The MP3 Experiment

The mp3 Experiment is the world's first live theatrical performance that audiences will experience exclusively through headphones. There are no actors. There is no host. Audience members will download an mp3 track from the show's website in advance, load it onto their portable players, and bring it with them to the show.

The lights go down, a video projection cues the audience to press play on their mp3 players simultaneously, and the show begins. The mp3 track is an intricate mix of music and instructions from an unknown voice. The show is 100% audience participation; the crowd becomes the show, working together to create pure happiness on stage.

Even if you can't make it, you can still download the audio from their website.

Color Coordinated iPod Mini Earphones

For those of you (and you know who you are) dying to take color coordination to the next, Audio Technica has come to your rescue with earphones that come in each of the 5 iPod Mini colors. Mix and match colors to your heart's content for only $59 each. [Via i4u]

Apple iPod Photo Review

Review day rolls on with PC Magazine's Apple iPod Photo review:

Apple retains the iPod's famous ease of use and applies it well to digital photos, but with some odd limitations. If you want primarily a music player with the added ability to see and show photos, too, you'll be thrilled. But digital photographers will wish for more on-the-road-friendly features.

Archos Gmini 400 Review

Next up is an Archos Gmini 400 review from Design Technica:

The Archos Gmini400 definitely falls somewhere between being a high quality digital audio player, a solid portable video player and an okay digital photo display device. It is not very user friendly in the beginning, owing to a dizzying array of features and menu choices. If that can be mastered however, without tossing the Gmini400 out the window, you have a very solid portable entertainment device on your hands which will provide many hours of fun.

This type of device is best suited for those who want to take their entire media collection with them on the road for access at anytime. Those considering the Gmini400 for just one function, like digital audio playback, would be more suited to getting a device specifically focused on that niche. Overall, the Gmini400 is a cool device which will draw attention when you pull it out of your pocket.

Creative Zen Touch Review

The Globe and Mail has published their Creative Zen Touch review:

[T]he Touch excels in all areas - portability, user friendliness, capacity and battery life. If you've been checking out iPods and the battery issue doesn't throw you, give the Zen Touch a look as well - it's a great player that could save you a chunk of cash.

PS: The "battery issue" shouldn't throw you.

Sony NW-HD3: Sony Finally Gets on the MP3 Bandwagon

Sony has finally come through on its promise to support MP3 music files. Up until today, Sony ignored the hugely popular music file format and was rewarded by consumers ignoring Sony's audio players.

Today, however, saw the announcement of the Sony NW-HD3, an update to the NW-HD1 and NW-HD2, which will natively support MP3 audio files. Previous devices supported Sony's proprietary ATRAC format only and forced users to convert music into the Sony format.

Now that the MP3 issue is resolved, the NW-HD3 is a fairly compelling choice (assuming it arrives in the US at all, that is). It's smaller and lighter than the iPod and has excellent battery life. However, it's quite a bit more expensive than the iPod. US pricing isn't yet available, but we would be suprised if it were to retail for less than $399. Even at $399 it would $100 more than the comparable 20GB iPod.

On a related note, owners of the older NW-HD1 and NW-HD2 models can have their devices upgraded to support MP3s as well. It costs a small amount (2000 yen) and requires mailing the device to Sony, but it's good to see that Sony finally seems willing to give consumers what they really want.

Photos and a Flash demo are here. More photos at AV Watch.

More bits at TechJapan, i4u, Gizmodo (also here), DAPReview (also here), Engadget and the Wall Street Journal.

Related Links:
Sony Acknowledges Existence of MP3 Format
A Rough Week for Sony
Sony Debuts Another New Network Walkman

iRiver Gets It Mini On?

iRiver recently redesigned its international website. A site redesign isn't big news, but to get some free testing iRiver is giving away an as-of-yet unannounced device to the person who reports the most bugs.

To get people motivated, iRiver has offered a peek at what the new device is supposed to look like. Even though most of the photo is blurred, it's pretty clear that it has a color screen.

