Recommended "MP3" player for prog use?

A nice, light, mp3 player with detachable batteries (Takes one AAA, mine got around 10-14 hours of battery life) would be an iRiver T30. (1 gigabyte)

It is about the size of a AA Battery and is EXTREMELY lightweight.

It works with Windows Media Player, and mine has not malfunctioned at all in my 6 month's of owning one.

You could probably fit 10-15 albums for 1 GB.

It is a little expensive at $150, but it is a great, small mp3 player.

For the sake of conveienence, I have decided to rip all my prog albums onto my computer to add onto my superannuated Dell Jukebox.  As we speak, Atom Hear Mother is ripping onto my PC.  Usually, regarding prog, I strongly favor using my portable CD player to listen to prog albums, for best clarity with Bose Quiet Comfort 2 headphones, but when I'm travelling it seems cumbersome to drag 27 Zappa albums around. 

I have roughly 200 albums to go. 

it amazes me that anybody that are used to be listening to cd's and then turns to mp3's are not annoyed by the tremendous loss of quality?

Its like being used to driving a ferrari and then start to drive a fiat instead...

oliverstoned wrote: You should asked me this question before! Yes, you have half of the music, but you enjoy it. And your brain works to reconstitute the informations missing. It may involve a headache, although.

aha - we seem to agree, but we don't. I have all of what's important of the music with mp3, although it sounds slightly worse. Of course I know how mp3 works - parts of the signal which the human ear can't hear are left out. The result varies from signal to signal - some songs may sound really ok, others may sound harsh or "bland". But the higher the bitrate, the less are those effects on the signal, and in my humble opinion at 192kbps it's barely audible in a mobile situation (bus, train, cycling, jogging).

That's my opinion, and it's different from yours. Nothing wrong with that!

Lindsay Lohan wrote: 192kbps mp3 file on headphones is PAINFUL to listen to...i can't get it why ye dont see the TREMENDOUS difference. Ive played the same Music file ripped from cd at 192kbps on a mp3 player that costs TWICE as much as my discman with the same headphones(Or just standard earplugs) and the general loss is so big i will never listen to a mp3 file ever again using HEADPHONES. On my pc speakers i however dont mind playing back mp3 files at 192kbps...but with headphones where you can really hear all the details it is just a PAINFUL listening experience... If not anyone hears a BIG difference from cd to mp3 192 they have to be deaf

Maybe your headphones are too good.

192kbps mp3 file on headphones is PAINFUL to listen to...i can't get it why ye dont see the TREMENDOUS difference.

Ive played the same Music file ripped from cd at 192kbps on a mp3 player that costs TWICE as much as my discman with the same headphones(Or just standard earplugs) and the general loss is so big i will never listen to a mp3 file ever again using HEADPHONES.

On my pc speakers i however dont mind playing back mp3 files at 192kbps...but with headphones where you can really hear all the details it is just a PAINFUL listening experience...

If not anyone hears a BIG difference from cd to mp3 192 they have to be deaf

oliverstoned wrote: Without a minimum of neutrality and transparency on the system, these tests means nothing

That's a typical example for audiophile logic. They refuse ANY listening test anywhere else but at their home, which is not practical.

The whole discussion is laughable anyway. Why should anyone invest ridiculous amounts of money in systems which even audiophiles cannot tell apart from standard hifi components under neutral conditions? Even if these systems really had a better sound quality, the difference is so small that it cannot possible be worth that money.

Remember that one can enjoy music even with the crappiest equipment. Listening to music on a 100,000 $ system will give you more joy than listening to music on a 1,000 $ system.