[zenaphile]

Here's a great article on the 10 yr anniversary/history of the mp3 player...

Celebrating 10 Years of MP3 Players

What was YOUR first player and when did you buy it?

Mine was a Creative 5 mb Zen... purchased in January 2005 (I had a cd player that played mp3 cd's before the Zen). I still have the Zen, but have added the Creative Zen Wav (built-in speaker), and the Sony A-818. The Sony is my current favorite.

 

[kydsid]

Being the huge techie that I am it is suprising to even me that my first mp3 player wasn't until 2006 and an iPod 5g.

 

[RoadHazard]

I didn't jump on the MP3 bandwagon until a few years ago. In the beginning they seemed so incredibly limited, with their small storage space that allowed for just a few songs with decent sound quality, or a couple of albums with crap SQ. I mean, 32-128MB. That's just laughable. So, for a long time I ignored the growing MP3 player market, and was instead an avid MiniDisc supporter. I still believe that was a really good portable format, with really good sound quality. The main problem was that you had to lug around all your MiniDiscs. But even though that was kind of annoying, i stayed with MiniDisc until I got my first decent MP3 capable phone. That's when I ditched MiniDisc for MP3, and I haven't looked back. Up until very recently, I was still using a phone (a W810i) for all my portable music needs. Then, a short while ago, I got myself a Sony NWZ-A818, which is, believe it or not, my first dedicated DAP. Before I thought that "why would I get a dedicated MP3 player when my phone does it just fine?". But now I see that it's just not the same. A true DAP is something else. Still, I believe that phones and MP3 players will become even more integrated in the future, and the dedicated DAPs will probably disappear eventually. We're already seeing it with the iPhone (is it a phone or an iPod?), and to a lesser extent with the Walkman phones and Nokia's Xpress Music series.
But, there's still a place for the DAP, since a phone just can't be as good at playing music when it has to do so much else, without costing a fortune. We'll see.

 

[Ricardo Dawkins]

NHJ-VHD5100

 

[leftnose]

I started collecting MP3s in 1998 or so while still in High School. However, my first DAP was a 4G iPod purchased in 2005 (or 2004?). I used it until this past September when I bought a 160GB iPod Classic. The jump to a 5.5G 80GB didn't make sense given the cost.

Like Roadhazard, I had such a large collection of MP3s so early, that the relatively low capacities of the MP3 players in those days didn't make sense. I remember when the iPod had 5GB of space but I had 13GB of MP3s.

 

[HulkSmashNow]

Mine was a refurbed RCA Lyra RD-2762A, or "Reddie," named so because of its red color. It was a micro-hard drive based unit with 4gb, and worked great until its battery quit holding a charge after about 18 months. I still have it but it's not much more than a memento now.

 

[vhobhstr]

I bought my first and only digital music player in September 2007, an iPod Classic. Before that I used speakers attached to my computer.

 

[davidcotton]

Iriver 120 bought when they first came back, before that it was minidisc.

Since then I've had 2 zen stones (lost one, bought another to replace it)and just got hold of an ipod mini to do the cf mod on. The Iriver is still going strong though and is used daily at work.

 

[Sceleris]

This was my first mp3 player, which I suppose was bought for novelty's sake and "cool" factor.

X-bit labs - MP3 Player Saehan MPMan F20 Review

I remember having to rotate 8 songs onto its 32mb memory each week...

 

[Baba booey]

6gb(rare) iRiver H10 back in May 2005. 280$.

 

[Fuzzy OneThree]

Dell Pocket DJ

5 gbs of indestructible fury. I dropped it so many times and even spilled hydrogen peroxide on it and it still worked. I stupidly threw it away after I tried the CF switcheroo. I had the wrong CF card. >_<

 

[Barock]

My first was a cheapie Prosound player from Maplins. Not too bad actually - uses an SD card (up to 2GB), FM radio, OK sound quality. It sits in a drawer now, and I still prefer MD somehow.

I also have a NexBlack player now, and may get a high capacity CF card and put most of my MP3's on that...

 

[nick_charles]

My first player was an iRiver Slimx 350 back in 2002, but my wife had a RioVolt SP100 player before then in 2000. We both have Creative Zen Extras now and I also have a 5G iPod.

 

[craiglester]

Neuros Mk1 - still got some features I miss.. - Pitch control (!), Radio recieve and transmit, gapless, recording (line in and from the radio), bulky as hell though, and it hit every branch on the way down from the ugly tree too. Sounded good though, nice lil amp, and a good EQ too.

 

[dgbiker1]

I bought an iJam- a pre-ipod iXXX!- circa 1999 or 2000. It couldn't rewind or fast-forward, but you could loop parts of the song

Memory was only on SD cards that cost ~$80 for 16mb (maybe 8mb, it held 1 CD at 96kbps) at the time.
My next player was a 3G 8GB iPod, man that was several steps up!

EDIT: I just found the thing on antiqueradio.com hahaha (Antique Radio Classified--With the Collectors)