Seeking the Perfect Harmony in Portable MP3 Players
How much music is enough?
Portable MP3 players offer consumers an array of options for storing songs--from cheap players with 30 minutes of solid-state memory to $300 or $400 devices with built-in hard drives. In between are a variety of players that use removable discs, as well as tiny but pricey units packed with memory chips.
If it’s purely a bucks-per-megabyte issue, you can’t beat a hard-drive-equipped player. But a recent test of nine portable devices found selling points for all the different types--as well as a few good reasons not to buy them.
Make no mistake, storage capacity matters. But so does having good software, amplifiers and controls.
One thing that doesn’t really matter is the quality of the headphones. Sure, it’s a plus to get a pair that sounds good and stays on when you’re jogging. But if a good set isn’t included, it’s easy to find a replacement for $25 or less.
An MP3 file is a compressed version of a song on a CD. Creating MP3s is simple: Just put a CD in your computer, launch a “jukebox” program such as MusicMatch Jukebox, Apple’s iTunes or RealNetworks’ RealOne, select the recording quality, then copy the songs onto your computer as MP3s.
Two alternatives to MP3 are Microsoft’s WMA files, the only format recorded by Microsoft’s free Windows Media Player, and AAC, the format recorded by Liquid Audio’s Liquid Player. Both deliver superior sound in smaller files, but they’re not supported by every MP3 player.
Although today’s computers can store enormous libraries of MP3s, most people don’t want to confine their music to one spot. That’s where the portable players come in. The typical player connects to a computer’s Universal Serial Bus and copies selected MP3 files, often with the help of custom music-management software.
Hard drive-based players
An MP3 player with a built-in hard drive probably has enough room to copy all the music on your computer--and conceivably all the music you own.
The trade-off is that such players tend to be bulkier and harder to navigate. That’s because their postage-stamp-size displays can list only a few titles at a time, but their drives can store hundreds of albums and thousands of tunes.
Creative Labs offered the first hard drive player a little more than a year ago, and competitors have been creeping into the field ever since. The most notable is Apple’s expensive but stylish iPod, which works only with certain Apple computers.
San Diego-based e.Digital Corp. just jumped into the fray with the palm-size Treo 10, which boasts a 10-gigabyte hard drive--enough to store about 3,000 songs, or 150 hours of near-CD-quality music. That’s twice the capacity of an iPod, but about half the price: $249.
MP3 and Windows Media files load quickly and easily onto the Treo using e.Digital’s music management software, and it’s a breeze to navigate through the Treo’s on-screen directory of songs while music plays.
And when it comes to volume, the Treo rocks. It was easily the loudest of the units tested, and it offered the widest range of volume settings.
The main drawback was a persistent hiss, particularly noticeable at low volumes or when the backlight was on. Beyond that, there’s no way to reorganize songs or create playlists on the Treo--a major shortcoming on a player built to carry thousands of songs. Instead, the unit simply offers a number of ways to vary the order of songs played.
Weighing nearly 10 ounces, the Treo’s also a bit heavy to run with. A lighter offering from e.Digital is the 4.9-ounce MXP 100, which stores music on IBM’s tiny removable hard drives. The capacity ranges from 340 megabyte for about $300 to 1 gigabyte for about $400, providing room for 5those to 16those hours of music.
The MXP 100 shares the Treo’s sonic and software strengths and weaknesses, including the persistent hiss and the rubber cap that doesn’t stay capped over the AC adapter socket. The most notable difference is in the navigation controls and software, which are much less intuitive. Once you master their peculiarities, though, it’s easy to scroll through song and album titles while a tune is playing.
One odd feature is the ability to use voice commands to select and start playing songs. The feature works only when the music is stopped, however, so you can’t use it to flip quickly from song to song.
Both e.Digital players require special software to communicate with a computer, and no Mac version is available.
CD-based players
Another approach to providing large quantities of portable music is a CD player that can handle MP3 discs. It’s cheap and efficient--blank CDs cost less than 50 cents each, and a single disc can hold more than 12 hours of music.
