Hi all,
Well, I'm finally back! Though you might not have noticed my disappearance, it's been three weeks since I either played piano, or used the computer. Not because I wished to, no, heavens no. The first two weeks were due to poor math grades... ( ) where my father actually cut the power cord of the digital . Don't worry everything's fine now... . Jeez, it feels good to let the house ring with pure music and to drown out the unhappy sounds of the TV. Also, to rewake the fingers as if they became frozen and coming back to the piano after a (min.) week long absence are no simple tasks, but it sure is one of the best things in the world! . The third week was due to a family vacation in Florida.

So now, back to the topic:
I am in the market for a(n?) mp3 player in the range 150$--200$ and have found a few good matches:
Player #1
All out of my range, I'm still stupidly drooling on the keyboard over them...
Player #2
Player #3

My main questions are:
1) How many regular (65 min) CDs can be transfered into the player?
2) Do all the players have chips that can be popped out, so that the user can carry n times more than what the ad says, if he buys new chips?
3)What mp3 Players do you own?
Opinions?
4) What is a jukebox in comparison to an mp3 player?
Keep in mind that I have a CD collection close to 70 and would like to, by any means necessary, bring them all on the plane...
Thanks all,
Zorro

Using rough numbers I *think* you will have about 60-70MB for a full CD using 128-bit (CD quality) encoding. So you can get maybe 10 or 11 CDs on one mp3 disk, more if you encode at a lower quality. Someone'll correct me if I'm wrong I'm sure.

My husband got me this for my birthday a few weeks ago

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1051806328065&skuId=5446957&type=product

While it is at your upper price range, there are smaller models. So far I haven't chosen enough music etc to fill it! I intend to use it to record my piano lessons and use it to listen to my audio language cds as well. I am a radio junkie so the FM tuner is useful too.

There are almost too many choices out there. Good luck!

I believe Gryphon is referring to an MP3 CD player. This might be a good choice since you could probably fit your entire collection on 7 or 8 CD-Rs. I purchased one for my daughter for Christmas and the price was $49. The memory/memory stick players don't sound like a good choice for carrying 70 CDs worth of music. You could probably fit 2 CDs per memory stick but that gets pretty expensive. I have an iRock 530 that holds 128MB and is small but I wouldn't want to pay for 30+ memory sticks.

Yikes, of course I was. I didn't even think anyone would try to fit very much music onto a memory stick/chip/card, even with mp3 encoding (unless you don't give a crap about quality sound).

I have an iPod, and it deserves its position as the best mp3 player out there. Everything about it is great (minus the price), so if you could acquire enough funds to buy it, It would be optimal.

My brother has one of those Rio S35S that you linked to. He seems to like it a good deal, I think he got it for around $100 at a local Best Buy. The only problem is that it does not hold as much as an ipod (10-40gigs) and it uses normal batteries, and not the rechargeable type. (Although you can buy those types of batteries, but it is not as convinient as having an internal battery.)

The iRiver seems to be pretty good, I think it was one of the bigger models, but it got good reviews. Check www.cnet.com for mp3 player reviews, they usually are a good source for information.

Oh, and get good headphones, for whatever player you get. Those that come with mp3 players are subpar. You can find a good set of headphones for around $30, which will sound a lot better than the ones that come with the player. If you can stretch your budget, I personally like the Sennheiser 497's, ($69) they are great for portable players, and sound terrific.

I know people who use this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/det...e&s=electronics

$150 with rebates and it has 20gb of storage. The sound quality is good too.
EDIT: The new ones are sucky and break alot though...

I have heard that iPod has a nonreplaceable internal battery that can last as little as 18 months:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16540-2003Dec19.html

http://www.ipodsdirtysecret.com/

I bought the iRiver 390T that Beelady described. I have been very happy with it but it does not hold a lot of music like the others. I have other uses for it that make it perfect for me.