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Can you help me pick out a MP3 player...?

post #1 of 17
1/25/03 at 12:10pm
Thread Starter 
First I want to say Thank you!... I first came to Head-Fi wanting to learn about headphones and I asked people what they thought was a good headphone for me. Listening to everyones advice, I purchased the Sennheiser HD590 and I'm so very pleased. The people who commented to my threads really helped me greatly.

Head-Fi members are exceptionally knowledgeable and I value your opinions far more then I do compared to users on Cnet, Epinions, ResellerRatings, and Amazon. I search and study and read everyones opinions before purchasing. I trust head-fi members more then my friends and family's recomendations.

Today I'm in the market for a good MP3 player. Hopefully I'll get some decent amount of coments that will help me out greatly, once again.

I'm not really looking for portablity, to the contrary, the bigger the better. I will be hooking up the MP3 player to my stereo reciever. It will be pluged in with it's AC/DC adapter so battery life is not an issue.

What is an issue is sound quality and features. Now I would love to get an iPod (and who wouldn't) but I don't have a FireWire card, hell I don't even have USB 2.0, I only have 1.0/1.1 (not sure which). So the iPod is out of the question.

My budget is $400, although I would like to spend about $200.

I want a 20GB harddrive based MP3 player. The bigger the screen the better, I want to be able to read the display easily. I don't care if it lights up, I own a lamp, not that big of a deal.

Durability is also important, and yeah looks a little bit. Audio quality is a biggy though. Hey isn't that what we are all looking for.

Even if you don't own a MP3 player, maybe you have friends (online or offline) that do and you head a few things, share you input. Its going to help none the less. I really would like a lot of people to comment. Even if you just say, I think such and such player is good. It's better then nothing.

I do have some players in mind, but I'm very open to other players. The 3 players I have researched alot and seemed like a good buy are the following players:

Archos Jukebox Studio 20 MP3 Player


RCA Lyra Jukebox RD2820


Rio Riot




All three players are 20GB, all are around the same price rang. Each has something the other has.

The Rio Riot seems to have the best LCD display, easiest to read, & comes with a FM tuner, but uses Real Audio player which i personal can't stand. Looks pretty cool. Playlist can only be made on the fly (on the unit itself and not on the computer).

RCA Lyra plays MP3 Pro as well as the normal MP3, it's the worst looking, has got very good reviews, acts like a plug in play Hard drive (unlike the Riot) and uses MusicMatch which I like. Fewer people bought this, not many reviews, basically just on Cnet and Amazon, but most of the reviews are really good, the bad ones are easily ignored. 90% praise, the 10% is usually becasue they had problems installing the driver. Dosn't worry me. Playlist can be made on the fly and on the pc.

Archos has had alot of mixed reviews, alot of people say it freezes alot, but then there are others saying its extreamly stable. It looked the best in my opinion. It's said to be good with the RockBoxx Firmware that is open source but it can void the warranty if you use it, but said to be much better then the original firmware. Out of the three, this one is the best seller. Playlist can be made on the fly and on the cd.

I like all of them really. The only thing I can't stand about the Rio Riot is the fact that you have to use Real Player, can't creat playlist on the computer, and a few other small minor things I can't think of at the moment but that I read in peoples reviews on it.

I checked out these players on Cnet.com, Epinions.com, ResellerRatings.com, Amazon.com, Even went to the company's website for each of them and looked on BestBuy, CircuitCity, and The GoodGuys' website for these products. The RCA is the hardest to find but I found it easily on Amazon and Cnet.

Ok well now for your input. It will help alot, I can't decide. Again, even if you don't own any of these, just tell me what you think. I want alot of peoples opinions. Thanks, it really will help me decide.

-- Christopher
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post #2 of 17
1/25/03 at 2:49pm
Out of the three you picked there the Rio Riot is the best sounding machine but I would seriously recommend that you get the Nomad Jukebox 3.

It sounds excellent, has replacable batteries, powerful headphone output, firewire capable transfers, infra-red and wired remote controls and is simply brilliant.