Like any portable CD player, the MP3 CD units tend to be clamshell-shaped devices too large to fit in a pocket. They’re also heavier and tend to skip more than solid-state MP3 players.
To appreciate an MP3 CD player, you’ll need a CD recorder. Then you’ll need to burn some CDs with MP3 files. CD-RW drives typically come with the software necessary to copy MP3 files onto a blank disc, as do the latest versions of MusicMatch Jukebox and RealOne.
Sonicblue introduced the RioVolt MP3 CD player early this year, and it recently offered a stripped-down version for just under $100. And Philips just brought out a pocket-size MP3 CD player for $180 that uses 3-inch discs instead of the usual 5-inch variety.
The chief selling point for both is that they sound great, although Philips’ high-fi earpieces have trouble staying in a moving ear. Both players also enable users to program a custom playlist in addition to offering multiple ways to shuffle the lineup of songs automatically.
The RioVolt SP90 is woefully short on accessories, such as an AC adapter, and it can’t resume a disc at the point you stopped listening to it--an irritating lapse. It’s also more susceptible than the Philips to skip when subjected to sustained jarring, as on a treadmill.
On the plus side, it’s particularly easy to navigate through a disc’s contents while playing songs. The player also can read both MP3 and WMA files as well as play conventional CDs.
The well-designed Philips exp401 features simple, intuitive controls. But it’s a good thing the player uses smaller discs because it goes through batteries at a torrid clip.
A 3-inch CD holds about one-fifth as much music as a regular CD--164 MB, or about 2those hours of music--and the exp401’s single AA battery lasts as little as three hours.
The unit’s main drawback may be its inability to display song titles, artist names or other information beyond track number and elapsed time. Some users may also disagree with Philips’ choice for a second format to support besides MP3: AAC, a superb-sounding but uncommon format used by Liquid Audio.
A third type of removable disc is the MiniDisc, a format Sony introduced years ago as a digital alternative to cassette tapes. Although it’s popular in Europe and Asia, MiniDisc hasn’t posed much of a challenge to cassettes and CDs in the U.S., in part because the units are comparatively expensive.
Sony’s MD Walkman MZ-R900DPC ($350), a dense metal square the size of a lemon bar, feels solid, sounds clear and beefy, and can take a steady pounding without skipping. But it proved to be mystifyingly complex and hard to use, seeming more like a product from Microsoft Corp. than Sony.
It also was incapable of reading the artist and title tags in song files, forcing users to enter that information themselves or do without it. Worst of all, it recorded songs in real time, taking about 2those hours to fill a disc with 160 minutes of music.
Sony has promised a new line of MiniDisc devices, called the NetMD, which will copy song files from a PC instead of recording them as they play. That should provide song titles and speed up transfers somewhat. However, Sony’s use of its own format, ATRAC3, means MP3 files must be converted before being copied.
Flash memory-based players
The lightest, smallest and most shock-proof MP3 players rely on flash memory, a solid-state form of storage. After connecting their player to their computer, users copy MP3s onto the player’s built-in flash-memory chip or, in some cases, an expansion memory card the size of a Wheat Thin.
With the price of flash plummeting, consumers no longer have to pay $250 to $300 for 64 MB of storage, the minimum needed for a full hour of near-CD-quality music. In fact, you can pick up a player with 32 MB of built-in storage and a removable card with 64 MB of flash for less than half that price.
Sonicblue recently updated its venerable 32 MB Rio 300 player with a USB connection, renamed it the Rio One and put it on the market for less than $100. The size of a deck of cards, it’s light, brain-dead simple to use and capable of head-thumping volume.
The volume helps to hide a low hum that the Rio One emits. Other annoyances include the unit’s inability to display song and artist information, create playlists, resume at its last stopping point or scroll through its contents while music is playing. Nor does Sonicblue include accessories with the player, which works with either a Windows PC or a Mac.
Smaller but more expensive, Samsung’s $170 Yepp YP30S is a matchbox-size player with 64 MB of internal storage that can’t be expanded. It’s incredibly light, yet its sound is loud and clean. The player’s settings also can be adjusted in numerous useful ways, such as changing how long it takes the song and artist information to scroll across the screen.
