The other week, I did something kind of boneheaded.

I left my 60GB iPod in my car with the windows down.

Long story short, it's gone.

Ironic part: the car was parked right in front of my house in what is a relatively small town, not that that means anything.

Now, I know it was my fault - I'm usually super psychotically worried about the whereabouts of the device - but for some reason I wasn't really mad. I had the thing for over two years so I guess you could say I got my money out of it, but there something else that's puzzling me.

I don't really miss the thing and, quite honestly, I don't feel any desire to replace it either.

Does anyone else get the feeling that as much as these devices try to simplify our music libraries they simultaneously complicate them?

I've been making mixed CDs since my sister's old car has a CD player in it - yes, I've joined the last millennium - and been having a blast doing it. One of the great things is I only have to worry about one volume knob - yay!

They are more complex than CD Players, but I think the flexibility they offer makes this more of a good thing. With the right hardware/software and good file management, I have no desire to go back to having discs thrown around everywhere and losing the ability to control the volume level with mp3gain or wavgain.

For me though, going back to mp3 from lossless is more of a problem and is probably more psychological than anything. If I buy a CD, I'm going to use all of the music I paid for, not a small sample of a ripped wav file that my lossy encoder feeds me. At least if I tell myself an mp3 is the best I can do short of tracking down a very rare CD for insane bucks, it eases the thought that what I'm listening to COULD sound better and is basically just a sample until I own a copy or lossless rip.

Honest to crap, there was a class I failed in college, if only because I spent too much time obsessing over my music collection, making mix CDs of everything, and trying to decide which tracks make the cut.

Of course, I only skipped out on the class so much, because it was friggin' boring and pointless, anyway, but still...

I can take all that music, and put all of it on one device, and not having to worry about scrapping something, or which ones make the cut, it's a lot easier for me.

Having my collection partitioned as it is, I'm able to queue up something I find fit for a particular purpose.

Some albums, I queue up very intently, while other times, I'm just looking something to listen, anything, that fits the current time of day, season, weather, mood, etc., and when I'm less particular, being able to browse my collection, partitioned as it is digitally, makes that job easier for me.

I'm hooked on my MP3 player, and I'm never going back...besides, having to organize a CD wallet, or trying to remember what CDs I wanted to take with me, was always a pain, after my collection outgrow the CD wallet. Having to switch disks was always a pain, too. Also: CD player-sized bulge in my pants side pockets...

Another great name for MP3 player would've been "Music Remote."

Nope. I tried to replace my 60 GB HDD player with an 8 GB Flash-based device because it was smaller, better-sounding and FLAC capable. No dice - it just doesn't cut it for me not to have a huge library in my pocket anymore.

Same here.
I could NEVER go back to CDs. EVER.

i'm the opposite. I have no interest in getting an mp3 player..
i have a cd player in my car that plays mp3 cds, but i work from home so only on leisure trips do we even spend enough time driving to listen to more than a few tracks. (OT: i could state that i would NEVER go back to commuting, EVER!)

just having music 'there' for me in the background doesn't really do anything for me. I like to focus on it when i'm listening. most of the outdoor activities I enjoy require focus and concentration, so listening to headphones could potentially result in catastrophic consequences.

Every day i see people who SHOULD be paying attention to what they're doing, but they're too busy looking down fiddling with their f---ing gadgets and almost get themselves maimed or killed. It just worries me that we're breeding a new generation that relies soley on electronics for their entire interaction with others.

remember as kids how much it sucked to get grounded? now i suppose the ultimate form of punishment would be to confiscate a child's cell phone and disconnect their internet access. they'd sooner crawl in a hole and die... its like at the end of the movie SURROGATES when the entire grid gets shut down. No one knows what to do.

I recently 'lost' my 160 gb iPod...I suspect I may have thrown it out when I was cleaning up the house, but I'm not sure...it just literally disappeared..

I'm now using a 16gb 3g iPad for my music playing needs (among other benefits)...back to CD?  Nahhh, too much hassle, plus I wouldn't want to get them scratched. (unless I had an anal retentive system involving check in and check out of available backup CDrs)...which I don't

We all clearly have different ways we prefer to listen to music. I personally use my computer hooked up to a sound system. I don't use portable music players because I never listen to music when I'm on the move or at work anyway (prefer to stay focused and alert to my surroundings), so I have no need for iPods and the like (although if a player with 200 GB worth of storage and the ability to play FLAC becomes available, I might reconsider, LOL). As for the poor ol' CDs, haven't touched 'em in like 4 years except to rip lossless copies, and probably never will again, save for a few blue-moon occasions. Sometimes I do pop a physical CD in the player and try to bullshit myself that I'm somehow listening to the music in a more "authentic" manner (whatever that would mean), but it doesn't last for very long. The illusion usually breaks when I hit upon a cluster of sucky tracks or get the urge to switch to another album in an instant. As for my CD collection, I'm not even sure what to do with it anymore... Maybe I'll sell it all off soon, or just keep it around as an interesting decoration. Its pretty to look at, that's for sure, but the CD medium itself has pretty much gone the way of the Dodo.

