9 replies to this topic

[Samurai Appliance Repair Man]

If you have an iPod, then you've undoubtedly experienced the problem where randomly shuffled songs are not random at all; some songs get played over and freakin-over while others may never get played at all no matter how many times you re-shuffle.

Finally, someone has started a website to bring this problem to Apple's attention so they'll finally do something about it. It's RandomiPod.org and I think it's the beginning of a tidal wave of protest activism to get Apple to bring true randomness to the iPod. Catch the wave! www.randomipod.org

[ether.real]

Just another item to add to the list of problems ipods have.

 

Creative Labs FTW!

[nickfixit]

We have 4 kids, so we always get the cheaper MP3 players. They have been easy to use and perform well.

As a Christmas present, I bought my wife an ipod thinking the "name brand" unit would be sweet.

Wrong, it was a horrible pain in the ass for her to get it working, about a million times more effort than the "el-cheapo" models.

I ended up feeling really bad about buying it for her. I had good intentions, but Apples' ipod truly SUCKS in my book.

Nick 

[Keinokuorma]

While working in the computer sales & repair shop in 2003, I got myself a NAPA mp3 player... one the first reasonable price models to embark this country. Had 128MB internal memory, 1.2Ah internal battery, USB transfer and memory stick function, neat blue backlight LCD... for an early unit, it has worked nice. Only it has a very awkward keypad, you can't play back when the charger or USB is plugged. But I've only had to press the reset button on the back twice.

Sad but true, iPod just rides on the success of the Mac computers. Even Creative Labs isn't as good a player in the industry as it used to be... most of their average priced sound cards aren't any better than some cheaper units from smaller manufacturers. Many integrated sound chips, that add almost zilch to the motherboard price, produce better sound than the average SB card. They're just sold to the customer by the looks of the card, flashy retail box, and a once upon a time top quality brand. And, I don't find their MP3 player to be anything special except for the previously mentioned points.

[Samurai Appliance Repair Man]

[user=10234]Keinokuorma[/user] wrote:

Sad but true, iPod just rides on the success of the Mac computers.

This is exactly why people are setting themselves on fire to protest those damn iPods!

[Keinokuorma]

the unreplaceable battery in the NAPA has lasted about 4 years.

[ether.real]

I could not disagree more. 

If you are a hi-fi audio buff, there are some soundcards out there that are supposedly better than Creative's offering (ie, Auzentech, Meridian, etc), however these are also expensive, offer little or no EAX support, and are mostly software driven, which means performance penalties. 

For gamers, there is nothing better than the Creative Labs X-Fi.  The EAX implementation is top notch, near zero performance penalty, and huge improvements to sound quality for both music, movies and games.  The Audigy2/4 were both minor improvements to the Audigy1, however the X-Fi is leaps above the Audigy2/4.  And no onboard sound is even close to any of the Audigies.  Even the supposed Hi-Def Azalia for Intels are no match, mainly because of their lack of hardware, and proximity to circuits that are prone to cause noise. 

Most of the onboard sound is provided by Realtek...one of the biggest stinkers in terms of sound quality....they claim EAX capabilities, but research from DailyTech shows that this is pretty much faked.

The one thing that really is the Achilles Heel of the Creative sound cards is the drivers.  They tend to be bloaty, and can be prone to problems. Other than that, for those with stingy tastes in sound quality, Creative is definitely a viable option.

As for the mp3 players, at the time when i bought my Zen Touch, it was comparable to the iPods 4GB flash player n price.  My Zen touch is 40GB.  The ipod has a battery life of 8 hours, and costs $99 to replace after about a year of life.  Mine has a 24 hour battery, easily replaced for about $30, and after a year is still going strong.  Sound Quality tests between the two have shown the CL player to be slightly better, and best of all, NO ITUNES!  Simple explorer like software to drag and drop your mp3s. 

 

[Keinokuorma]

X-Fi costs around 85€ while the average CL card I mean is in the 40€ range. And, while MANY integrated chips are as good or better then the average SB, most are quite crap, that much agreed. As long as the sound card is in the chassis, there's a lot of background noise that cannot be eliminated. I've used an unknown brand cheap-o USB playback device that had far less noise and somewhat clearer sound than the 60€ SB Live I had in then.

I'm not saying that you can't get a good product from CL. But, I'm saying that many of the average and low priced cards from smaller producers aren't necessarily inferior to the CL cards of the same price range. Clearly CL puts more effort in the higher end cards, as the low-end goes to people who want a high end brand card for low cost. They don't want the unknown brand card even if it wiped its arse with the similarly priced CL product.

Then of course, if you need a good and cheap sound card... perhaps the way to go is to enable the internal chip and buy a higher end CL. Have two devices, so to say.

[ether.real]

I suppose I have never tried CL's low end cards.  So I think i may have misunderstood your post.  I am not a low end PC kind of guy

[mada]

ah, the ipod, the ultimate disposable consumer electroic chew toy. I'm on my 5th or 6th one.... I'm certain that theres a little guy in there (with a hammer) that just starts whacking away at the ipod's innards the day after the warranty is up. Problem is that He's so small, he's hard to locate... Once I get ahold of him.... urrrrrrghhh