Adventures in finding a new mp3-player
Nov. 20th, 2011 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaMy beloved old iRiver mp3-player finally broke after seven years of faithful service, and I had to get a new one. It turns out that I can't really get anything that fits my old-school tastes anymore. /o\
I finally bought another iRiver (the B20) which is a bit dated and was on sale. I'm reasonably happy with it, but what on earth is the deal with no modern mp3-players using replaceable external batteries? My old one ran on a rechargeable AA battery, and I could charge up several of them and bring with me in case the first one ran out. Now if the charge runs out I have to plug the player into my computer and wait for 2-3 hours before I can use it again. How is that an improvement? The point with an mp3-player for me is to be able to use it when I'm not by my computer (or near an electrical outlet, for that matter).
Secondly, the reason I will never get an Ipod is that you have to use a special program to put music/audiobooks on it. I find this extremely irritating. I want to just plug it in and use it as an external hard drive. For example, I wanted to share some podfic from my computer with a friend who has an Ipod, and it just wasn't possible because I didn't have the program it needed. /o\ I was afraid at first that this was the case with my new mp3-player, too, but luckily it turned out that you could change a setting and then just use it as an external hard drive. Whew.
The third thing is that I hate navigating by means of metadata--I want to browse by means of folders and filenames. Yeah, I'm sure this makes me horribly old-fashioned, but luckily, it turned out that the same change in setting also made me able to do this.
I also recently had to get new headphones because my old ones broke after eight years, and apparently I have unfashionable tastes in that, too. I want headphones that enclose the whole ear (so that they don't press on the ear) and yet have open portions so that they don't block me off from the surroundings. Otherwise the sound quality gets too closed-in, especially when I'm listening to music. I want the sound of the music or the reader to sound as if it's just part of my surroundings and not different from the other sounds around me. Obviously the trade-off here is that it's hard to hear in noisy environments, but I'll happily give that up. I finally found a pair of headphones that does this fairly well (Fischer Hyperion) even if I don't like them as well as my old ones.
I finally bought another iRiver (the B20) which is a bit dated and was on sale. I'm reasonably happy with it, but what on earth is the deal with no modern mp3-players using replaceable external batteries? My old one ran on a rechargeable AA battery, and I could charge up several of them and bring with me in case the first one ran out. Now if the charge runs out I have to plug the player into my computer and wait for 2-3 hours before I can use it again. How is that an improvement? The point with an mp3-player for me is to be able to use it when I'm not by my computer (or near an electrical outlet, for that matter).
Secondly, the reason I will never get an Ipod is that you have to use a special program to put music/audiobooks on it. I find this extremely irritating. I want to just plug it in and use it as an external hard drive. For example, I wanted to share some podfic from my computer with a friend who has an Ipod, and it just wasn't possible because I didn't have the program it needed. /o\ I was afraid at first that this was the case with my new mp3-player, too, but luckily it turned out that you could change a setting and then just use it as an external hard drive. Whew.
The third thing is that I hate navigating by means of metadata--I want to browse by means of folders and filenames. Yeah, I'm sure this makes me horribly old-fashioned, but luckily, it turned out that the same change in setting also made me able to do this.
I also recently had to get new headphones because my old ones broke after eight years, and apparently I have unfashionable tastes in that, too. I want headphones that enclose the whole ear (so that they don't press on the ear) and yet have open portions so that they don't block me off from the surroundings. Otherwise the sound quality gets too closed-in, especially when I'm listening to music. I want the sound of the music or the reader to sound as if it's just part of my surroundings and not different from the other sounds around me. Obviously the trade-off here is that it's hard to hear in noisy environments, but I'll happily give that up. I finally found a pair of headphones that does this fairly well (Fischer Hyperion) even if I don't like them as well as my old ones.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-20 03:23 pm (UTC)My husband has headphones that sound an awful lot like what you are talking about, but they are HUGE -- then again, that may be par for the course with surround-the-ear style headphones. :) I think they may be an older version of the HD 518 - http://www.sennheiserusa.com/audio-headphones-circumaural-headphones_504628 - but I could be wrong, I don't use his headphones very often. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-20 07:59 pm (UTC)