Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion
Some Basic Questions from MP3 noobie
GeeJay:
I am researching MP3 players and happily came across this website and forums.
I am an old f*rt and intend to record my very extensive collections of audio cassettes and CDs in MP3 format on my PC
I have some questions that I am sure the users of these forums can answer for me. I would appreciate non-geekspeak answers.
1. Simply put, exactly what does Rockbox do and how does it work?
2. Which budget friendly (max $150 - less is better) MP3 players are highly recommended for audio playback quality and ease of use.
3. How many GB?
4. I have already done some research for software for recording cassettes and CDs to MP3 my PC. Any recommendations?
Just 1 day left to order the MP3 for Xmas so earliest possible responses will be welcome.
Thanks
GJ
Julian67:
Rockbox is a 3rd party alternative/supplementary firmware for some personal audio players. This is explained in the wiki http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/GeneralFAQ A firmware on a device like an mp3 player is broadly analogous to an operating system on a PC. So Rockbox is an alternative operating system for your mp3 player, offering a variety of enhancements and extra features which many people find to be an improvement over the firmware shipped by the manufacturer.
"How does it work?" is an amazingly broad question. Perhaps you meant "How is it installed?" or something similar. The wiki and other links will offer the relevant information. If/when you have a supported player then read that player's Rockbox Manual and it describes how to install it.
Budget friendly players: the Sansa Clip+ is widely available, has very good sound quality and works well with Rockbox. Its original firmware is quite good too.
How many GB? Like money and life expectancy, more is always better and what is ample today may look meagre tomorrow. Some players, including the Clip+, have a card slot so you can add more storage using micro SD cards. If you simply want the biggest possible storage capacity then an iPod Classic 160GB is great value though it isn't yet fully supported by Rockbox.
CDs to mp3: it depends on your PC operating system. Most well informed Windows users will probably use EAC or dbpoweramp. BSD or GNU/Linux or Solaris users can use Ripit or Morituri or various other cdparanoia based rippers. Mac OS X users can do the same or if needing/preferring a graphical tool can use X Lossless Decoder. Linux/BSD masochists with time on their hands may prefer Rubyripper (that is an in joke, but the in crowd apparently is only me).
Cassettes to mp3: bleeuurrgghh. The thing about a really good player with good ear/headphones is that you will hear exactly how awful commercial audio cassettes were, and never want to listen to them again. Best to swallow the loss and buy CD replacements while you can.
1 day left to order: don't spend $150. Buy a Clip+ 8GB for $60, spend the same again on some nice earphones or headphones, and have $30 left over for a couple of CDs.
GeeJay:
"Cassettes to mp3: bleeuurrgghh. The thing about a really good player with good ear/headphones is that you will hear exactly how awful commercial audio cassettes were, and never want to listen to them again. Best to swallow the loss and buy CD replacements while you can."
I should have mentioned that almost all my audio cassettes were self recorded from virgin (new) vinyl LPs which were carefully cleaned prior to recording and then stored. They are on TDK SA cassettes, which was (is?), except for metal, the best cassette media available at that time. The sound is excellent.
Unfortunately, when we embarked on our life of travel in the early 90s, the LP collection was too bulky and heavy to carry on board our blue water sailboat, so was sold in our household contents sale. I now wish I had kept them in storage to record to my PC now. As the cliche says - Hindsight is 20/20.
Thanks for the advice
GJ
Mr Whippy:
if you're ripping CD's I'd encode them to flac tbh. For CD's I'd recomend Exact Audio Copy and flac encoder. Also could record your tapes to flac as well.
Since you're going to have a lossy copy for portable use, you could experiment with different codecs and bitrates then settle for one. That way you have your lossless flac copies already at hand.
Also you may be able to get the albums you sold cheap on CD
Julian67:
--- Quote from: GeeJay on December 21, 2011, 03:00:19 AM ---I should have mentioned that almost all my audio cassettes were self recorded from virgin (new) vinyl LPs which were carefully cleaned prior to recording and then stored. They are on TDK SA cassettes, which was (is?), except for metal, the best cassette media available at that time. The sound is excellent.
--- End quote ---
A long time ago, before I had ever owned a CD player, I woud buy CDs and then visit a friend who had a CD player and a Denon cassette deck and I would record my new CD onto TDK SA or MA, using Dolby B or C and with the levels painstakingy calibrated and manually set. These sounded so much better than a commercial audio cassette that I could hardly believe the record companies dared sell such a bad product. But still the CD was always better because it had no noise, and didn't require Dolby noise reduction. I have to say that if you really love the music and it's available on CD then it's almost always worth buying the CD (or equivalent audio files). There definitely are some albums which have never seen a good quality issue on CD, but these are the exceptions, not the rule. I would be amazed if you didn't notice a very substantial difference between CD->mp3 and vinyl->cassette->mp3.
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