I hope this helps.
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post #3 of 17
1/25/03 at 7:19pm

MP3 player

I suggest you check out CNET again and look at the release dates for some of the newer MP3 gear that will be coming soon.
By summer, there will be a whole new crop of MP3 players.

There will be many new hard drive and flash based MP3 players to choose from, with new features such as the ability to record from a built-in FM tuner, support for MP3Pro and WMA as well as MP3.

Also coming are pager-size MP3 players with smaller, but with still impressive capacity, 1-2 GB hard drives. The suggested list price for these new mini players will be in the $200 range.

On the high end, there will be portable MP3 players with 40, 60, and even 80 GB of disk storage.

If it were me, I would wait for some of these new toys to hit the market, before taking the plunge.
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post #4 of 17
1/26/03 at 2:29pm
I'm very happy with my Archos Studio 20 (now! – with Rockbox firmware!): excellent sound for a portable, good handling, but a bit heavy. BTW, no freezing at all and since Rockbox no skipping problem anymore. I have no idea how it compares to its competitors.
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post #5 of 17
1/27/03 at 12:11pm
Thread Starter 
I checked out the upcomming MP3 players. Nothing really cought my eye. I did however read into the Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox 3 and I even looked at the Zen MP3 player.



I liked alot of things on the Nomad Jukebox 3. The PlayCenter software seemed really good.



The CD player look is kinda plain and nonoriginal but thinking how it would look hooked up to my reciever, sitting on the shelf. It would fit in rather nicely.

The fact that it has both USB and Firewire support is really nice. For when I upgrade to a newer computer someday.

Right now I'm debating between the Archos and the Nomad. Both can sync from the computer to the player and vise versa. And with a large MP3 collection that is a real time saver.

The Nomad has a lot of extras that I like. The user interface (UI) is real user friendly.

The only thing that I like about the Archos that the Nomad can't do is the ability to function as a external hard drive. Good for when I need to backup a few things and I know it would come in hadly alot. I'm always repartioning my computer and reinstalling Windows XP. I'm just worried about messing with the firmware in the Archos.

The Rio Riot looks nice, the more I see it the more I want it. But it just dosn't do some of the things I want, like sync my MP3 collection and function as an external hard drive. The Rio is very big, good screen size, easy to read, smooth text. Those are what I love about it, plus it just looks so damn cool.

The RCA is getting out of my sytem. Don't care for it's looks that much, the giant RCA on the player makes the whole thing look even uglier.

I just need to do some more reading, visit some stores and hopefully get to check out those players. I know I can find the Archos for sure, don't know if I can find the others. I'll have to see.

Anyway... keep the comments comming in.
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post #6 of 17
1/27/03 at 12:59pm
For me it's still iPod or nothing. You may not have a firewire card now but your next PC/mainboard will almost certainly have one standard, and buying a firewire card for your existing PC could be as little as $20. You do NOT want to load 20G of music with USB, and while 2.0 is available (again standard on many new mainboards) I've never seen it go as fast as it is supposed to. There is no MP3 player that even approaches the iPod's combination of small size, capacity, interface and sound. Even the software to support it is excellent - I use Ephpod now but I was happy with iTunes too when I had the Mac.

Read reviews of the Nomad Jukebox 3 very carefully. Make sure you'll be happy with it if you decide to buy one. You might be, I wouldn't.
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post #7 of 17
1/27/03 at 1:24pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Aeberbach

Well I don't plan on getting a new computer for a while now. And I don't want to put any more money in the computer I have now, it crashes so often and gives me so many problems, it isn't worth it.

I'm not looking at the Ipod because it's to small and is to expensive for what you get. I like the bigger MP3 players alot better. I'll be using it with my stereo reciever, I'm not going to be taking it anyware. Maybe to my family's house during holidays but that would be rare.

As for the loading of 20GB via USB, that dosn't bother me much. I don't plain on loading that much all at once. I have less then 800MB of MP3's right now. I just deleted alot of my old ones when reinstalled Windows XP.

