New MP3 advice

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Aug 10, 2019
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Hi, Im looking to get a new MP3 player. currently have 4Gb creative Zen. Im not the greatest fan of iTunes and like the simplicty of the creative.

I've narrowed my choice down to 16Gb ipod touch or Zen X-fi. Does anyone have view/experiance of either product. Im also looking to play back the best sound I can but get a little confused with Wave, wma etc - any quick guides??

Thanks
 

John Duncan

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Well the 16gig iPod Touch is simply a thing of beauty, both aesthetically and ergonomically. Even my wife goes "oooo I didn't know it could do THAT!". So hard to see past that to other players, in my book.

As for lossy/lossless formats, in some respects it depends on your choice of player and/or capacity so get that sorted first then we can go from there?
 

fatboyslimfast

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GWindy:but get a little confused with Wave, wma etc - any quick guides??

Thanks

In order of quality low to high, MP3, WMA/AAC (both similar), FLAC/Apple Lossless/WAV (same).

Pros/cons:

MP3 - ubiquitous but low bitrates sound horrible - only 320Kbps is coming close to CD quality. Anything below 160Kbps can be quite nasty and shrill. Album at 320KBps is roughly 150MB

WMA/AAC - Better sound quality per bitrate (roughly 128Kbps WMA/AAC = 192Kbps MP3) but generally tied into either Windows Media Player / iTunes. Albums same size as above

Flac - open-source lossless. True CD quality, but at roughly 60% of the size. Apple lossless the same but tied to iTunes. Albums roughly 400MB

WAV - direct bit-for-bit rip from CD, but no option to add track info, and a full cd is 800MB on your MP3 player.

Hope this helps...
 

idc

Well-known member
I have both (my son was given a Creative Zen for Christmas) and I would go for the ipod every time. The sound quality is better and I personally find itunes to be far more intuative to use that the Zen's file system. The instructions for the Zen were particularly poor in that I found them hard to follow and they assumed a degree of knowledge about how files on a computer work.

As for a guide try this link which goes through all the available file types; http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central.htm and it contains a link to http://www.dbpoweramp.com/spoons-audio-guide.htm which is more general.
 
A

Anonymous

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Thanks for the advice. Looks like I'll try the ipod if I like the look of it (only seen it online!). And the information on file types is just what I needed - many thanks.
 

bemahler1

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Agree with JD. I have an 80gb classic and a16gb itouch, have a couple of films on my itouch, Wall-e and Chicago, amazing quality of films and sound, if you decide to buy either,. make sure you invest in one of the following headphones either Grado or Alessandro.
 

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