[PianoMap]

Who here on SB actually owns and uses an Ipod? If you use something else [minidisc, CD player, walkman, generic mp3 player, etc] please do tell us how you got it, and/or why you choose to use it.


Disclaimer: I may use this information for my own personal benefit.
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[Maztorre]

I've been using a 20gig 4th edition iPod for a couple of years with no issues.

[Churippu]

I have a 30mb video ipod! I got it as a graduation present from my awesome Dad. It is very nice and holds more songs than I can handle. (I never thought I would own this much music in my life) I basically have a ton of albums (I would say about 10 or 12) and a bunch of misc songs. I only put songs that I absolutely love and ones that I love and are hard to find.

I also have a few Queen videos on here (for long trips) and a Tenacious D video (Tribute duhhh)

If you don't mind the way it will look after a while (the silver backing on mine is all scratched up because it is a couple of years and I take it everywhere with me) I would definitely suggest the ipod. They are pretty durable too, I have dropped mine numerous times and it is still in awesome working condition!

[Martial Loh]

I own a 30gig Creative Zen Vision M. I bought it because it was cheaper than the equivalent ipod & seemingly had more features.
I primarily use it for work-journey music (20min walk to the station, 40 min on the underground tube x 2), though when Heroes was about, I think I worked through 8 or so episodes over 2 weeks, whenever I managed to get a seat.
There's a great shortcut button which you can customise - I use it to play the least-played songs, so I don't get bored.

I also have a 1gig Creative Zen Stone, which is frickin' sweet....(curse you Creative for releasing the Stone-plus a month later!) At £27 for what is essentially an ipod shuffle, I couldn't say no...

[km]

I have a 30GB Creative Zen Vision:M.

Pros:

Better screen
Longer battery life
Slightly cheaper
Don't have to use iTunes

Cons:

Slightly larger
Accessories aren't as plentiful


I got it cheap, because my previous Zen Micro 5GB died... or at least that's what I told the guy at Best Buy after I deliberately erased the firmware so it wouldn't boot. Their "Product Replacement Plan" is actually a good thing when it comes to players like this, because it's pretty much eternal upgrades for the cost of the $20 plan each time.
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vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
For adolescents; half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.

[Felix]

i have a phone that cost $40 more than the free model and takes microsd.

[professor_scissors]

I am one of the only people I know who uses no form of mp3 player whatsoever.

[dessgeega]

my sister gave me her old ipod so i could listen to music on my flight to california and back in march. it's pink. i havn't used it since getting off the airplane.
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[Cossix]

I've got a 60 gig iPod video and a 6gig iPod shuffle. I stopped using the iPod shuffle because it started losing its charge after like four years (went from 20 hours to like 10 or so), but the 60 gig is great. I use it for airplane trips, whenever I'm in the car, I hook it up to my 360 when I go to my parents' house so I still have all my music without lugging my computer around, and I used to use it every day for music at work when I did that whole thing.

I picked the iPods because they work in every OS and at the time I bought it I was only running Linux. Most of the other portable media players didn't have linux syncing software. Also I think the interface on them is just plain better than everyone else's, and now I'm in love with the mac version of iTunes so I don't think I could easily switch to something else.

[Vikram Ray]

I still listen to CDs!

[Capt. Caveman]

[RecessRapist]

I got a 2Gig iPod Nano for xmas, and I have about 300 songs on it. Is pretty good if you listen to A LOT of music.

[haircute]

I use a 2gig iPod Nano. Since I just have a tape deck in my car I use one of those nifty tapes that can plugh in to cd players or iPods. I got my new one back in January after I lost my old 1 gig. I had thought about getting one for a long time before actually buying one last June but didn't want the one of the 60 gig ones or whatever. This is the perfect size for me since I generally listen to a few albums CONSTANTLY for a couple weeks (or sometimes months...). I don't need to cart all my mp3's around. That's just silly.
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Get Wild and Tough!

[Mr. Apol]

[Kappuru]

My first Mp3 player was 32 megs and used a parallel port. I got it in 2000.

After that, I used Minidiscs, then NetMD, until I got a 5gb Ipod (the original..) .

note : the texas paraphernalia was compliments of my freshman roommate, not me.
After that was stolen, I went back to Minidisc for awhile, until I got a 20gb Ipod photo. Now I have an ipod video and absolutely love it, until I get an iPhone I guess.

The interface on the ipod just really cannot be equalled, for looking through a long library of songs/artists. Also, I've bought 300 some odd songs off itunes, so I'm screwed and have to stick with them for life!
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[rabite gets whacked!]

