General Chat / iTunes or Winamp

Nice fucking avatar, man.



Also, thanks Coaster Ed for introducing that to me. I was planning on getting an ipod but now that I've seen this I will purchase it instead. Thanks.

It's not just bitrate though. The ipod doesn't put out very much bass unless you hook it up to an amplifier or something, but who wants to do that? That kindof ruins the point of the portable music player doesn't it? That was the biggest reason I didn't get an ipod (even though the interface is much better than anything else out there) because I like to hear a lot of bass in my music.

you could get better headphones. maybe these expensive SOB's.

EDIT: btw, that company, Bang-Olufsen, created the click wheel used on the iPods back in the 80's. pretty crazy stuff.

I'm just saying...there are other alternatives out there. I was pre-disposed not to buy an iPod anyway because they've pretty much got a monopoly now on MP3 players, so I did a little research and ended up finding something I like better anyway. I guess I could just get super expensive headphones, except I mostly listen in the car so headphones wouldn't do me much good there. And headphones are going to improve the sound of everything you plug them into. Might as well start with better quality too, and make it that much better. And I like being able to record from the radio because there's this great jazz and blues radio station in LA that plays a lot of good music I don't own.

Also, thanks Coaster Ed for introducing that to me. I was planning on getting an ipod but now that I've seen this I will purchase it instead. Thanks.

You're welcome. I hope you like it. I have the M3L model which has 20GB of space and 35 hours of battery life. It's pretty easy to use once you get used to it. You can do practically everything with just two buttons. The screen is kindof small, and it doesn't sort your music into 'artist, album, song' like the ipod does. It lets you organize them into folders however you want which is either better or worse, depending on what you prefer. Oh and you can get one of those radio transmitters to play it in the car. That works pretty well, you just have to turn the volume up to make the reception clear.

I was pre-disposed not to buy an iPod anyway because they've pretty much got a monopoly now on MP3 players...

That pretty whole-heartedly sums up why most people don't want an iPod...
But I thought...why do they have this monopoly? Well, yes, it's because of image and advertising, but also because the iPod is a quality product...

Yes but, as I look at your avatar, you left out the second half of that sentence:

"...so I did a little research and ended up finding something I like better anyway."

I don't argue that the iPod is a good product. But then there's the omnipresent Apple iPod advertising which seems to suggest to people that the iPod is the only MP3 player worth buying. I had to do a lot of digging to find other MP3 players with similar features whereas I already knew what the iPod was because my friends had them and I saw billboards and TV commercials and internet popup ads and magazine features. I'm not telling anybody that Apple is evil so don't buy their products. I'm just saying, don't believe the hype, do a little research and find out for yourself. I'm probably different than most people in the sense that advertisment tends to have the opposite effect on me. The more of it I see, the more skeptical I get. But that's not why I didn't buy an iPod. I didn't buy an iPod because I found something I liked better.

I can safely say that i didn't buy an iPod through advertising, i bought it because i'm shallow enough to want to pay extra for something just for the way it looks.

But i'm loving my iPod at the moment, i can't wait to try it in my car.
I'm pretty sure the addition of two amps and a 12" sub will sort out the iPods supposed bass problem Although i haven't really come across a problem with the bass from my iPod mini yet!

Thanks Coaster Ed for posting that iAudio M3, but I think I'll probably still stick with the iPod 20GB, because I found the iPod at a cheaper price, and it's hard to find the iAudio in U.S. dollars at a U.S. site, because what I understand it's only released in U.K. and Asia. Mostly all I've been finding of it in America is on eBay. Still looks very cool though.

the iPod is a quality product...

I've had my iPod since September, and I've loved it, but...

Just last week I started having problems with it. From time to time (and more frequently as time goes on) it will skip songs, or play maybe 30 seconds of one song... make a clicking sound... and then go to the next. And sometimes it won't even play a song at all! It'll just freeze and then I have to reset it. Has anyone else here had a problem like that? I've read about it at several websites and it seems a rather common issue.

But the real problem is either getting a replacement or a refund. If sent in for repair, Apple - at its discretion - can send back a new, refurbished, or repaired iPod, which is a bunch of bullshit. Why in the hell would I want someone's used iPod when I paid more than $400 for mine in the first place? I tried exchanging it at Best Buy, but they would only "repair" it there, too. I might try for a refund instead of exchange, but either way I don't want to get stuck with a used fourth generation 40GB version that they don't even produce anymore.

Hopefully I'll get my money back, and then I can look for other alternatives.
At the very least I could get the 60GB iPod photo for the same price.