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diversions:
New age in audio
technology arrives
By Jeff Dusing
On-line Forty-Niner
Attention audiophiles,
the revolution in music listening is here. MP3 players are
the latest and greatest format for portable audio that the
digital generation is bound to embrace.
MP3 players are
nothing like your daddy's Walkman. Instead of purchasing CD's
or cassettes, music is downloaded from the Internet onto your
computer in the form of an MP3 file. It is then downloaded
from your computer into your MP3 player. The incredibly compact
play stations are usually small enough to fit in your pocket
and yet some can hold several hours of digital music.
As they are still
relatively new, MP3 players are still rather expensive. Starting
around $100, the more advanced players can cost close to $500.
That's a lot of beer! Their pricing varies from one make to
the next, but more so, pricing depends on the amount of memory.
The memory of an
MP3 player is measured in Megabytes or MB, just like on your
home computer. The amount of memory directly affects how much
music can be loaded onto the player at one time.
Most entry-level
players have 32MB, which translates to just over one hour
of music. The more expensive players commonly come with 64MB
of memory allowing over two hours of music to be downloaded.
Despite their higher
cost, MP3 players still offer a great incentive to even the
poorest college student, to purchase one as soon as possible,
free music! Many have heard of the ongoing debate over Napster
and their offering of free music over the Internet. What those
who have not used this service may not know is that Napster
offers millions of songs from almost every artist in the form
of an MP3 file.
Although Napster
is starting to remove many titles from their service due to
a recent court ruling, plenty of tunes are still available.
Additionally, there are many other sites offering free downloads.
MP3.com offers some free titles and many more for sale. And
while the currently availablity does not require anyone to
pay for their MP3's, the low cost of downloads and the ability
compile songs from all of your favorite artists into one medium,
offer a tempting incentive to go MP3.
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