Mobile audio MP3/iPod/RioRiot, etc.

I bought a 20 GB RioRiot, and left it on an airplane. I ended up replacing it with a 10 GB Windows iPod. If I did it all again, I'd skip the RioRiot. The user interface on the iPod is sooooo much better. The RioRiot took me several days of consulting with their thick manual to get sound. The iPod took 5 min. Also, in terms of music management, the RioRiot didn't let you download playlists! While you could define them once the data was downloaded, its a stupid omission. Also the firewire on the iPod is significantly faster--a real consideration when downloading GBs of data.

The size of your mp3s is variable--I think 128 kbps mp3s average about a megabyte/min. While people using mp3s for home audio seem to prefer 320 kbps encoding, that seems to make your mp3s 2.5x larger. There are also various other options for encoding--high/middle/low quality and various permutations on mono/stereo/true stereo. Based on the compromise between data size and quality for an iPod, I encoded my mp3s at 192 kbps, high quality, true stereo.

I just posted another thread looking for advice on creating mp3s. Its a consideration in buying these things--it takes a looooong time to rip your CDs to mp3s. I'm also having a huge problem getting clean rips--I get stutters and background nastiness. Looking for help there...

Good luck.

I've been pretty happy with my Sony MD recorder/player. Can get nearly 5 hours on one minidisc with compression and even then sounds pretty good. With the ambient noise levels on airplanes its more than adequate. Battery life is extraordinary- I would guess 10-20 hrs on a single AA, and you don't even need to use a computer. I record direct from the analog outs on my DAC, or you can get a digital cable and record straight from your CDPs digital out. I use Grado SR-60s when I travel. The MD player is smaller than a deck of cards, and the discs are about 1/4 the size of a CD.

I remember when a 20Mb hard disk was considered enormous. If I've only learned one thing about computer hardware, it's never skimp on storage capacity. In other words, go with the 20Gb.

Thank you. Further to the wonders of the iPod, are there any other benefits to the 20GB model?

For me, 15 CDs at one time on a handheld device would be plenty.

Maybe I should save the extra hundred bucks and go with the 10G model?

CD's contain roughly 650MB of data so a 20GB disk will hold about 30 CD's uncompressed. MP3 compression at 128 kbs will allow you to put more than 4000 of your favorite songs on the ipod which is really nice. I have a 5GB version with 1250 songs on it. My Etymotics sound just fine without additional amplification and the battery life has actually been around 12 hours as advertised by Apple. If you go to CompUSA or the Apple store in NY with your headphones you can check it out for yourself. This is a life altering device if you want to listen to music outside of your house and can work a computer.

CD's contain roughly 650MB of data so a 20GB disk will hold about 30 CD's uncompressed. MP3 compression at 128 kbs will allow you to put more than 4000 of your favorite songs on the ipod which is really nice. I have a 5GB version with 1250 songs on it. My Etymotics sound just fine without additional amplification and the battery life has actually been around 12 hours as advertised by Apple. If you go to CompUSA or the Apple store in NY with your headphones you can check it out for yourself. This is a life altering device if you want to listen to music outside of your house and can work a computer.

Chanifin and Abstract7:

I was ready to rush out and buy and iPod today but think this subject is a bit trickier than I realized --

In the highest quality format (umcompressed??) how many hours of music will fit on a 20G ipod?

Do you still recommend the iPod or would a nomad jukebox be a better idea?

I will be taking frequent plane trips to UK and Asia from NYC and would like good battery life and maximum fidelity to go with my Grado Headphone Amplifier and Etymotics earphones.

Thanks very much.

I have the MP3 Jukebox 100. It's great. I use 192kbits/second as the compression rate. The standard is 128. Some of the better recordings I go up to 256. I use this with the "airhead" amp and etyomatic headphones. For travel, the convenience and quality is tough to beat. I have found this player to actually sound better than most portable CD players. It does have a lousy amp section though--you need to get one of headroom's amps to go with this.
http://www.mp3factorydirect.net

I have and iPod and the sound isn't horrible. A lot of the sound quality depends on the file format and compression quality you use. A lower sampling rates MP3's can sound pretty bad. With th iPOD you can actually store and use uncompressed audio which sounds pretty good but takes up a lot of space on the hard drive (700-800 megs perCD). The other important thing is to tooss the headphones that come with the player and replace them with sometehing decent (I use the low-end Grado's).