I’m So Smart
Sometimes I do something smart without even realizing it at the time. My recent request on the show for digital audio player recommendations was one of those things (see how I can make anything all about me?). I had basically decided to get an iRiver for Xmas because I want to play OGGs. I knew that some people were having some problems with the Variable Bitrate part of OGGs, but I thought the iRiver was the only real ‘mainstream’ device out there and it would have to do.
Wow, was I wrong. I have received so many comments, emails, and even one audio file (thanks Adam!) containing recommendations. Interestingly enough, every recommendation was the same: stay away from the iRivers and buy an Iaudio. Every one.
So I will.
I just wanted to thank everyone who sent me their recommendation. You guys saved me from spending $300 on something that wouldn’t do what I want.
So - thanks!
December 18th, 2005 at 3:35 pm
Jon -
Could you possibly elaborate on what you learned about “laudio”?
I, too, have been wanting to get away from Mp3 and migrate to an ogg portable and, like you, was looking at the Iriver players.
Afer I saw your blog entry on “laudio” I was intruiged and Googled it but did not find much that made sense; I even saw one entry stating that laudio was not open source.
Any further elaboration would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Jim Michaels in St. Louis, MO (USA)
(who BTW thinks “Bloreo” rocks as a penguin name and will email Kelly Penguingirl to tell her so - I just hope it doesn’t give the penuguin a complex)
December 19th, 2005 at 3:53 am
Hi Jim,
Sure - can do.
As I understand it, the main problem with digital audio players and OGGs right now lies in the variable bitrate (VBR) feature of the OGG format. There is a VBR MP3 as well, but I don’ t know anything about that.
It seems that only a few players even support OGG and of that small pool, most of them don’t support the VBR function to it’s max. These troublesome players seem to bog out at the bottom and the top of the spectrum, therefore causing hitches, glitches. dead spots, and the like when listening to an OGG file.
The two that were recommended to me (I thought there was only one - the iAudio - but the JetAudio player was also recommended) were from people who own them and actually use them for listening to OGGs. Therefore, I can be pretty sure that these players can handle the VBR correctly.
I further decided on the iAudio G3 (assuming I can find it somewhere in town here) because one listener sent me an audio file that they recorded on the G3. It sounded awesome and I’m been looking around for something small that I can mobile podcast with and the G3 seems to fit the bill.
Open source - hmmm…I think some of the confusion stems from the fact that I’ve called this thing an ‘L’ Audio a few times, but in fact the proper name is ‘I’ Audio. I don’t know where the open source idea came from, I don’t think I stated that. The iAudio is a piece of hardware (granted with firmware in it), so I don’t know how the concept of open source would apply to it. I’m also pretty sure that there aren’t any hardware open source products out there…is there?
J