I have:
An iRiver IHP140 40GB HDD player.
+It shows up and functions as an external HDD
+It has quite nice recording capabilities, though HDD noise can be heard when using the internal mic alone
+It hasn't failed, in 4+ years of moderate to heavy usage, and the battery's still fine
+No itunes
-It's pretty clunky, closer to a 1G iPod than anything current
-No color display or photos or whatever, but I'm not interested in that
-Biggest problem is the scrolling; it scrolls down through each individual folder in the root directory at the same rate, which with 40GB music takes a long time.
-When loaded more than about 3/4 full, startup seems to take a lot longer
-Lately it's started skipping folders on sequential play, aka finishing off Band A and skipping down to Band D.
-Random doesn't seem random at all; it seems to keep coming back to specific artists time and time again.

And I just got a Zen Stone 1GB no-display flash player.
+Shows up and functions as an external drive
+Lightweight like crazy, smooth plastic edges, very small. I can stick it and my earbuds in a shirt front pocket and forget it's even there. But still durable and not cheap feeling
+Simple controls: Play/Pause/On/Off, Skip Forward, Skip Back, Volume Up, Volume Down, Sequential Play/Random Play/Skip Folder switch. That's it.
+No itunes
-I guess there's no clip? I wouldn't use that anyway; like I said, it's small enough to be unobtrusive in a pocket.
-My borked laptop power supply won't charge it through the USB cord, and I have to use my girlfriend's for that purpose.
EDIT:
+$40, half the price of an equivalent ipod shuffle. duh.
-Like Martial Loh, I bought this thing on release, and they've already got the Stone Plus out, which might be an automatic purchase for me. It's got twice the capacity, plus a little screen, all at the same size, for $70. duh.

My phone's a Sony w600i, which is largely made useless by non-expandable memory (256MB) and a proprietary (and unwieldy) mini jack adapter. Still, I keep a couple albums on there, but now that I've got the Stone I may never use it again.

I had to buy a discman again recently, because I've been without a computer with working sound since April now, but that hasn't curbed my CD purchases much at all.

I use the iRiver to try out random new stuff, and the Stone to focus more on specific acts or albums. When my iRiver dies (assuming that'll be the first thing to go at this point) I'll probably move over to a Cowon. I plan on pretty much never buying an Apple product, because I don't care for the direction they're taking digital music.
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[Corinth]

My Rio Karma died just before I drove home this summer :(

I got it for the Ogg/FLAC support!

[km]

[Toptube]

I have a $65 Panasonic discman that I bought a couple of years ago.

+ it has an am/fm radio with programmable stations!
+ it plays MP3 discs!
+ it plays regular CDs (something an MP3 player can't do)
+ it has really good battery life (claims like 60 hours on two AAA and another 80 hours or something with the external AA housing)
+ it uses less power when using an MP3 encoded disc.
+ its about as slim as a disman can get because of its internal use of AAA batteries
+ it has two "3d" sound modes that are supposed to emulate a "live" sound. and it works pretty damn well! it takes any music, and creates the illusion that it is on a live album or something. the first mode sounds like a smaller venue recording, and the second spaces the sound out more and adds more echoey reverb and sounds like a stadium concert. without distorting or adding noise. I often switch to this mode to keep well listened albums fresh.
-/+ the external AA housing is external. its never fallen off though in use, and it allows the unit to be slimmer
- its not as small as an MP3 player
- no real practical way to strap to a body part
- can't use conveniently as a USB storage device
- has a sound "enhancing" mode for MP3s that ruins the sound. makes highs way too shrill. it might work well on shitty cheapo headphones that can't make proper highs, but I use KOSS KSC-75s.

I bought it because I have no use for a large storage compact MP3 player. this is much cheaper. I rarely travel around with music in my hands, and when i do, its not long enough to justify having 10's of gigs of music with me. and when I do move around with my music, its usually in a situation where taking a CD wallet is not inconvenient.

edit* this particular discman sounds really good too. I've owned a few that did not sound good. such as a sony G-shock that couldn't handle its own sound enhancers (bass/treble boost) and would add all sorts of distortion.

[Toptube]

[boojiboy7]

I have a 30 g iPod video. I have had to get it fixed twice due to the headphone jack getting squirrely, but aside from that, it has been just fine. I also have a shitty 35 dollar sony discman I keep in my bag for when I buy cd's new and want to listen to them. Works pretty well.

