Wide Wacky World of MP3's

[bucksfan]

Am I the last person on the face of the earth who doesn't own one of these portable players? I like to buy complete albums and listen to them all the way through instead of just grabbing indvidual songs and listening to them willy nilly. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

I prefer entire albums for the most part too, but I have jumped into the digital music world also. It's just too darn handy! I just use WMP (not Wily Mo Pena) to organize things on the PC and it works fine for me.

My player (Mobiblu cube 2GB) is definitely not for everyone however, but I love it and have had 100% positive experience with it. Plus I am kinda "gadgety".
http://www.mobibluamerica.com/dah1500_20060208.htm

The cube doesn't display pictures or anything like that, but it works well for what I wanted it for. As others have said, you just gotta choose what you think works for you. I knew I wouldn't want pictures/video (out of my 1st player anyway) so I narrowed my search quite a bit up front.

My wife has a San Disk Sansa 4GBwhich is really sweet and she loves it. I'd get that one again in a second also. Plus the battery is user replaceable and has great life.

My next step is linking up home stereo in some manner to take advantage of digital music storage on our PC.

[Unassisted]

I've used allofmp3.com a little bit, but that is a bit of a sticky moral/legal situation as well. It's a Russian company that charges about .10 - .20 per song, and it's legal in Russia. It's legality in the U.S. is debatable. You're paying for the music, but they're doing it without the recording industry's approval.

Visa announced today that it will no longer process payments to allofmp3.com. Apparently they were getting heat from the RIAA about this. MasterCard and AmEx can't be far behind.

[gilpdawg]

I do both.

Most of the music on my iPod is entire albums. Maybe about 20-25 "individual" songs on there, but that's about it.

When I find entire albums I like, I tend to stick with them for a while.

Yep, me too. On a Savatage kick right now. "Streets" and "Wake of Magellan" were played today at work.

[TylerScottDavis]

My wife has a San Disk Sansa 4GBwhich is really sweet and she loves it. I'd get that one again in a second also. Plus the battery is user replaceable and has great life.

Sweet, I always wondered which MP3 player you ended up getting your wife. Glad to hear you liked the San Disk, my wife still loves her 2GB version as well. I wish the 4GB version had been out when I got hers.

[OldRightHander]

Another quick question regarding these. Some of you say that you put entire albums on them, so would it be correct to assume that I could easily put my CD collection on one for use away from home? That's the only way I could see myself using one.

[oneupper]

Another quick question regarding these. Some of you say that you put entire albums on them, so would it be correct to assume that I could easily put my CD collection on one for use away from home? That's the only way I could see myself using one.

Absolutely. You "rip" your CDs to your computer and from there transfer to the mp3 device.
Most of the music on my iPod is of the "ripped" variety.

[Red Leader]

Just to follow up on oneupper's post. You can "rip' entire albums. I do that a lot. On my iPod it usually takes 5-10 minutes to rip a regular length Cd into iTunes and then another 20-40 seconds to transfer over to my iPod. All in all, not bad considering the amount of information transferring.

[Falls City Beer]

I do both.

Most of the music on my iPod is entire albums. Maybe about 20-25 "individual" songs on there, but that's about it.

When I find entire albums I like, I tend to stick with them for a while.

I do both as well. I don't want to lose the particular enjoyment of listening to a collection of songs by an artist. The artist intends for an album to be listened to from start to finish, not scrambled and mixed in with other artists' works. Sometimes I like to follow what the artist is attempting to convey in his or her ordering of tracks.

[SanDiegoRed]

I have a Creative Zen Micro that love. It has 1200 songs on it hand chosen by me. I have one of those car thingy majingys that allows me to play my songs in my car so I put it on a loop and Voila! Kelvin Radio. I love it!