I'll prob upload 20 songs here and there. I want a large 20GB hard drive so I'll be able to add to it for years and years to come. In actuality I can prob do good with a 5GB player.

The main reason why I wanted a 20GB player was for the Archos, and how it could be used as a backup hard drive. I download alot of software on my computer and every few months I wipe my computer clean and reinstall the OS. A plug and play 20GB hard drive would come in handy pretty often.

When you stated to read the Nomad reviews real carefully, what were some of the things that cought your eye?
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post #8 of 17
1/27/03 at 2:22pm
I prefer the cd based mp3 players, so I won't be able to comment on your choices except for one thing.

Rio's customer service sucks. I have had dealings with them in regards to my SP250. THey don't pay any attention to what your problem is, and they never kept up with updates for it.

On that basis alone I would recomend any brand other than Rio.
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post #9 of 17
1/27/03 at 7:31pm
I used a first generation Nomad and I was amazed at how bad the user interface was and how slow the unit was to start up. I'm just wondering how much Creative have improved it - they're not a company I trust much, having followed them through several generations of Soundblaster. To be fair I haven't used the Nomad 3 so I can't say it's not worth looking at, but I do recall a lot of people in the Arstechnica forums weren't that amazed with the new model. It might be worth a look there too.
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post #10 of 17
1/31/03 at 6:45pm
Quote:
Originally posted by aeberbach
I used a first generation Nomad and I was amazed at how bad the user interface was and how slow the unit was to start up. I'm just wondering how much Creative have improved it - they're not a company I trust much, having followed them through several generations of Soundblaster. To be fair I haven't used the Nomad 3 so I can't say it's not worth looking at, but I do recall a lot of people in the Arstechnica forums weren't that amazed with the new model. It might be worth a look there too.
A gigantic improvement. If you had 20GB filled on the Nomad 1 (1 and 2... the original 2 was just the 20GB model of the number 1 but they've rereleased the 2 which is actually a 3 with some features taken out... confusing?), it would take a good two-five minutes to bootup ESPECIALLY if you used playlists. The new one... 10 seconds.

Another bootup feature that works wonders for me is the quick-bootup. I think something along the lines of not emptying out the RAM for 20 minutes takes place but don't quote me on it. Anyway, if you turn it off and turn it back on within 20 minutes, it'll boot back up IMMEDIATELY right in whatever portion of the song you left off at. Once again, this is great for me because I have 5 and 10 minute breaks at work Worried about not having firewire? A lot of soundcards, to compete with Creative who was obviously planning on releasing Firewire devices, are putting ports on their soundcards.

Why not buy the others? Utter lack of support. www.nomadness.net - Nomadness members bitched about not having a sound level because the Jukebox 3 boasted "full recording features," in which they weren't lying but, really, you can't record intuitively without knowing what the hell volume you're recording at. Anyway, Creative released a firmware update and, viola, a sound level.

The JB3, from what I've read, has the best sound quality, end of story. People have complained about PlayCenter (I haven't had any problems aside from having to reinstall it a few times because I ****ed things up) and there are a few programs like Notmad Explorer that allow you to connect to the JB without using Creative's software.

The Jukebox has a community like none other and that's why you're getting a message like this :P. I even upgraded mine to a 40GB from a 20GB.

Oh yeah, and you can get up to 20 hours of (realistic) battery time. I've also heard that the iPod's battery is not easily replaceable if at all.
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post #11 of 17
1/31/03 at 9:13pm
Thread Starter 
So all in all Pik, you like the Nomad Jukebox 3 over the Archos Jukebox Studio 20?

The Archos has a pretty good following as well. The RockBoxx firmware community is really commited to the Archos. Any day now they'll be an official cult.

For the most part, those are the two MP3 players (the Archos and the Nomad) that I keep debating on. I keep switching my opinions back and forth. I've seen how you can use thirdpart software Notmad Explorer but it cost about $30 bucks. The playcenter seems pretty good. Just wondering, are you able to use MusicMatch 7.5 with the Nomad? MusicMatch dosn't say which MP3 players it supports, it makes it seem like it supports them all.