Haha, well put, and very much the truth.

CD for me please. My iPod is a decent piece of tech, but I only bring it in to work to listen to music occasionally. When I get home and write, or build a model kit, or tidy up the place, I slap in one of my many CD's and let myself get absorbed.

i only listen to FLAC on the go, 95% of my time with music is in my music room with a dedicated setup from CD.

i have no interest in digital downloads, i need a hard copy for everything.

While I do make mp3 CDs for my car, I still almost always will stick an actual disc into a player at home.  I'm one of those people who likes to fondly look at the art and stuff at least when first getting the CD out!

http://anythingbutipod.com/2007/04/cowo … d2-review/

Consider this beast. Granted, onboard memory only goes up to about 16GB, but it supports up to 32GB SD Cards and integrates both the flash memory and card memory into a single library. Right now, not too many players that even go past 32 GB of Flash memory with FLAC support (I expect that to change in the next year or so, but I expect players with that kind of onboard flash memory to be more expensive than the price of a D2+ and cards) It doesn't look it, but it really is a beast...Excellent quality and drives powerful headphones really well. With the swappable cards, I can go from my "no-brainer" library (all my favorites hand-picked and lumped together) to a card full of nothing but stuff that is new and needs closer listening/ratings. Really nice.

Similarly, Sandisk's players have the card slot + FLAC support combo. The Sansa Clip+ is quite cheap (I got my mom one and tested it...Is compararable to the D2, performance-wise).

http://anythingbutipod.com/2009/08/sand … us-review/

Speaking of Cowon's.... anyone here have the J3?  I've been considering picking up that one, but it's just a might expensive still for a 32 GB one.  My iRiver H120's battery isn't really holding up well these days anymore - just doesn't last as long as it used to.

I've seen nothing but good stuff about it and looking around, people swear it's the best sounding of Cowon's players. It's basically an upgrade to one of their older, high end players (the S9...main addition is expandable memory). I'm perfectly happy with the D2, but if something ever happened to it, J3 would be the first-stop replacement. It is quite sexy (and I believe is basically D2's replacement...Apparently is discontinued).

Price-wise, might be better going with a smaller onboard memory and buying cards. I noticed Amazon marked down all of their 16 GB microSD cards to around $30 or so. Then again, I paid about $160 for my 16 GB D2 about a year ago and Amazon has the 32 GB J3 for about $260, so that really isn't too bad, IMO.

Consider this sucker too. That's practically a firesale for a Cowon player with 32 GB + expandable memory (although it doesn't merge into a single library like D2 or J3)...Caught my eye when I was on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Cowon-Video-MP3-P … 685&sr=1-6

Goldfish, you also had an iPod right? Are these Cowon players really that much better (with FLAC and decent Sennheisers á la PX-100)?

It looks cool, but I'm not sure about it. I'm inexperienced with portable music players, I hate overly complex gadgets and crave simplicity in my listening habits. Quotes like this one really put me off (from your link): However, if you want a simple, easy-to-operate audio player, then the D2 is probably not the right one for you. I don't want a jungle of different options and the ability to watch videos or surf the internet or whatever. It doesn't have to be able to make pancakes for me and rub my balls or things like that (to use the late, great George Carlin's phrase). I just want a music player with a huge-ass holding capacity and the ability to play FLAC-files (because practically all my music is in FLAC), those would be my only concerns.