Also it's reasonable to speculate that it's going to be a mini size device since Apple, Creative, Dell and Rio have all recently introduced smaller, lower capacity models. The lack of a mini model has been a pretty big hole in iRiver's product line since the introduction of the iPod Mini.

If it does turn out this way, iRiver might have a winner with the first color, mini audio player. More details when they turn up.

Creative Zen Micro Review

PC Magazine has joined the Zen Micro club with their Creative Zen Micro review:

With its new Creative Zen Micro, the company beats the iPod Mini on capacity, features, and price. If you want the best value for your dollar, the Zen Micro is it. But be aware that the iPod Mini trumps the newcomer on interface and ease of use, so if those are your most important criteria, stick with the Apple.

Related Links:
Four Creative Zen Micro Reviews
Creative Zen Micro Officially Official

Sony NW-HD1 Review

Trusted Reviews has a new review of the Sony NW-HD1:

The NW-HD1 is small, slim, stylish, light and sexy. Unfortunately, the lack of native MP3 support (or WMA for that matter), lengthy file conversion process, convoluted, difficult software, and inability to create playlists with ease takes all the shine of this little Walkman. I'm not the biggest fan of the iPod, but given that it offers better file format support, a superb user interface, excellent software and a £50 saving over the NW-HD1, it definitely looks like the better option. However, if you're not looking for an electronic style icon, check out the Rio Karma, it's a better device than both of them.

PS: OK. Maybe NW-HD1 is a worse name than The Player, but at least you can tell that Sony blew a pile of money on naming consultants.

Related Links:
Sony Acknowledges Existence of MP3 Format
A Rough Week for Sony
Walt Mossberg: Sony HW-HD1 is "markedly inferior"
Sony Debuts Another New Network Walkman

Virgin Electronics Player Now Available

The Virgin Electronics Player, the debut audio player from Virgin, is now available for sale. The rounded, 5GB device in the iPod Mini mold retails for $249 and is one of the few audio players with two headphone jacks instead of just one.

PS: Richard Branson is a multi-billionaire. Could Virgin not spare the budget for some more creative naming than "The Player"?

Related Links:
Virgin Electronics Player

iRiver H320 Review

PC Magazine has published their review of the iRiver H320:

The color screen and photo support are more convenience features than reasons for buying the H320. But its sonic abilities and advanced audiophile features are. If you don't mind a larger player, the H320 is a fine choice.

We'd like to call out once again that the US version of the iRiver H320 and H340 do not have USB On to Go (USB OTG) support. European and Asian versions, on the other hand, do have USB OTG, meaning owners can move photos directly from a digital camera to the H320. Needless to say, not having this feature in the domestic version is a big let down.

However, the iPod Photo doesn't have USB OTG either and the iRivers (around $285 and $380) cost about the same as a comparable regular iPods (around $275 and $370), compared with the 40GB iPod Photo at $499.

Dension Updates the ice>Link

Dension has updated their iPod to car connectivity system with the new ice>Link: Plus. Rather than just a way to pipe audio from your iPod into your car stereo, the ice>Link: Plus is a more extensive hardware solution to connect and control your iPod with your car stereo.

If your car or replacement stereo supports it, the ice>Link: Plus lets you control your iPod with radio controls or, vice versa, control your car stereo from the iPod interface.

The new version is also more modular than the original and has upgradeable firmware. [Via iPoding]

Related Links:
Dension ICELink Connecting iPods to Your Car

25% Off iRiver Accessories

From now until December 13th, iRiver is offering a 25% discount on iRiver accessories. Just use code ATC25Y4M a checkout.

More on the Rio Chroma?

Engadget has a two scoops on what is rumored to be the new Rio Chroma. Mostly the specs agree with what was previously rumored: a 20GB capacity, color LCD screen and a SD flash memory card reader.

