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MP3 player magic number: 1,000 songs

updated 04:30 pm EDT, Thu April 22, 2004

1,000 songs ideal players

One thousand songs, or about the capacity of Apple's iPod mini, is , according to a survey by Jupiter Research that found 90 percent of consumers have fewer than 1,000 songs on their systems. Additionally, the survey found that a rechargeable battery, small device size, and the ability to connect the device to a computer are the most important features to consumers. Finally, 20 percent of consumers said they prefer MP3 files, 7 percent prefer Microsoft's WMA format, and 1 percent prefer AAC; presumably the remainder have no preference.

 
Previous Comments

AIFF format

04/22, 05:28pm reply

is the only high fidelity option... 1000 songs at .06G means a 60G HD would optimize CD quality audio - not far off I assume - then you'll have my attention!
;-)

bobolicious

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2002

0

is Dell listening?

04/22, 05:30pm reply

DJ Mini. , dude :D
anyway, If it's a 128 Mp3, it's really suck.
AAC is really better then WMA :P

Sydney Tsai

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Feb 2002

0

Remainder

04/22, 05:37pm reply delete

Obviously, the remaining 72% prefer Ogg Vorbis. They just may not know it yet. ;)

Joined:

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survey

04/22, 06:21pm reply

I have 4,601 songs on my iTunes library... so am I abnormal?
almost 50% of my songs are in AAC format.

Kenneth

Addicted to MacNN

Joined: Mar 1999

0

MP3 over AAC

04/22, 07:29pm reply

That just means there are a lot of computer illiterate people out there who do not know what MP3, AAC or even WMA is.

They either don't answer or check the box they have heard of. Most computer illiterate people have heard of MP3 and next in line is probably WMA (because it's forced by M$)

That is truly a useless part of that survey.

Deal

Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Apr 2001

0

40GB iPod

04/22, 08:36pm reply

12GB music, 16GB data, the rest is for file transferring.

Love it.

Eriamjh

Addicted to MacNN

Joined: Oct 2001

0

uh...

04/22, 09:50pm reply

i have 19426 songs in my library. 65+ days. and i still have a good 1000 discs to rip still.

the 15GB works out good for me. anything bigger seems like overkill.

you people using your iPods to play AIFFs are silly. the iPod has a small buffer (32MB iirc) ... if the entire song can not fit in the buffer the hard drive spins *constantly* vs. a chirp here and there to load the next songs. can you say 'wear'?

uncompressed over a nice component system with reference monitors in a studio? fine. uncompressed over an 1/8" minijack and headphones. come on now.

i understand it's an easy way to get your audiophilic elitism groove on... but look at the whole picture for a moment... shortening the life of your gear for a *minimal* difference from a 384k MP3. and 384k AAC is even better. in 90% of my listening 192k or 256k work just fine. can i hear a difference on 192k or 256k? yeah. (depends on the material and environment... but yeah)... is it worth diminished capacity (thus increased storage costs) and premature equipment failure just so i can be all snooty about *portable* music? not particularly.

010111

Junior Member

Joined: Aug 2002

0

uh...

04/22, 10:34pm reply

...yup u may be right, but when i hooked up a 1st gen ipod to my decca bookshelves i couldn't listen to them for more than a few songs even with 384k mp3s... sold the pod within a week... hooked up my cd walkman with a 1/8" minijack & things were fine again...

...and i think it depends on the headphones u use, too...

bobolicious

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2002

0

That means...

04/23, 12:40am reply

That means Apple should promote the AAC format and they can undermine WMA. That also means the digital music is still a big pond to dive in.

spider610

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2003

0

Format war...

04/23, 02:42am reply

...is going to be more interesting, when M$ has to sell Windoze without Mediaplayer in EU. Propably many "prosumer" PC users use MP3, those not technologically-savvy use WMA, as it is default format in win XP media player. AAC is obviously mostly Mac users and PC users having iTunes.

iTunes for windows was relly smart move. HP-Apple agreement is good for both, since HP got better than WMA technology and Apple got remarkable distributor. EU's recent MS media decision also means that buyers are likely to get other than MS Mediaplayer on their computers. MS Media Player can't be installed by pc-maker, instead it has to be provided on cd with other players. Everyone knows, what other players are, iTunes and Real, IMHO, Real is not very real, if U want to access content :) This is definitely good thing for AAC, just like it's been standardized. And it's better quality than WMA.

miksu

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2004

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