[CybrFrettr]

I am looking to purchase a small flash player for using at the gym. I am quite interested in the Iriver iFP-895 512Mb player. I have an Iriver H120 and I love it, so I am confident in purchasing another Iriver player.

My concern is the space - 512Mb. I thought about 1Gb but for the $180 that would cost me, I could get the Zen Micro for an extra $20 and get 4 Gb extra. So the 512Mb seems to make sense for $120. I currently rip all my music into MP3's at 192kbps. At this rate I might be able to get 6 or 7 albums (about 70 songs) on the 512Mb player. Is there a better choice for compression (MP3, WAV, OGG) and kbps rates, which would allow me close to the same quality but allowing me to get more music on the player?

I have not tried any different compression types or sizes (other than MP3), so I'm looking for advice. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[blessingx]

Ogg Vorbis is likely to get you smallest size, but if you want to stay with MP3 try LAMES "--alt-preset standard -Y" or "--alt-preset fast standard -Y" or even first "--alt-preset medium" or "--alt-preset fast medium". The latter may give you around 20% savings. All depends on your phones and ears how far you can push it. A lot of people are even happy with LAME ABR 128. Likely -q 5 Ogg (about same savings as -apm) is a good starting point on the Vorbis side. Maybe push it down to -q 4 and see what you think. Not sure what the battery hit will be with Vorbis on your player.

Since these are all VBR schemes, sizes will vary.

 

[gshan]

64kbps WMA. No, don't laugh yet

. Compared to MP3 at the same low rate, WMA sounds better. It's just a compression thing. 256mb IFP-790 gets me 110+ songs. More than enough for the gym. Unless you're using high isolating canalphones in a relatively quiet workout area, I doubt you're going to hear flaws in the detail. Try it out with a file on your comp for comparison. And remember, trust your own ears.

 

[dura]

I used to own a IFP-799, same series.

Ogg sounded good but it ate batteries much faster then MP3. I haven't had extensive experience with WMA but it did sound okay. Never tried 64 Kbs.

Talking about batteries; the thing does not take its power from the USBport while uploading, and that takes a lot of power (I know there are rechargables and AAs are cheap anyway, but still). The smaller the memorysize, the more you'll probably be uploading, I know I would, but of course YMMV.

 

[blessingx]

See here for an old test I did (you can use AAC sizes for CBR or ABR of1 any codec). In this example 192 came out close to -aps, so the last stat on each line shows the savings/additions. As gshan said, trust your ears, put if you start with 128 ABR LAME MP3 or -q4 Vorbis (depending on which Vorbois encoder you use) you're likely (again this is only one example) going to get around 1/3 more music. You can also read through this to see a 128 comparison. But again maybe you can push it even further.

 

[azncookiecutter]

OGG @ q4 sounds good to me. I have the Samsung YP-MT6Z and to my ears, they sound a bit less detailed as 192 KBPS CBR MP3s, but not a huge difference, imo. I can hear differences between OGG and MP3 with my no-name 2.1 computer speakers, but only then there I can hear a huge difference.

 

[CookieFactory]

perhaps you might look into a player that supports AAC. Pretty soon here AAC+ will be "mainstream," which will allow for very small files (<128) while maintaining pretty good SQ.

 

[Twombly]

Do any portable players support HE-AAC?

 

[blessingx]

No major player anyway. There were hopes both AAC VBR and HE-AAC would be introduced with QT and iTunes (and thus the iPod) right after Tiger release. H.264, which was annouced at the same time, uses both I believe. Unfortunately, it hasn't been introduced yet (though VBR can evidently be achieved in QT by outputting movie). See HydrogenAudio for more info.

HE-AAC (especially since MP3Pro never took off) would be great to see. LC-AAC would likely be used by most here though.

 

[CybrFrettr]

I finally purchased a flash player - the iRiver iFP-895 512Mb player. I have been using WMA64 for my music on this player. It should get me close to 200 songs at a quality sufficient for walking/jogging outside/ gym use.

I almost ended up with the 256Mb player, as I bought that on Wednesday for $99.99 at Best Buy. I used it once and was content with it until I saw this weekend's ad for Best Buy. They had the 512Mb player on sale for $99.99 (with rebates). Plus I had a 10% off coupon for Memorial Day. In the end I returned the 256Mb player and got the 512Mb player for the same price. A deal!!!

Thanks for all your suggestions.

 

[gshan]

congrats on the great deal. enjoy the music.

 

[judgmentday]

Quote:

I have not tried any different compression types or sizes (other than MP3), so I'm looking for advice. Thanks in advance for your help.

Just for jogging, try EAC/Lame 3.96.1, mp3 @96kb, high quality. When it comes to save precious space and just hear music kind of on the background. This is the way to go.

Quote:

64kbps WMA. No, don't laugh yet . Compared to MP3 at the same low rate, WMA sounds better. It's just a compression thing. 256mb IFP-790 gets me 110+ songs. More than enough for the gym. Unless you're using high isolating canalphones in a relatively quiet workout area, I doubt you're going to hear flaws in the detail. Try it out with a file on your comp for comparison. And remember, trust your own ears.

I agree with you. I listen to talk shows to MP3s at 64kb mono. Sounds acceptable.