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Portable Cross Fadin' Cassette Will Make All Your Spontaneous DJ Dreams Come True
MashiMaro MP3 Player's Audio Cable Placement Becomes the Butt of a Joke
Sony Walkman X-Series Is Surfable, Touchable and Shuts Up the World Around You
Sony W-Series Walkman Has Got No Strings, And No Display
Have a Cow With Creative's Zen Moo Moo-sic Player
TuneWiki Turns Mobile Internet Devices Into Zune-Wannabes
Sirius Coming Out With New Satellite Radio Boombox
Microsoft MixView Is Prettier, More Useful Version of iTunes' Genius
Zune PR Head Says Babies Will Choose Zune
TuneWiki Audio For Google Android Looks Very Impressive

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Purple Dave
03/27/09

In reply to Portable Cross Fadin' Cassette Will Make All Your Spontaneous DJ Dreams Come True
What's the point? As soon as I read the blurb on this article, I realized that all you really need is an iPod and a killer sound system. As long as you have everything ripped to the iPod, just keep a buffer of 2-3 songs queued up in the On-The-Go playlist, and it'll never stop playing. When someone comes up and makes a request, just add it to the end of the list, and it'll get played when the list advances to that point. Tada, no more need for crossfading, no more need for two devices, and certainly no more need to prep each track for playback.
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Tony Harrison
03/27/09

@Purple Dave: 'Cuz that sounds like a really fun night of DJing. Just standing there behind a table adding songs to a playlist that only fade like what, 3-5 seconds at the end (only at the end) of a song.
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Purple Dave
03/27/09

@Tony Harrison:
If you've got a huge gap between songs, then you obviously haven't explored all the settings that have been offered since iTunes 7 or 8. There's a setting that you can apply to individual tracks so they stream directly into each other. The upside is that when listening to albums where tracks actually do blend (The Beatles have several medleys where they actually recorded multiple songs as a single track, which were then broken up for CD releases). The downside is that if you pause a track within the last few seconds of playback, and then unpause it to play out, you'll register two plays instead of one.
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frigg
02/24/09

In reply to MashiMaro MP3 Player's Audio Cable Placement Becomes the Butt of a Joke
So if the audio cable's coming out of its butt, I guess it's supposed to sound like shit.
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IN THE FACE!
02/24/09

In reply to MashiMaro MP3 Player's Audio Cable Placement Becomes the Butt of a Joke
not-so-surprise-butsecks!
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Purple Dave
01/08/09

In reply to Sony Walkman X-Series Is Surfable, Touchable and Shuts Up the World Around You
I can't see that shutting up the world around me. In fact, I rather expect that, with its light mass, it would only serve to annoy nearby people and cause them to make even more noise, as they protest the fact that I've just clubbed them with it.
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OMG! Ponies!
01/07/09

In reply to Sony W-Series Walkman Has Got No Strings, And No Display
Nothing new here. There have been headphones that let you plug in a Shuffle for a while now.
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darknecross
01/07/09

In reply to Sony W-Series Walkman Has Got No Strings, And No Display
Anyone else think those headphones looks like Bluetooth headsets?

I've been trying to build a douchebag costume for Halloween this year, and these just gave me a great idea. What's more douchetastic than a guy shouting into his bluetooth headset? A guy shouting into TWO bluetooth headsets.
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Platypus Man
01/08/09

@darknecross: It's John Mayer, the DoubleDouche! -- [gizmodo.com]
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OMG! Ponies!
01/07/09

In reply to Sony Walkman X-Series Is Surfable, Touchable and Shuts Up the World Around You
It's not about price. It's about software and file formats.

The Zune will play unprotected AAC, MP3, and WMA and has really good software - possibly the only software that can compete with iTMS.

If Sony can't offer that, they might as well sell the design and Walkman brand name to Microsoft.
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macpatrik
01/07/09

@OMG! Ponies!: Not about price? Hahahaha
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OMG! Ponies!
01/07/09

@MacDaddy901: If it was just about price, Sansa would be on top.

When the iPod first came out, it cost twice as much as the Creative ZEN. The ZEN, however, had terrible software. In spite of being able to get twice as much drive space for half as much money, people chose the iPod (which used a rebranded version of MusicMatch Jukebox) over the ZEN.

Other players have consistently had better pricing and better sound quality. But once iTMS came around with one of the easiest interfaces around, it was over. iTMS is the game to beat because the computer does all the work for you. Put in a CD and it rips it. Plug your iPod into your computer and it syncs it. Until Zune 3, no one could really promise that level of ease.

If all you can offer is a better price, keep walking. Software gets you the average buyer; formats get you the niche buyer. Price isn't a major factor.
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BeautifulAgony
01/07/09

@OMG! Ponies!: I couldn't agree more. I bought a 30Gig iPod Video and although I liked it at first, I gradually became frustrated by the slow performance of iTunes and how massively bloated it was. I wanted drag & drop funcionality, and it just wasn't there. I don't want to be forced to use Apple's ridiculous software just to listen to some songs.

I've since bought a different MP3 player, and it doesn't handle video (but to be honest, watching video on the iPod was no treat) but being able to drag & drop 500 songs instantly, with no DRM concerns, is a big plus.

My two main concerns for any media player is format support and open drag & drop functionality. If I'm forced to use proprietary software then it's a no go. It took many hours, but eventually I managed to wrest control from iTunes and liberate my music, and then never looked back. The iPod was history after that, barely useful as a 30Gig external drive, being so slow and all.
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bbnick
01/07/09

In reply to Sony Walkman X-Series Is Surfable, Touchable and Shuts Up the World Around You
sony already has walkmans with built in noise cancellation so this is nothing new. check out the nwz-s738fbnc and nwz-s718fbnc. they have it built in as well and have gotten great reviews.
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OMG! Ponies!
01/07/09

@bbnick: If those are the names of the models, it's no wonder that I've not heard of them.

Sony needs one model and it needs to just call it a Walkman. That's it. You can tack on the 16GB or 32GB later but the rule for selling electronics is that they should have names.

The only product that sells with numbers is a car.
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OMG! Ponies!
11/21/08

In reply to Have a Cow With Creative's Zen Moo Moo-sic Player
This feature is much better than a ZunePass or integration with the iTMS ecosystem. I often find myself saying "What I really want is a cow-shaped mp3 player that is painfully embarrassing to look at."
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