Got my new MP3 player today...

[mnealtx 0]

... a Rio Carbon

So far, so good! Good sound (at least to my non-audiophile ears), small size (fits easily in a pants pocket - smaller than a pack of cigarettes and only a bit over .5" thick), decent storage size and battery life.

I've got right at 500 songs on it so far, using 1.8 out of 4.8 GB, almost 34 hours of music. I think I'll be buying a bunch more CD's while I'm home, this trip, although I did raid my coworker's external HD for some old rock/pop stuff (Journey, Foreigner, Heart, England Dan/John Ford Coley) to go along with my country stuff...

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[Slappie 9]

Thanks, I've been looking for an MP3 player. I wasn't going to go with an ipod I just don't like to be a conformist.

"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them."

[daniel_owen_uk 0]

What made you go for the rio ahead of the ipod (or other mp3 player)?

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[Chrissay 0]

I have a Rio too, I forget the specs on mine, but I love it!
I didn't want to go with the overpriced iPod.

[skymama 37]

We got my son a Rio Sport and 2 of them now have stopped working! The first one only had 1 song on it before it stopped. We took that back and got another. This one work for about 2 weeks and had 75 songs on it, all the sudden it kind of locked up when he went to do a download and now it won't turn on anymore. He's trading it in for a 1G iRiver deal that he found.

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[mnealtx 0]

Several things:

Battery life - When I fly back Stateside, I'm travelling for somewhere on the order of 20 hours - an MP3 player with an 8-10 hour battery isn't gonna cut it.

Ipod doesn't do WMA, which I have found gives me better results than MP3 for file size/sound quality.

You can only download music for the Ipod via Itunes @ $1/song. There's another place out there (Napster, maybe?) that's $15/month for unlimited downloads.

Most download stuff besides Itunes is protected - Ipod won't work with protected files.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[daniel_owen_uk 0]

Granted the DRM stuff for the ipod sucks ass but the interface and styling of them is very good.

Sounds like you made an educated decision though, nice to see
All you need now are some decent headphones to go with it, pick up some shure e2c and you will have a hell of a combination.

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[mnealtx 0]

Actually, for around the base I have a set of the JVC behind the head headphones....

For travelling, a set of Etymotic ER-6 earbuds...block out that jet whine...

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[Dagny 0]

The Rio Carbon is really sleek looking! I like it...nice choice!
Two years ago, I bought the RCA lyra because I could wear it on an armband while I was running and it has an am/fm receiver as well as mp3 capability. It holds up to maybe 40 songs before it requires an expansion card. Of course, I never bought one...oh, yeah...and my computer broke down about a year ago and I haven't been able to change any of the donwloads on it. Long story short, it still rocks, but I'm jammin' to some tired music!

Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic.
-Salvador Dali

[mnealtx 0]

I like the size of it... it's flat enough to easily fit in my pants pocket, so I don't have to worry as much about setting it down somewhere and it getting up and walking away, so to speak...

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706