What's new this time around with the Chroma is that it is supposed to have not just a SD card reader slot, but a SDIO slot. SDIO would let you use a WiFi SD card to wirelessly stream music from the device or sync with a computer. However, syncing 20GB over WiFi will take a looong time. But if you just wanted to grab a few extra tunes, it wouldn't be so bad.

Also, according to Engadget's sources the Chroma is still not ready for prime time and may not hit the market anytime soon. At the rate Rio is going, there will be a Rio Carbon 2 by the time version 1 of the Chroma makes its debut.

Related Links:
New Chroma from Rio?
Rio Chroma Details: Color!
Rio Chroma Appears?

Price Guide

We've updated the organization of the price guide to make it a bit easier to read and added a way to double-check low prices on audio players. Off to the right of each entry is a link to Google's Froogle price comparison engine. Clicking on any of the Froogle links will show you current prices for that model.

iPod Photo Review

A new review of the iPod Photo has been posted over at The Gadgeteer ([Via MacDailyNews]):

Pros:
iPod quality
60GB storage, plenty of room
iTunes supports it flawlessly
Windows or Mac, does not matter
USB or FireWire
Sounds great, and photos look awesome, especially on your TV

Cons:
Very expensive (but Apple provides financing, har har)
A little heavier than previous iPods
Photo display bug
Device's cosmetic delicateness a bit scary

iRiver Predicts It Will Generate Lotsa Revenue

More on the business front from iRiver today. Their CEO, Marilyn Chen, predicted that iRiver will take in $450 million in 2004 and nearly double revenue in 2005 to the tune of $890 million.

Also announced was a new production plant in China that will greatly expanded iRiver's supply volume and allow it to go after OEM contracts with other vendors.

And speaking of chipsets, according to the DigiTimes article, iRiver mostly uses chipsets from Philips.

Chipset Maker PortalPlay Goes Public

PortalPlayer (PLAY), who makes the chipsets that are the heart of the Apple iPod line, went public last Friday, raising over $100 million. Although the offering was priced at $17, shares opened $25.60 (and closed today at $28.76).

Inside of every iPod is a PortalPlayer chip that makes all the hardware (harddrive, LCD, etc.) work together, reads audio files, decodes them and plays them. Adding signifcant functionality (playing movies, for example) that is not in your devices chipset is difficult and expensive. This means that audio players rely heavily on their chipset and that new features don't come out until the chipset makers get it done.

Apple, though, always keeps its cards close to its vest and its relationship with PortalPlayer is no exception. PortalPlayer reports that 92% of its 2004 income came from the Chinese company Inventec Appliances, not Apple. Inventec is one of the companies that actually manufactures iPods for Apple (and likely HP as well).

It even sounds like the company itself doesn't know whether Apple is a customer or not:

We believe that nearly all of our platforms sold to Inventec are incorporated in the Apple iPod product family. Apple may choose to use platforms in addition to ours for its products, use a different platform than ours altogether or develop an in-house solution.

Such confidence! Makes you want to dump your life savings into the stock doesn't it?

Related Links:
Apple Video iPod Demystified
iPod Can Supprt WMA?!?

Motorola m500 Review

Back in the summer we announced that Motorola would be making its first foray into the audio player market. Well, the players still aren't available for sale yet, but Engadget did get a chance to play with one and they've written a brief review of the Motorola m500.

The m500 is a 5GB device aimed at, what else, the iPod Mini. At a reasonably compact 3.3"x2.5"x0.7 and 3.5oz, does the m500 have a chance to gain ground on Apple?

All in all, a solid first foray for Motorola, but is the M500 enough to take on the iPod mini? Probably not. It's not that there's anything wrong with the M500 (except for the highly questionable color choice), it's just that given how crowded the field for 4GB and 5GB players is these days, it takes a lot to stand out more stand out than it used to. To be honest, the Creative Zen Micro or the Rio Carbon are probably the only players that have a shot at dislodging the iPod mini from its lofty perch (and even that's thinking optimistically). That said, if it gets priced a little more competitively when hits stores (MSRP is $229), the M500 should find some fans.