I have a Cowon iAudio (7?) and it would perfectly fine for FLAC, though it could be a bit louder for most music (granted this is true of iPods too)

I had both an iPod 5G and a 1G iPod shuffle. I bought the shuffle because I read that it used a better sound driver than the regular iPod and listening to it a lot confirmed that: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1778968,00.asp

The sound was richer and bass was way more sustained. Unfortunately, the 1G shuffle was only 512 megs. >_< (just enough for a single FLAC album...if Apple actually supported FLAC). I can say without question, both mp3's and FLAC's sound crisper and cleaner on the D2+ than they did even on the 1G shuffle, which made me a VERY happy goldfish. You know what kind of mid-range melody whore I am...It made me pay more attention to the low end, whether I wanted to hear it or not because it was really clear. This also takes a full-size headphone and a moderately highend set of in-ear monitors into account. The only difference is the full-size headphones don't respond well to the effects of the D2 (maybe draws too much power? I don't own a headphone amp...bass boost sounds like ass on them), while the bass boost up a couple notches on the D2 makes my in-ear headphones really shine.

I personally am skeptical that I can find a better sounding portable music player than Cowon's players. And even if I did, Cowon's players are one of the only ones that do the card slot with the integrated libary thing (the Sandisk players do, but they are marketed as budget players) and support FLAC. At this point, I'm VERY brand loyal. I've heard that the Sony players sound amazing, but no FLAC support and I don't think any are memory expandable.

Daniel: Trust me, the iPod learning curve is far worse than the one for the D2 (which is basically an oversized flash drive). All I is pop it in a USB port with a cable, drag files onto it and I'm done. I think the review was written when touch screens were more of a novelty. Reality is, you select "Music" and you're immediately taken to your folders. I think he is trying to say it is hard to use while jogging or something (so you need to look at the screen to navigate it) Most of my FLAC's aren't even tagged right...the file view makes it so I don't have to bother with it (you can go by tags too, ala iPods). Very few other features worth bothering with on it, outside of sound enhancements and dynamic playlists. The Sansa is very similar to setup (I had to do my mom's).

I imagine some people pull their hair out, trying to understand the whole syncing thing with Apple's players and browsing by tags. The learning curve was a pain for me. I got it now, but I can imagine older people having tons of trouble with it. Feels like every other day, I'm explaining it to someone at work that just got their first iPod...lol

If you're at home and you have your CD collection right there, I don't see how that's any more difficult than using an iPod, except that you are more likely to damage the CDs by constantly moving them. Of course for travel, there is no comparison to how nice it is to have a small MP3 player vs trying to carry CDs. I think the worst thing is that your iPod was stolen in front of your house, in a small town! You don't expect these things to happen... it sucks. There definitely was a time in the US when all doors in nearly every small town were left open. People just weren't worried about theft and violence (even thought it did happen of course)... ah well, sorry to hear about it. How many people live in your town?

Echo GoldfishX's comments entirely. I'm still trying to decide between a J3 or a D2+. Only reason I haven't bought a J3 yet is I've heard people are having issues with overheating, short battery lifespan, and apparently the front glass lifting. Hoping the longer I wait that it may be resolved. The D2+ looks like a nice contender, but I really just want a new music player and its less about the extra fluff.

I think I might need to check that D2 or J3 out. But what did you mean exactly with 'full-size headphones don't respond well to the effects of the D2'?

I'm wondering whether my bassy Koss Portapro's are a good match, might need to upgrade my headphones as well...besides my oldskool discman which I still carry around.

Cowon is highly regarded for their audio effects/sound enhancements (it has a five band EQ, plus BBE -hard to describe what it is...i guess it colors the music differently?- and really good bass boost that concentrates on the lower frequencies). It gives you a lot of options, especially compared to the iPod (mostly presets and most are junk) I don't bother with the majority of them and prefer a flat EQ with no enhancements, but I'll use bass boost with my smaller, in-ear headphones which is nice. However, I was surprised that the bass boost worked horribly with these monsters:

http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AHD2000-Per … 059&sr=8-1

It actually just muted the sound a tad and sounded much better with no effects turned on. D2 offers panning as well (louder in one ear than the other) and even that sounded bad on the Denon set. Probably needs a portable amplifier...They work great with my larger sound system.

One plus about portable CD players...Their inner amps are usually more powerful than the ones in digital audio players. I remember my original discman and I used to get amazing sound out of it. Probably because it ate more batteries than some entire countries do! But that is why I'm half-tempted to go get a decent portable amp. I'm just skeptical how much better it will make it sound.

Zorb: Yikes! I didn't know about the overheating thing on the J3. I haven't had any kind of problems like that on the D2...just the occasional hang-up (it has a hard reset that usually fixes it).

I used to own one of those FiiO amps. It made the sound better on some albums, but on others it was just a cheap increase in treble. Furthermore it ate batteries on the same level as your discman (even though I was using those highpowered GP 2700 rechargeables). So eh I'm not using them anymore.

Anyway, thanks for the elaboration man.