[Gergor]

I am thinking about buying a source for office use. I have a couple Sony PCDPs and a Panasonic PDVDP which I can use. However, It's too much hassle to carry the CDs with me everyday. So I decide to buy a HDD player, load the music at home and then leave the player at work. It doesn't have to be a portable device and I don't care about battery life (I'll use AC adaptor). But I don't see any desktop type player (Does anyone know of any?), so I guess I'll stick with a portable device.

From this forum Nomad Jukebox 3 has very good reviews in terms of sound quality, so this will be be first choice (unless anyone can give me a better suggestion).

I'm new to digital music, and I know nothing about generating music file on PC. There's a line/optical in on Nomad. Looks like I can hook up my CD player to it and record directly without a computer. That'd be my natural choice (I'm a computerphobic). Does anyone have experience with it? I'm mostly interested in knowing the sound quality of the recorded music.

I think I'll use WAV instead of MP3. Is there a noticeable difference in sound quality?

Thanks in advance for help!

 

[zowie]

Don't you have a computer at your office? If so, why do you need a desktop player or stationary portable?

 

[zowie]

WAV recording doesn't make any sense. You'll only be able to fit about 30 cds on a big 20 gig device. Since you're not going to be using it portably, you might as well save the money and have better sound by making a copy set of 30 cds to keep at the office for about $10. In fact, you might come out ahead if you bought a whole new set of the 30 cds.

 

[Gergor]

Quote:

Originally posted by zowie Don't you have a computer at your office? If so, why do you need a desktop player or stationary portable?

Yes, I have a computer at work, but I don't want to put music files on it... And it probably has a crappy sound card... And, most importantly, I merely want an excuse to buy a new toy.

 

[Gergor]

Quote:

Originally posted by zowie WAV recording doesn't make any sense. You'll only be able to fit about 30 cds on a big 20 gig device. Since you're not going to be using it portably, you might as well save the money and have better sound by making a copy set of 30 cds to keep at the office for about $10. In fact, you might come out ahead if you bought a whole new set of the 30 cds.

Well, I don't mind using MP3, if the quality isn't too bad. My question is, how's Nomad's optical in to MP3 convertion compared to MP3 convertion on PC in terms of quality? Can any Nomad owner shares his/her opinions?

 

[zowie]

Quote:

Originally posted by Gergor And, most importantly, I merely want an excuse to buy a new toy.

Now you talking!

 

[PodMan]

I read a review somewhere that the mp3 encoder in the Nomad is not the greatest and introduces artifacts to mp3s. Also it does not support Variable Bitrate Encoding. Not sure about the quality of line-in to wav though.

If you want to encode high quality mp3s, use EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to rip and use the LAME encoder to encode. You can configure EAC to run the LAME encoder automatically after ripping the tracks so you don't need to deal with command line settings.

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/


Also, you can use EAC to rip directly to wav if you want.

 

[Gergor]

PodMan, thank you for your responce, and welcome to head-fi!

I'm a idiot in terms of MP3 and computer technology. Would you (or anyone else) give me a quick tutorial about what EAC and LAME (and I think I read somewhere that there's also something called razorLAME?)

Any web site I can goto to learn more about it?

So much to learn about new (and not even so new) technology.

 

[Peddler]

Potentially the Nomad 3 has one advantage over all the other portable MD recorders - non-compressed recording. Once done, simply upload to your PC, use LAME to encode and then download - with Firewire this really is the best way for top quality field recordings. Eat yer heart out IPOD!!!

p.s. - just kidding - I'd love an IPOD as well.

 

[Gergor]

FYI, found this review while searching for a soultion to my ID3 tag problem with my new NJB3..

 

[zowie]

There are some samples of live recordings made with the Nomad (some Nomad) on the samples page at www.soundprofessionals.com.