Related Links:
Motorola Enters the Market

Creative Declares War on Apple

Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo has always been a brash guy and his latest pronouncement is no different:

"The MP3 war has started and I am the one who has declared war ... I'm planning to spend some serious money -- I intend to out-market everyone."

Specifically Sim says that Creative will spend $100 million in market, mostly in the US, to grab a piece of Apple's dominating market share. If you're not well-versed in the history of the audio player market, this really is the first time another vendor has stepped up to the plate to go head-to-head with Apple on marketing terms. Up until now Creative, iRiver, Rio and others have essentially been nameless also-rans.

As Peter over at Engadget said, these could be famous last words. For consumers though, this could be a good thing in driving prices down and innovation up.

Related Links:
Creative Gets Busy: MuVo² FM and More
Interview with Creative CEO

Neuros II Review

Tom's Hardware has written a new Neuros II review. If you recall, the Neuros is an audio player with an unorthodox design. Instead of being an integrated unit, it's actually two devices in one. The first is a smaller flash-memory based unit that actually plays the tunes. This small bit docks into a larger shell that contains the harddrive storage area.

It's a novel concept, but it never really caught on. Furthermore, as time has worn on the chunky Neuros comes off as a brick compared to the leaner and meaner crop of current audio players.

Still, the Neuros is probably right for someone and the fact that it supports open source is also a plus.

If you are looking for a portable MP3 player that you can jog or exercise with, the Neuros is not for you. The player is much bigger and heavier than the small Ipod or iRiver MP3 players. Of course, if you do jog with the Neuros, at least you can use the Neuros player as a self defense bludgeoning weapon!

Price Guide

Once again, here's the latest price guide. To get that spiffy $150 price on a Creative MuVo², use the coupon code 25bucks at checkout.

Four Creative Zen Micro Reviews

Creative Zen Micro's are starting to make it into enough hands to get some reviews written. Today we make mention of four. First up is Pocket Lint, which gave it a 9/10:

It's nice to see a manufacturer every once in a while, realising that the product they have isn't necessarily the best at what it does. Creative took the design and the interface back to the drawing board to improve it and should reap the rewards from buyers not wanting an iPod. The only real downside we can see is its reliance on Media Centre or Creative's own Media Source software for transferring files rather than taking Rio's approach of being drag and drop. The player is now feels likes it's not only worth the money, but worthy to be a contender against both the Rio Carbon and more importantly the iPod Mini.

CNet liked it too with an 8.7/10.

User Taphil posted his thoughts and a bunch of photos on Head-Fi [Via DAPReview]:

Everything about this new player screams quality! The backlight fades when turning on and off. The touch pad has sensitivity settings and works well. The software installation is nice to look at and works. The included belt clip/case can also serve as a stand. The screen is is bright. There's a clicker speaker a la iPod. The screen shows much more text than the iPod mini, and is clearer. When plugged into the computer, the lights pulsate like Macs when they're in suspend/sleep.

Here are negatives so far after using it for awhile:
- I've had to reset it (take out the battery) about a dozen times.
- At first it wouldn't work on my desktop and would freeze, but after a couple resets it did.
- It froze upon being turned on.
- Creative MediaSource crashed once in the middle of a file transfer.

Finally, ExtremeTech has their extensive review:

If you like FM radio, want to easily record it on the fly, and want all that in a small package, then the Zen Micro deserves a serious look. Its recording function on FM works well, though we'd like to see time-shifting and scheduled recordings added as features. The Zen Micro compares pretty favorably with its iPod counterpart and offers 20% more storage and an FM tuner. With 5GB of storage, you can haul around at least 80 albums' worth of music on this compact little player, and while that may not be your entire album collection, that's still over 80 hours of music in the palm of your hand. This is also the first Zen that can pull double-duty as a pure USB 2.0 storage device a long-awaited and welcome feature for Creative's line.

iPod Flash Editorializing

Editoral mode on: We're still scratching our heads over this one. We can think of so many reasons why Apple wouldn't want a flash iPod, but far fewer good reasons for the iPod Flash. First off, the low price will cannibalize regular iPod and iPod Mini sales. Second, we can't imagine that iPod Flash margins will be that large anyway.

