What MP3 Player?

bl00dtrail

bl00dtrail

New member
Can anyone suggest a MP3 player for holding my foxpro sounds and just "everyday" use? I wear headphones/cd player at work and I want to go with an MP3 player...... along with the use for the foxpro sounds on the weekend.

I see a lot of people on this site are using the Rio 800..... where is the best place to get one? What is the expected bill on one of these units?
 
Everyday use? Get one that looks like any mass storage device on your computer--IOW, one that doesn't need any additional playlist software to drag and drop files to it, one that'll continue to work in the future with any operating system incl. Mac OSX, Linux (and someday before too long, Windows Longhorn or whatever they're calling it by then). Pretty much anything recent is a mass storage device, has 256MB or more memory, and USB 2.0 for much faster file transfer.

I'm about to spring for another .mp3 myself. I'll be looking for one with line-in or mic-in with .wav or low-compression .mp3 direct recording, also. I keep putting it off a week at a time because maybe that way when I finally get around to it, there'll be one that is also a GPS, satellite radio, and a WiMax VOIP telephone /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

As far as the RIO 800 goes--there were reportedly early versions of this long-disco'd unit that had extremely buggy software. You might want to be a bit cautious of this. (Too bad, because the device is a recorder, too.)

LionHo
 
Lion Ho,

Can you tell me what problems you have heard about the "buggy" software? I have 2 recently acquired Rio 800's that I bought off of EBay that I am very pleased with at this point.

I've used the software without any major problems up to now, and I'm wondering what I might have to face in the near future?

I also had a Rio 600, but it only had 32 MB of RAM, so I decided rather than enhance it to 64MB, or 128 MB, that I would simply find one with the memory already in it. Thats when I bought the 2 800's. The 600 is a rugged little rascal too, and the Rio is built like to work in a rugged environment. Both units have the ability to "random play", or "repeat", which works in just fine with our purposes. I believe that one can get all of the sounds necessary for a satisfactory hunt on 64 MB of RAM depending on file format. Certainly on 128 MB.

Plenty of those units to be found on EBay at great prices. As I recall, I gave in the upper 30's for one, and low 40's for the other. Depended on accessories included. Rio has all of their manuals online, and can be downloaded for free.

Originally looked at the RCA Lyra, but others here on the forum did not recommend them, so I switched. Glad I did, too. Thanks guys.

Bill
 
To be frank, I haven't had ever had one myself, but did find quite a number of bad reviews on the Rio 800 over buggy a software driver (early units, as I recall.) May have been rectified, can't say.

But I can offer in general any computer peripheral that's been discontinued and has a proprietary driver, carries the risk of not being supported with the next Windows security upgrade or next OS version. (Rio might do so, but would be a rather rare exception if they support all their old stuff from 5 years ago under the latest patched OS.)

If you've never spent a day or three or six trying to sort out a bad driver that bombs your system, consider yourself lucky. I'd opt for something newer for having had experiences like this with early USB stuff.

That said, I'm glad you're not having problems.

LionHo
 
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