I'm surprised no MP3 player comes with WinAmp 3. I love that MP3 Player. I only like MusicMatch for it's simplicity and the Lake PSL plug-in. I love the Dolby Headphone technology.

I found the Archos Jukebox Studio 20 for $199 at BestBuys, and thats a pretty good deal. Even though I have a little over $400, If
I can get away with spending about $200 I might be able to buy a headphone amp or a SACD/DVD player. And that would be really sweet. So many things I want....

Let's see, I want a MP3 player, I want a new DVD player, I really want a Dell computer, a subwoofer for my reciever would be nice, an headphone amp would be sweet, a High Definition Flat LCD TV...ok now I'm just starting to dream.
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post #12 of 17
1/31/03 at 11:48pm
I thought MusicMatch was a Mac only thing... shows what I know. Anyway, personally, I use PlayCenter and if I were to use NotMad, I'd find cheaper ways of obtaining it *cough*.

I've heard only bad things about the Archos but that WAS on the Nomadness forum so... take it as you will. I love everything about my JB3 and although I treat it like absolute ****, it loves me back and doesn't break... had a few scares (and scars) though.

PlayCenter does the whole CDDB auto-naming your MP3's and all. You can rip straight to your MP3 player if you desired to do so.

There is an Archos that has a 1.5" LCD screen on it and supports USB 2.0 and DivX. I thought that was cool but I imagine I'll stick with Creative.

Unfortunately, you missed out on the $50 Christmas rebate for all the Creative Jukeboxes, heh, that was cool. I got all my friends to get 'em. That's one thing I wish I could do... transfer between Jukeboxes. Not at all necessary but would be neat.
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post #13 of 17
9/17/03 at 4:52pm
You want the Nomad Jukebox 3....DEFINETLY...the Archos feels like a toy in comparison. All light and plasticky. The JB3 has better sound quality (what we're all after) and more features. It has a Infrared remote, so it'd work GREAT hooked up to your stereo, you could control it from accross the room! I do like the idea of the Archos' UI being open source (hence the creation of "Rockboxx") but the UI on the Jukebox is great. I've had no problems with it, and creative has been frequently putting out firmware updates that adds features and stabalizes certain bugs and whatnot.

Playcenter is good software for some people, but others just hate it. I've personally never had any problems, but, Notmad Explorer is DEFINETLY worth the money, no question about it. It gives you a lot more control over your jukebox, including the ability to map it as a network drive (yes, that's right, you can access your jukebox from any computer on the network, macs included...heck, you can even access your jukebox over the internet..if you catch me while I'm online [AIM: SaxyTy74], I'll give you the url to access my JB3, if you want.)

The Nomad's file storage capabilities are great, I use it to back-up stuff all the time...in fact, you can put the drivers and file manager program onto a 3.5" disc. I can then put whatever I want onto my JB3, take it to another computer, pop in the disc and VIOLA! I have access to all the files on the Nomad!

If you're at all into recording, get the Nomad. It can do analog or OPTICAL recording into WAV or MP3 at many different levels (all the way up to 320kbps MP3 or 48khz Wav).

The Nomad also has DUAL line outs for 4.1 speaker support, and 50mW output on the headphone jack (most CD players have 5 or 10mW output)...

Sorry, I started drooling about my Nomad again....any questions for an experienced MP3 user, just let me know!
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post #14 of 17
9/17/03 at 4:56pm
Quote:
That's one thing I wish I could do... transfer between Jukeboxes. Not at all necessary but would be neat.
So, pikawel, you wanna know something cool? Well, the latest firmware update allows you to do NJB3 to NJB3 transfers!! Talk about a wish come true!

Heh, gotta love that Nomad!
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post #15 of 17
9/17/03 at 5:01pm
me again...you like Winamp? Well guess what! With the Nomad and Notmad Explorer, you can stream tracks from the jukebox to your computer, and you can play them in Winamp, WMP, or any other stream accepting player! HUZZAH!!!
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