Third, how much can Apple differentiate the iPod Flash from the iPod Mini? The iPod Mini and 4G iPod are already quite small, how much lower can Apple go? Not much if it has a click wheel and an LCD of any size. The iPod Mini already added color choice, so expect the flash version to come in colors as well. Finally, and we feel most importantly, how can Apple sell people on a 256MB device when a 4GB or 20GB device doesn't cost much more?

On the positive side, however, a flash device will probably have great battery life. But then again, Apple sold plenty of 3G iPods with pathetic battery lifetimes.

The iPod Flash pros both come with a couple of big ifs. First is that Apple may only be using the iPod Flash as a low-cost way to lock consumers into the iTunes Music Store, keeping them away from competing, Microsoft-based online music stores. This only makes sense if Apple makes its money from the store (blades) rather than the devices (razors).

Second, it's also possible that Apple thinks that a flash iPod won't cannibalize iPod and iPod Mini sales, but we flatly disagree.

More on the iPod Flash?

AppleInsider has several new rumors regarding the upcoming Apple iPod Flash, with its information "confirmed through well placed and extremely reliable sources". The new bits are that Apple won't make it in time for Christmas, but that they're expecting huge intitial demand and will stockpile 2 million units for release time.

Capacity is supposed to range from a paltry 256MB to a slightly-less-paltry 1GB with retail price below $200.

Not suprisingly, the flash version will supposedly inherit its older sibling's click wheel interface.

Related Links:
Flash memory iPod a Reality?
New Apple Flash Player Coming Over for Christmas?

Rocbox First Look

CNet has a a brief review of the Rocbox, the first audio player from Damon Dash's Roc Digital:

Style is a priority here, as evidenced by the shiny-black chrome face that's one part minimal, two parts bling; it looks like a Klingon's version of the third-generation iPod, minus the scrollwheel. A 2-inch blue-backlit display, tactile buttons that glow blue, and a rubberized backside round out the notable physical features. The Roc Digital Rocbox is compatible with MP3, WMA (including protected files), and WAV formats; includes 25 preset EQ modes; and supports MTP (Media Transfer Protocol), which allows autosynchronization with Windows Media Player. The USB 2.0 Rocbox ships with a USB cable, a travel charger, a custom belt clip, and "exclusive" Roc Digital earbuds--we can't wait to listen through these.

Related Links:
The Roc-A-Fella Rocbox

Upgrade Your iPod Battery

Before the release of the 4th generation iPod, battery life on Apple's runaway hit audio player was, in a word, dismal. Just about every competitor beat the iPod on battery life, but those iPods just kept on selling. So if you're one of the folks who still have one of the older (1G, 2G or 3G) iPods and are disappointed in run time, there are some replacement batteries that would give you significantly better battery life.

Other World Computing is a good place to start and has a couple of inexpensive choices. For about $40 you can upgrade your 1G or 2G iPod to a 2100mAH battery that should give 20+ hours of life. Not a bad price if you want to extend the life of your older iPod.

Jump into Podcasting

Recently there has been a surge on interest in podcasting so we'd like to provide a quick intro and note some resources to get you started.

First off, what is podcasting? Essentially it's a new way to receive audio content periodically from syndicated web sources for later listening on your audio player. That's quite a mouthful, so let's break it down a bit more.

You may already be familiar with weblogs, newsreaders and, maybe, RSS. PlayerBlog is a weblog. We make period posts. People who are interested (and we thank you for your interest!) in being notified when there is a new post subscribe to our newsfeed in their newsreader.

So far so good? The new twist with Podcasting is that the "posts" are actually audio files (radio show-style or music or anything) that you can listen to at your leisure, but the concept of posts, newsfeeds and newsreaders is still in the mix.

So now that you know what podcasting is, here's how you can get started listening and making your own podcasts. Engadget has guide for getting podcasts onto your iPod or on WMA audio players, which includes just about everything but the iPod.

Once you've figured out how to make it work and gotten iPodder running, here is a good place to start for podcasts.

Slappa iPod HardBody Case

Vaja has just about everbody covered in terms of cases, but the iPod is still the king of accessories. Here's one more, the Slappa Hardbody iPod Case. $30 gets you a case for 3G and 4G iPods and even the iPod Photo. [Via Gizmodo]

Leather Cases for iRiver, Dell, Creative and Rio Devices

Although, we've mentioned them recently, we'd like to note that Vaja Cases has leather cases for just about every popular audio player on the market. iRiver H1s and H3s, 1G Dells, Creative Zen Touch and older Nomads and Rio Karma, Carbons and Nitrus' (Nitri?). Beware of the price, though. Cases run about $50 or $60 depending on the model they fit.

Related Links:
Rio Carbon Cases

How To Get Music OFF your iPod

If you own an iPod, you are no doubt familiar with the way to get music ON to your iPod: synching with iTunes. But what if you want to get music OFF that iPod. iTunes and Apple are no help.

Coming to your rescue, Phillip Torrone has written up a nice how-to over at Engadget:

Never did we think we'd need to do a How-To on something which should be part of the basic functionality of a portable music player, but once you put your tunes on an iPod unfortunately it's a one-way sync unless you know the tricks for getting them off. There are already a lot of different ways to copy music off of an iPod, Apple is just choosing to spend a lot of time and resources to make it hard to do. In this How-To we show you several different ways of getting the music off of your iPod and onto both Macs and PCs, all with free tools.

Tatung Elio Photo Jukebox Review

DAPReview has published an early review of the upcoming Tatung Elio Photo Jukebox. The Elio is one the soon-to-be competitors to the iPod Photo: a 20GB audio player with a color LCD and photo viewing capabilities.

Unlike the iPod Photo, the Elio does have USB Host functionality, meaning it can pull photos directly from a digital camera. Also include is a Secure Digital (SD) memory card slot ( if your camera supports SD, which many don't).

Unfortunately where the Elio doesn't match the iPod Photo is size, being a bit bigger and heavier than the Apple. What's the verdict?

The Tatung elio kind of surprised us. Its excellent color screen and output qualities, as well as the intuitive and ingenious interface certainly didn't fail to impress. The overall design job is stylish and the accessory set offers some stuff that we'd like to see in every player's box… only more decently carried-out, I'm afraid. Plastic seems to be Tatung's middle name somehow, although the overall construction quality is acceptable.

Summarized, the elio could turn out to become a versatile competitor to iRiver H3 and perhaps even the iPod Photo (unlikely though, the sheer size and feel of it are no match to a slightly thicker version of the iPod v4 + color screen), although we need some clarity as to its availability and suggested retail price. By itself, the unit's firmware is pretty stable and not too hard to get used to. It's the software part that's worrying us for now - if one isn't able to upload large amounts of tracks with reasonable ease, what's the use of putting 20GB inside of the elio then, right?

iPod Photo First Look

Pocket Lint has already posted their first look at the iPod Photo. That's no small feat if, as they say, there is only 1 iPod Photo in Europe until the UK release in a few weeks. What do they think?

So is it worth the extra money to turn your iPod into a Photo booth for your family album. First impressions make us in two minds. On the one side, you've got an iPod that can view images on a small 2in screen not much bigger than most camera backs or camera phones, but on the other you've the ability to plug it in to your television and view your digital snaps just as you would take around a pack of photos to a friends house.

What's stopping us getting over excited? To view the images properly you really need to view it on a television and that two, to view images on the television, in our minds the killer app here, you need to carry around a long cable with three phono plugs in your pocket, which suddenly makes this a rather bulky package.