

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:06 pm

droolin... well not exactly for what you bought... but for the fact that it seems you have the time to listen to some music in the right way... in this period of my life I "listen" to music only when I drive in my car...

regards, Lorenzo