Digital Drive

RE: Portable CD or hard drive player that can record live events too?

70.67.201.15

In Reply to: RE: Portable CD or hard drive player that can record live events too? posted by billeames on March 27, 2008 at 13:31:35

The Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 is a good choice; it even has S/PDIF input.

The first Nomad Jukebox doesn't have S/PDIF, and reports are that the ADC picks up power supply noise when the hard drive is accessed. Changing the hard drive for a CF card may fix this, as well as drastically increasing battery life. On the plus side, it should offer virtually unlimited recording time since it records seamlessly to 15 minute chunks in WAV format at up to 48k. The small hard drive in a stock Jukebox can be upgraded fairly easily; google and you'll find a site dedicated to Nomad hacking. I haven't opened mine yet to see if the ADC can be POOGED, or done any real recording with it. Prices are pretty low on eBay.

Check out the Rockbox firmware, which can be installed on a variety of MP3 players including some Ipods, and some semi-obscure brands like Iriver.

The most promising MP3 players like the Nomad Jukebox 3, and various Irivers fetch rather high prices on Ebay, but you might luck out and find one in a local pawn shop or Craigslist.

There's also the Gemini iKey which records directly to a USB memory device. There too, reports are that the ADC picks up power supply noise. I opened mine, and found that most of the circuits are buried under black goo, so it's hard to tell if it is practical to POOGE one of those. Anyway, the "user interface" is very poor... a handful of LEDs and two push buttons. There's an iKey Plus (something like that) which fixes some of the flaws and adds a mic preamp, but costs almost double. Kind of pointless when things like the Zoom or an MP3 player running Rockbox get it almost perfectly right.

Follow Ups:

Post a Followup:

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?

Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
	Remember my Moniker & Password (What's this?) Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:

Message:	(Posts are subject to Content Rules)

Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:	Automagically notify you when someone responds.

To view your new posting or follow-up, click on the RELOAD or REFRESH button on your browser.