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Skip-free Music to Go

By Mike Kaltschnee

 

Diamond RIO 500I recently found myself working in New York City with a 5-hour daily commute (door to door). This has caused me to search for ways to make the commute more enjoyable: books, magazines, chatting with fellow commuters, talking on a cell phone, or just thinking. I knew I needed music, but how?

I already carry a somewhat heavy Powerbook computer, paperback book, magazine, and papers for work, and the last thing I needed was a heavy CD player and a 20-pack of CDs. I wanted something small, compact, with great sound, but not a portable radio. I am the type of person who will listen to 10 or 15 songs for hours and be perfectly happy.

I finally realized it was time, once again, to try an exciting new technology to solve a problem. This always worries me, because I spend hours on buggy software and doing things that would be solved in a later release of the software. This time I was pleasantly surprised.

I decided to purchase an MP3 player to help ease my weary commute. MP3 is the name of a format used to compress and store music. A CD typically holds only 20 songs, but has tremendous capacity: 640 mb. There is very little compression of the music in a typical CD. However, using MP3, you can fit as many as 170 songs on one CD-R (which costs about 50 cents). The problem is that with most types of compression there is a loss of quality. With MP3, you have some control over the compression and resulting quality. If you are a typical user (like me) you’ll probably notice it only on highly compressed files.

You’re probably wondering how to take your CD collection and turn it into MP3 files. There are many programs which take your CD and turn it into an MP3 file, known as encoders. Most MP3 players come with encoder software, but you can also find a huge selection (for Mac or Windows) at www.mp3.com. A typical song goes from around 32 mb to 3 mb (about 10 - 1 compression). This means that you can fit about 10 songs on a 32 mb player, or 20 on 64 MB.

You can also get MP3 files on the Internet. However, since I’ve been making my living for the past 15 years on copyrighted material (software, computer graphics and writing), I must advise you to pay for what you enjoy. So, make sure you only download music you own - or buy the CDs for music you like. Napster, a popular file-sharing program enables you search other people’s collections to find music. You can also find special MP3 files on fan sites or even free from the artists. I think the greatest MP3 files are from rare collections or unpublished live versions, things you can’t buy.

I started looking at MP3 players, and found many places that sold them. They range in price from around $89 to $699. The large price range is due to the type of storage used. Most MP3 players use memory cards, which are expensive - around $170 for a 64MB player. There are some CD players that have the ability to play MP3 files on CD-R, and they start in price from $89. You could fit 500 songs on 3 or 4 CD-R’s and carry a huge selection of music with you. The most expensive ones use a hard disk, and can hold up to thousands of songs. Some of the new PDA’s are starting to support MP3 playback, but it’s been an expensive option.

I had another criteria for selecting an MP3 player. I love to read, but I’m starting to loathe the $8 cost per book (I read several per week). I’ve never been into audio books or books on tape, but since I have so much time on my hands, I figured it was time to hear the author or famous actor read to me.
Audible.com offers a special price on the Diamond RIO 500 64mb player. It costs $99, but has a $50 rebate, so your cost is about $49. However, to get this special price you have to sign up for the $9.95 per month "Audible Listener" program (1 year). You get 2 full audio books each month, and I figure that’s about 1/2 price for the books I would normally buy. Without the Audible promotion you would pay $170 for the RIO 500.

They claim you can fit 32 hours of the spoken word on the player, or a mix and match of MP3 files and books. I had some trouble when I downloaded Stephen King’s "On Writing" book" it deleted the music on the player. So, I just have to download the music again. I think the Audible software needs some work, but otherwise it’s an amazing bit of technology. The super-compressed version of the book by Stephen King sounds a bit metallic, but it’s neat to hear him read the book to you.

Things you need to look for in MP3 players include size, memory, expandability, included software, headphones, software and firmware upgrades, and battery life. Make sure you don’t get a serial interface--it’ll take forever compared to a USB interface to transfer your music.

The only real complaint with the RIO 500 is the headphones. I simply replaced them with my favorite Sony in-ear headphone, and I was in audio heaven.


Mike is a DACS member who loves being on the bleeding edge but hates the sight of blood. You can contact him by e-mail: mikek@demorgan.com.

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