My First MP3 player

[Holden]

After I swore that I wouldn't get one I've finally relented. I have spent much of the previous 3 weeks travelling through outback Australia and as you Aussies will know that means driving on corrugated dirt roads. Even the best in car CD will not play in some of these conditions and certainly not the factory model that came with my Mitsubishi 4WD. Also, after a long days drive when the CD stacker has gone back to it's original CD it's a bit of a nuisance, stopping and changing all the CDs in the stacker. On top of that, I fly out to NZ tonight for 4 weeks vacation and I always listen to music when I fly as my Sennheiser HD280 Pros do a far better job of noise isolation than any noise cancellers I've heard (including Senn's more expensive top of the range model).

So I was in Harvey Norman's yesterday when I saw three 2Gb players for $97, $99 and $129 respectively. Only the latter two had screens and a discussion with the salesman convinced me that at bargain price (almost half) that the latter was the best option. The one caveat I provided was that any model had to be able to drive my Senn's to good listening levels in the noisy environment of an aircraft.

So, I got the Samsung YP-Z5F and after a bit of experimentation (including loading Samsung's latest version of their Media studio after the out of date one on the CD failed to complete installation) I've now laid down 23 hours of music at 192kbs.

I can barely hear any compromise in sound quality and am looking forward to the convenience of having all that music at a touch of my fingers.

What I really like about this player (others probably do it as well) is that after resetting the recording parameters of WMP9 I can put a CD into my PC and it will record straight down onto my MP3 in less than 5 minutes. If I really like this setup then maybe a 60 Gb player is eventually on the cards. According to me that's about 750 hours of music which should eat up a substantial portion of my CD collection....but that's in the future. The one thing I haven't tested is whether something like the LvB Pastoral will segue seamlessly from (iv) to (v). I'm just about to do that now.

Not quite, a millisecond of hesitation - I'll live with it.

[Mark]

Holden, welcome to the mostly wonderful, sometimes infuriating world of DAPs (Digital Audio Players - the correct name for all so-called 'MP3 players/iPods').

You may have seen me mention in posts before now that I've experimented pretty broadly with different players (ten to date, HDD and flash, models from at least five manufacturers, and three or four format types), so I can potentially answer any questions you may have. As, I'm sure, can many others here.

The lack of what's called 'Gapless Playback' that you've discovered is, for some of us, one of the most irritating drawbacks of this new technology. Apple have solved it with a software update to both the latest version of iTunes and the most recent incarnations of the iPod, and Sony combat those irksome gaps using their proprietary ATRAC format ... though some say it's on its way out in a few years. There are some players that claim to be totally gapless where the music requires it, but these tend to be more obscure models. Trek Stor's Vibez player is one such example.

There are numerous great resources out on the web for everything to do with this technology, and a really good site for keeping up to date with new DAPs and their pros and cons is www.dapreview.com - well worth checking in on from time to time.

Anyway, good luck with the new player, enjoy your holiday ... and consider upgrading to WMP 11 if you're able. The ability to add and view album art for your MP3s/WMAs is a real boon, I find.

[DavidW]

Just use ogg or flac to eliminate the gap problem.  Ogg has better compression than the proprietary alternatives, and if your player doesn't support it, you're a firmware update away from having it supported.

[orbital]

The one thing I haven't tested is whether something like the LvB Pastoral will segue seamlessly from (iv) to (v). I'm just about to do that now.

Not quite, a millisecond of hesitation - I'll live with it.

The lack of what's called 'Gapless Playback' that you've discovered is, for some of us, one of the most irritating drawbacks of this new technology. Apple have solved it with a software update to both the latest version of iTunes and the most recent incarnations of the iPod, and Sony combat those irksome gaps using their proprietary ATRAC format ... though some say it's on its way out in a few years. There are some players that claim to be totally gapless where the music requires it, but these tend to be more obscure models. Trek Stor's Vibez player is one such example.

I may suggest, though with hesitation, : http://www.rockbox.org/
An open source operating system for [most] mp3 players. I don't know if they support Samsung yet, but they do most popular brands and models. Next to a ton of enhancements, the new system supports gapless playback.

[Holden]

Used the player oin the flight to NZ last night and discovered a 'gapless' button in the settings menu - does the job perfectly for tracks that run through (Pink Floyd's DSOM) and yet retains a gap between movements in symphonies (Eroica/Toscanini). What a great little player!

Must investigate Ogg which my player does support but converting CDs straight onto the player via WMP9 is too convenient to ignore. Thanks for the feedback everyone.