Samsung’s easy-to-use PC software enables speedy transfers of songs to the Yepp, and it automatically converts WMA files to MP3s (the only format the Yepp supports).
On the minus side, the tiny controls can be hard to use on the run, the unit can’t make playlists, changing EQ and playback settings is laborious, and you can’t scroll through the Yepp’s contents while music is playing.
The Yepp’s display is small, but at least it has one. No such luck with the $230 Digisette Duo64, a Windows-compatible MP3 player the shape of a cassette tape.
The lack of a display means there’s a lot of guesswork involved when playing music on the Duo64. Digisette also offers little flexibility beyond the alternative EQ settings--for example, files can be played only in the order they’re put onto the device’s built-in 64 MB storage or optional 64 MB SmartMedia cards. Nor does the Duo64 crank out a lot of volume.
On the other hand, the Duo64 works in any tape player, enabling owners to enjoy their MP3 or WMA files in their living room cassette decks, boom boxes and car stereos. The device also has a solid feel, comes with extra rechargeable batteries and car recharger, and supports Audible audio books and recorded news.
Striking a balance between girth and capacity, the pager-size BA350 from Bantam Interactive has 128 MB of built-in storage and an expansion slot for more. The unit’s display is first-rate, as is the accompanying music-management program for Windows PCs, and its built-in rechargeable battery lasts as long as 12 hours.
Bantam also throws in an array of accessories, including a rainbow of colored faceplates and an adapter for car cassette decks.
Unfortunately, users can’t create playlists or scroll through the BA350’s contents while music is playing. The buttons tend to be finicky, too, making it harder than it should be to start, stop and skip songs. Future versions should be better on that score, as Bantam says it’s modifying the controls to make them easier to use.
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Jon Healey covers the convergence of entertainment and technology. He can be reached at jon.healey
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e.Digital Treo 10
Price: $249
Capacity: 10 GB
The good: Holds more than 150 hours of music; powerful sound
The bad: Noisy and heavy; can’t program song order
Bottom line: Relatively low-cost, no-frills way to lug around your collection
e.Digital MXP 100
Price: $299 to $399
Capacity: 340 MB to 1 GB
The good: Light and loud
The bad: Noisy and relatively high-priced for the capacity; nonintuitive controls
Bottom line: Audio problems may outweigh high capacity and portability
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Sonicblue RioVolt SP90
Price: $100
Capacity: Removable CDs can hold 700 MB
The good: Excellent sound, easy navigation
The bad: Doesn’t like sustained jarring; includes no accessories
Bottom line: Low-cost option for consumers with CD burners
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Philips exp401
Price: $180
Capacity: Removable mini-CDs can hold 184 MB
The good: Excellent sound, good controls
The bad: Doesn’t display song or artist information
Bottom line: Shaves a few inches, but costs more and delivers less music
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Sony MD Walkman MZ-R900DPC
Price: $350
Capacity: Removable discs can hold about 2 1/2 hours of near-CD-quality music
The good: High fidelity; resists skipping surprisingly well for a disc player
The bad: Complex and hard to use
Bottom line: Wait for the next version, due early in 2002
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Sonicblue Rio One
Price: $100
Capacity: 32 MB, expandable
The good: Light and loud
The bad: Noisy; little internal memory; doesn’t display song or artist information
Bottom line: If your tastes run to rock ‘n’ roll, look for this one on sale
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Digisette Duo64
Price: $230
Capacity: 64 MB, expandable
The good: Works with headphones or in any cassette player
The bad: No display; can’t alter song order
Bottom line: Exceptional portability comes with significant trade-offs
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Samsung YP30S
Price: $170
Capacity: 64 MB
The good: Tiny and light; good sound
The bad: Hard to control and configure on the run; can’t program song order
Bottom line: Good option if you only need an hour’s worth of music
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Bantam Interactive BA350
Price: $199
Capacity: 128 MB, expandable
The good: Pocket-size with plenty of storage; long battery life; good display
The bad: Finicky buttons; can’t program song order
Bottom line: Solid performer laden with accessories
