Which is the Best Mp3 Player?

When CD-players finally were 'out' and mp3-players a must-have, I wanted to have one for Christmas. As you probably know, there's an incredible selection of mp3 players on the market right now. In fact, most of the cell phones that you can get on Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile prepaid phone plans probably have a built-in mp3 player. But it's really handy to have an mp3 player separate from your cell phone, so I went to a shop with my parents and chose a Philips one with 128 MB memory. I use my music players a lot, especially on the bus or when walking, and my new player broke just after two weeks.

But what is an mp3 player?

Firstly the word mp3 actually means MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3 and MPEG stands for the Moving Picture Experts Group, which develops standards for digital video and digital audio compression. And the Audio layer 3 bit means a standard technology and format for compressing a sound sequence into a very small file (about one-twelfth the size of the original file) while preserving the original level of sound quality when it is played.

So now any particular song can take up much less space on your player enabling you to get more of your beloved songs onto your player.

Now although I don't consider myself an audiophile ("A lover of sound" However as most people are lovers of music etc, the term audiophile points to people who love high end audio equipment (which is usually extremely expensive!)) I do think that people often get carried away with the latest and greatest with mp3 players and tend to buy a player solely on looks rather than superior sound! Doesn't that seem a little backwards?

I'm a Mac man by heart but I don't own either an iPhone or iPod. I've never really liked the sound, even when they are paired with top-notch headphones.
I actually listen to my music on a Rio Karma.

It also is able to play uncompressed audio files as well as mp3 files so can sound even closer to the original CD.

Another manufacturer that has really put sound before every other aspect of design is the Korean manufacturer Cowon. Their players are praised for sounding beautiful and rich, especially when paired with good headphones even though they have software that can be garish and hard to understand. They can be quite expensive so at the other end we have the Sansa Clip range from Sandisk, again they get rave reviews for audio quality but only cost $45(£35). What a bargain!

What's Your Favourite Music Player?

Are you an iPod person or do you listen to music on something different? Share it!

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