[Tokyo Rude]

I picked up an Ipod Nano 8GB a few months ago as a reward for good grades. I'm really liking it, just big enough for whatever I want to listen to. This is after years of just using various cheap as hell mp3 CD players and stacks of CDs. The last one I used, a Sony, had pretty great battery life (like 2 weeks of constant listening for 2 AAs.)

I'm pretty satisified that I finally moved up to mp3 player. I'm just worried because it seems everyone I know has had their Ipod stolen at some point.

[Toptube]

I was taken to the "chris benoit is dead" thread, when I clicked on this thread just now.

[Krazii Bakon Lypes]

I've got a 30 gb video iPod, one of the newer black ones. I got it for Christmas, although I'm not sure why I wanted one in the first place. It's nice to listen to music at the gym, or when walking around the city. I may have wanted it so that I could listen to music while I ride, but that's really fucking dangerous when you're riding on the road, so I don't. Too bad, though. I think I own one just because I feel like I'm supposed to.

[Kappuru]

[Renfrew]

I have a 30GB Video Ipod.
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[Wilkes]

I have a 60 gig video ipod and I just bought a 1gb knockoff (new kind of) shuffle in chinatown the other week for like $40.

it's a k-k-killer combo!

[Hot Stott Bot]

[scratchmonkey]

[Corinth]

[parkbench]

I've owned a 60 gig...somethin generation iPod for a few years now.

The good: slick, simple, effective. nice interface. holds so much stuff. I've got something like 7,000 songs on there and there's still so much room. It's hawt.

The bad: iPods somehow evolve as time goes on--or is it, devolve into these broken-ass organisms. Whereas at the beginning, I only needed to charge it if it was really low, and it could last awhile on low battery, somehow it grew to "prefer" full battery, to the point where if I don't charge it all night it will die on me after 15 minutes of use. It sounds weird, but I was talking to a friend who's gone through many iPods and he nodded his head knowingly when I told him about the problem, saying "yeah, they like. change, or something."

I mean, it's not always a problem but they can break prettty easily. Also, the shitty-ass protector that comes with it is shit-ass. It scratches the screen. It's bullshit. You need to get a hard case, otherwise your ipod is fucked.

on FLAC: pointless

on OGG: awesome, but not supported
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metafilter vs. youtube comments

[Intentionally Wrong]

I got an iPod Shuffle for Christmas one year. I like it a lot because I had to learn nothing whatsoever about it in order to become proficient at using it. I have no real desire to learn anything about other digital music players, either. Convenience convenience convenience.
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JSNLV is frequently and intentionally wrong.

[chompers po pable]

i've got an 8 gig black nano, and listen to it about twice a week now, maybe. if it gets too loud to go to sleep at my place it makes a good noise cover. i'll get back into listening to music almost all the time, until i'm burned out again...and start the twice a week thing back up. i sometimes enjoy the sounds of the world around me i guess, as much as i love music.

[Corinth]

[Krazii Bakon Lypes]

Man, you just mockingly referenced recent digital technology like he's using some kind of ancient Mesopotamiam device to grind cornmeal or whatever.

[PianoMap]

I think I'm just going to buy a new CD player.

I have a minidisc player that I've used off and on for a few years now, but that shit is just too aggravating to load music onto.

I listen to lots of vinyls/CD's when I'm at home, but at for moving about stuff I guess I'll stick with the CD player for now.

I'll get a 30gb or so iPod when I deem it to be cheap enough.

edit - I'm sort of loving this cold war thing between audio file formats. I still prefer high-end .mp3's, but I have heard entire albums in .wav and .flac and whatnot and those are all pretty beautiful.
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[Martial Loh]

[Corinth]

[Teflon]

I use a Sony NW-A1000, which just shat all over similarly-priced players back when I got it. Two years on it's still hard to find a 6GB player that isn't a piece of shit at the $130 I paid, let alone one this small/sexy.

Of course, the price you pay for all this awesome is having to use Sonicstage.

[Kappuru]

ugh sonic stage. i died a little inside every time i needed to dub a new minidisc with that POS.
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[Martial Loh]

lawl sonicstage.
I used to use my netMD up till March-ish of this year. It was one of the old ones (ie, non-1gig MD discs) that operated on slow-ass USB 1.0.
I remember using the awful mess that was Realplayer, to put songs onto my discs, just to bypass the stupid Sony limited-copies rule. I think to fill up 5 hours worth of LP music, it'd take about 40 mins. PAIN.

Still, I can't diss the ridiculous amount of playback I got from a single AA battery. Im sure it was nearing 80 hours or so.. MP3 players need that sort of battery life, stat.