I'm looking for something to use while mowing the lawn(s) or shovel the snow with.. Sometimes, when mowing the lawn, it can take me up to 4 hours so I have to take that into consideration for disk space and battery life. But it's not really critical to me that it's feature rich. I'm having trouble justifying the expense, so it has to be realtively cheap...

Anyone have any models in mind? Maybe something I could find on eBay?

PS - Anyone who hasn't tried noise cancelling headphones HAS to give them a try!

ya i tired the sony earbud noise canceling ones a few years back, while i was on a plane OMG what a treat, you cant even hear the jets.

Sometimes, when mowing the lawn, it can take me up to 4 hours so I have to take that into consideration for disk space and battery life.

Ooo, tough one.

Is it critical that it be able to play 4 hours' worth of songs without repeating itself? What about the relative quality of the files?

If you want both high quality and not-hear-the-same-tune-twice capacity, then you are talking about hard disk based players right now. Current leaders are of course the Apple iPod and the Rio Riot. The iPod is physically very small, but if you can handle the slightly larger size of the Riot (for instance clipped on the back of your belt), I'd definitely choose it over the iPod for lots of reasons (one of which is greater capacity than the iPod).

If you don't mind converting the tunes down to 96kbps for the portable player, and don't mind repeating tunes once or twice, then there are lots of solid-state portables that fit the bill. Of course, then there's the time-sink issue of transcoding all of your high-bitrate-empeg-MP3s to the lower bitrate to fit on the portable... the hard-drive portables start to look even more attractive...

Ah, if only there were a solid-state portable made by the Cambridge team... OH WELL.

Regarding headphones: Most portables I've seen will ship with abysmal headphones. Expect to use another pair other than the ones that ship with the player. For mowing the lawn, I would recommend these. I have used them with portables while working with loud power tools out in the garage, and they effectively work as earplugs as well as producing excellent bass response.

Quick bit of capacity math:

Assuming very low quality 96kbps MP3 files:
128 megabytes of storage will get you just over 3 hours of non-repeat playback.
64 megabytes of storage will get you 1.5 hours of non-repeat playback.
32 megabytes of storage will get you 46 minutes of non-repeat playback.

Assuming barely-tolerable 128kbps MP3 files:
128 megabytes of storage will get you just over 2 hours of non-repeat playback.
64 megabytes of storage will get you 69 minutes of non-repeat playback.
32 megabytes of storage will get you 34 minutes of non-repeat playback.

Assuming decent quality 160kbps MP3 files:
128 megabytes of storage will get you 1.86 hours of non-repeat playback.
64 megabytes of storage will get you 55 minutes of non-repeat playback.
32 megabytes of storage will get you 27 minutes of non-repeat playback.

thanks Tony! Hmm... now you got me thinking.... MUST PUT CREDIT CARD AWAY!!

Why not just install a docking sled in your lawn mower! That woudl make for an interesting install

Why not just install a docking sled in your lawn mower!

ROFLMAOASTC

Because they are sold out! lol

Actually, the 2 times a month that I'm out for 4 hours is when I'm in a tractor! Would I have the first empeg installed in a Ford Tractor? :P

Not if I beat you to it...my dad has a 58 Ford Tractor

In reply to:

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ROFLMAOASTC

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Whoa, that's an acronym and a half. What does it mean? I tried acronymfinder.com but couldn't find it.

after Roll On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off you've lost me!

... and scaring the cat.

and scaring the cat.

Right. And if you're at work, substitute "coworkers" for "cat".

Acronym finder has a version of it that uses fewer letters. I tried to sumbit my version to them, but they don't seem to count mine as valid.

I bought a RioVolt SP250 before I bought the Mk2a's. It really works well. A CD will hold 10 hours of recorded music. There is another version of this without the FM tuner for around 100 bucks.

hmm... maybe i can ad a atleast 2 more harddrive based players for you!
First its the Archos Jukebox wich is the chiepest(?) of all HDD players I´ve seen. Its small compared to the RioRiot But big compared to the IPOD. There have been some issues about sound quality but i dont know if they´ve solved them.
Then there is the Neo Jukebox (now bought by Toshiba) that is cheaper than the RioRiot and about the same size i think.

The Archos and the Neo are based on laptop drives wich is why they are a bit bigger than the IPOD. I dont know about the RioRiot but i think its based on laptop drives to.
The good thing about the "laptop devices" is that they are uppgradeable, atleast the archos and neo are. They have both been successfully updated to 60 GB drives.
I have lost all my links to all these drives but i think a search on altavista (or whatever) might help you!

hope this helps!

/ilDuce