Best MP3 Player for Riding...

Doc_Busa

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Anyone got suggestions on an MP3 player to mount on my stemstand for long distance rides? I mounted speakers in my helmet for my radar detector, so I am thinking of getting an MP3 player for tunes.

Anyone have thoughts on this one? Sounds cool!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws....y=11024
 
what ever you get make sure it has a lot of space. If your only gona use it for mp3 or wma`s get the apple Ipod, has a 20 hard drive or a 40 I think (2 different models), works with pcs by either firewire or use. Its the best Mp3 player on the market. Its easy to use simple and gets a lot of play time on batteries. You can even use it with your gloves on if your mounting it on the bike, If I had the money, I would by one in a heart beat.

I have a RCA Kazoo 32mb player and it pisses my off everytime I use it. It only holds like 45 min of music and that means I have to listin to the same songs over and over during the day whitch realy blows.

Just my .02 cents.

Let me know what decide on.
 
For really long rides, the Archos would be a great choice, but since it's a basically a hard drive, I don't know how well it would hold up to constant vibration, not to mention the effects of pot holes etc. It would be a shame to hit a bump and crash (no pun intended) the drive.

You may want to think about a player that uses flash memory, then there aren't any moving parts.

Another thing to think about is how MUCH space you want. I think the biggest non-hard drive type Compact Flash (Type II) is 256 or 384MB. If you like high quality music, the higher bit rates sound great but chew up space in a hurry.

Let us know what you finally decide on.

--Juggler
 
Thanks guys. My intent was to get one of the hard drive type players with 10 gig or higher. BUT, the issue with vibration is a good one. I am not sure about that...

Anyone know if the hard drive type could take vibrations and bumps, including wheelies?

Thanks again!
 
Hello everybody and greetings from Helsinki, Finland (Europe)!

I'm a new forum member and still waiting for my Busa to arrive (sometime this week, I was told). All this waiting is killing me...

I'm currently using the 20-gig Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 which is excellent except for the size. I'm thinking about getting the new Nomad Jukebox Zen after I get the bike. It should be small enough but I'm also a bit worried about the hard drive durability when riding a bike. The hard drive is not spinning all the time since it's buffering songs into the 16-meg ram, so it might be robust enough for riding. I will probably test my Jukebox 3 first before I buy the Zen.

Here's a link to Creative's Nomad site:
http://www.nomadworld.com/

I hope it's ok to join the forum eventhough I'm not american. You have been a great source of Hayabusa information during the last couple of weeks! Can't wait to get mine!

Pete
 
Doc,

I have the Arcos 6 gig, MP3 player/hard drive. No problems what so ever. I've never had it skip or anything. I have only used about 360mb and have 8 hours of music.

Later,

Steve
 
I use an I-River iFP-190TC, I got it because it's very light weight. About the same as three bike keys I wear around my neck and it stays out of the way.

It plays about 20 hours of music on 1 AA battery, long enough for a weekend ride.

Downside- it eats batteries. 20 hours is about a week of off and on use commuting to work and riding on the weekend. I also use it in my car instead of CD's and in my home stereo and at work through a set of P.C. speakers. The adapters are cheap 15$ for car 4$ for home. I'll never carry CD's again too much a hassle.

Don't let Best Buy sell you any of that expensive MP3 player specialty crap. Regular stereo accessories work just fine.
 
ok guys, just so you know. MP3 hard drive types have no moving parts. Its all solid state electronics. Its like a buch of memory sticks just bundled into a bigger package. You have nothing to worry about in ways of moving parts.

You can take my word on it, Ive been workin in electronics for over 5 years and have a Assocites degree in applyed sciences of electronics and computer programing. I also watch TechTv like its goin out of style. Im pretty up to date on just about everything computer related.
 
ok guys, just so you know. MP3 hard drive types have no moving parts. Its all solid state electronics. Its like a buch of memory sticks just bundled into a bigger package. You have nothing to worry about in ways of moving parts.
This is not true. All latest, high-capacity players have "normal" hard drives in them. Not a single one MP3 player manufacturer can afford to use 10-40 gigabytes of flash or any other kind of solid state memory technology at this time. This can be easily verified by just listening to a high-capacity MP3 player. You can hear the hard drive spooling up and down as MP3's are being loaded into ram. MP3 player hard drives are small and probably quite robust in design but if treated harshly, can break down.

Pete
 
OK Jester and Finn, whatz the deal? I have always heard that the 10-20gig MP3 players had moving part hard drives, but I have not the credentals as Jester.

By the way Finn, you are MORE than welcome here. American is not a requirement for membership. Also, I must say I had a fun time riding the ferry from Stockholm to Turku, what a party!
 
I-River Slim-X imp 350 cd player, has 8 minites of antiskip, will hold 24 hours of music if you burn a wma cd, rechargable batteries last for 16 hours, up to 24 hours of play with the doulbe-A battery tube thing. about 1cm thick, and slightly bigger than a cd, Amazing sound quailty. I have used it on my harley, which is ALOT louder than a busa with no skiping.
 
OK Jester and Finn, whatz the deal?  I have always heard that the 10-20gig MP3 players had moving part hard drives, but I have not the credentals as Jester.
Here's my backround: I hold a master's degree in computer science and I've worked in Research&Development of new mobile techonologies and services for the last seven years, so I consider myself being at least somewhat qualified when it comes to mobile devices and software development for them.

As I mentioned, all high-capacity players have moving part hard drives but small-capacity players (typically in the range of 32-128 megabytes) use removable memory cards or permanent RAM memory. These players are certainly very robust and safe to use but even the 128 Mb capacity is not enough for long trips and that's why hard drive players are becoming more popular. One can always buy extra memory sticks (or compact flash cards etc.) but they are relatively expensive compared to larger hard drives.

Digital photography is one of my long-time hobbies and I've owned three 1-gigabyte IBM Microdrive Compact Flash cards (there's a tiny hard drive inside) and two of them have broken down without any apparent reason. Hard drives with moving parts are fragile but I would think that a hard drive MP3 player should be ok if it's kept in a jacket pocket and it's not physically in contact with the bike. I'll test my hard drive player as soon as I get my bike.


By the way Finn, you are MORE than welcome here.  American is not a requirement for membership.  Also, I must say I had a fun time riding the ferry from Stockholm to Turku, what a party!

Usually those ferry rides are...well...uhh...pretty fun and wild with lots of partying going on all the time
smile.gif


Thanks for the warm welcome, Doc_Busa!

Pete
 
How about stating where you purchased the product at and the price??? That would be extremely helpful in comparision shopping.
 
I am an EE, and Pete (FinnBusa) is correct. I have an Archos Jukebox FM Recorder 20, and it contains a Fujitsu 20gig 9.5mm "laptop" hard drive. Here is a link to a "fan site" with an Archos disassembled for the purpose of upgrading the drive.

Hard drive inside!

These drives have an operating mechanical shock tolerance of 225G/2mS, which appears at first glance to be a lot but really isn't. This is about the equivalent of a 0.6in drop on a formica countertop. Though that sounds bad, the force imparted to one of these player's drives is typically well lower than the spec. Shock absorbing mounting within the player reduces shock, and carrying them in a tank bag on some foam (or even a towel) will help a great deal. Mounting them on a motorcycle head-stock probably isn't a great idea...

I have seen these drives live for years in data collection devices used by automobile manufactures. Often this equipment was mounted in trunks and little was done in the way to isolate them from shock, even when the car or truck was going to be driven on a "chassis failure" test track.

Oh, by the way...welcome aboard, Pete...

Mike
 
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