Music on the go

how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to
distract me obviously , a cd player even with asp is crap, a tape wont
last long enough so im thinking about going for an ipod but i notice its
only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how
dyu lot sort the problem out?



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Posted via cyclingforums.com
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On 25 Nov 2003 06:40:13 +1050, dailuggs
wrote:

how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to
distract me obviously , a cd player even with asp is crap, a tape wont
last long enough so im thinking about going for an ipod but i notice its
only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how
dyu lot sort the problem out?

I currently use a Minidisc player, one of the Sony NetMD models. It's
pretty good for music on the bike, and on the go anywhere really. Very
long battery life, absolutely jog-proof so no jittery music,
lightweight, small and it seems pretty rugged. The bundled headphones
are junk though.

If you're considering an iPod then I guess you use mp3's? The NetMD
players will connect to your pc and allow you to download mp3 files to
minidisc via usb, this is pretty fast but not true pc data type
transfer speeds. A considerable downside to this is that the file
needs to be converted to ATRAC format first, which increases the time
needed and also can clutter your harddrive if you elect to keep the
file for future use so you don't have to repeat the conversion again.
You can get about 3 albums of music on one minidisc at reasonable
"portable" quality.

Sony's software to manage this process is bloody awful, it's slow,
resource hungry and it crashes all the time. It also places rights
management type restrictions on what you can and can't do but there
are good alternatives available so this needn't be an issue.

All in all I'm pretty impressed with minidisc for on bike music and
with certain reservations I'd recommend one.

But..

Them iPods look soooo funky! )

I'm having an internal battle with myself at the moment but know I'm
going to succumb sooner or later and buy one.

I'm not sure what it is about the iPod that you think might not be
suitable for a 2 or 3 hour ride? The buffer that you mention will
probably just be used to stream music from memory, so that the disc
isn't constantly reading while you are moving. I expect this saves
battery usage and also protects the disc.

The new iPod comes in 10, 20 and 40GB flavours, which means they'll
carry enough music to last all the rides you could make in the next
decade or so )

Battery life is quoted as 8 hours, but that's the figure from Apple, I
don't know what real world performance might be.

My only worry is whether they are robust enough for use in activities
like cycling....

They seem like a fabulous solution for mobile music though.
--

"Bob"

Email address is spamtrapped.
To reply directly remove the beverage.

dailuggs wrote:
how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load
to distract me obviously , a cd player even with asp is crap, a
tape wont last long enough so im thinking about going for an ipod but
i notice its only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3
hour ride? how dyu lot sort the problem out?



--------------------------
Posted via cyclingforums.com
http://www.cyclingforums.com

get an ipod.

You will not regret it. Never skips. ever

I sing

how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to
distract me obviously , a cd player even with asp is crap, a tape wont
last long enough so im thinking about going for an ipod but i notice its
only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how
dyu lot sort the problem out?

I listen to the radio, or cycle behind MSeries.

On 24-Nov-2003, dailuggs wrote:

how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding

I have an Orange SPV mobile phone, it has a slot with 256mb compact flash
card in it. I can get enough MP3s on the card for most of my journeys. My
headphones only have 1 earpiece so I can listen to music "left eared" and
traffic "right eared"

--
replace deadspam with btinternet to reply
Tom Anderson
Leighton Buzzard
England

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 06:40:13 +1050, dailuggs wrote:

how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to
distract me obviously , a cd player even with asp is crap, a tape wont
last long enough so im thinking about going for an ipod but i notice its
only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how
dyu lot sort the problem out?

I'll second the iPod idea. I blew a large chunk out of my budget getting
the 30gb model and haven't regretted it once. Works under linux (if that's
a consideration) and can store your entire collection (unless you're
_reallly_ a collector). Doesn't ever skip, can store everything you've got
and the battery life is pretty much as advertised. Certainly enough for me
to bike into uni (about 3 miles), listen to it all day (yes, 9-5. I'm a
PhD student), and bike home with ample battery life to spare.

The only problem you might run into is that I believe it's now illegal in
the UK to make mp3 copies of a cd that you own, if that worries you. So
legally, you'd have to buy all your mp3s from iTunes or some equivalent.
Like I really really have.

Apart from that, I couldn't rate them higher. Except it has crashed once,
but took about 5 seconds to reset, so wasn't that much of a problem.
Totally, seriously and thoroughly recommended.

Oh, the 8mb buffer you're referring to is just for caching the mp3s from
the internal disc, so it's just the equivalent of the anti-skip feature of
a CD player. The disk will comfortably store thousands of hours of music,
so unless you're REALLY ambitious, I think it will last most rides.

GET ONE!

Joss

Mark Thompson wrote:
how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to
distract me obviously , a cd player even with asp is crap, a tape wont
last long enough so im thinking about going for an ipod but i notice its
only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how
dyu lot sort the problem out?


I listen to the radio, or cycle behind MSeries.



The 8mb buffer, is just that, a buffer. The iPod has around10-40Gb of
storage space on there and can quite happily play continuously for hours
on end. If I've got my ums correct, then 10Gb is about 160 huors of
continuous music. Of course you need some fairly good quality batteries
to last that long.

;o)

N

Simonb wrote:

get an ipod.

You will not regret it. Never skips. ever

Seconded or thirded or whatever. When you get it though junk the
software it comes with and get EphPod http://www.ephpod.com/ and Exact
Audio Copy http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ with a LAME encoder
http://lame.sourceforge.net/ - all freeware and creates immeasurably
better sound quality mpegs than the Apple software. Instructions to
put it all together are at http://www.ping.be/satcp/tutorials.htm


Tony

joss wrote:

: The only problem you might run into is that I believe it's now illegal in
: the UK to make mp3 copies of a cd that you own, if that worries you.

This is untrue as far as I know, though I welcome a correction.

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune http://www.clune.org
"Technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook