Philips is a brand that hasn't gotten much attention on this site in the past, due to somewhat random product numbering, release schedules, retail outlets and generally a rather weird behavior for a MP3 manufacturer. They have some nice players however, especially some of the later models, so it's time to take a closer look at a few of them. First off is the GoGear Spark, somewhat of a competitor to the Sansa Clip+.

With Amazon MP3 and iTunes out of the way- the two immediate giants in the music store world- it's time to turn to some of the smaller services. First off is eMusic.

Digging though old posts I came across a review I started but never finished dating back to 2006. The photos are even watermarked before we had a logo.

The Zen Vision W was basically a larger version of the Zen Vision:M. They both had a great looking screen and awesome playback of native video. The only difference besides the obvious was that the W had a compact flash memory expansion slot. Though it wasn’t much of an expansion slot since both your music libraries would not integrate with each other. Unfortunately, Creative continues this trend today up to the new X-fi2.

Below are the photos that were prepared for the review back in 2006. How retro…

You might wonder what anything with "iTunes" in the title is doing on a site called Anything but iPod. Well, iTunes made the leap from DRM to DRM free earlier this year, and suddenly the biggest digital music store was open for use with any MP3 player- not only the iPod. 11 million songs and international (albeit not global) availability sounds like a killer combination, but how well does it work for non-iPod MP3 players?

Most on board sound cards are not worth the PBC they are printed on. They are plagued with low quality chips and interference from other internal components. The best solution would be to go with an external fire wire solution. I and a lot of others in our forum use one of the Echo AudioFire series of sound cards. These primary application for this series is professional audio but they make an amazingly crisp sound experience, but for your desktop.

I guess it would be possible to tote around the AudioFire2 but it is not an elegant little device like the Turtle Beach Audio Micro USB sound card. It is small enough to almost be considered a dongle or even a larger headphone jack adapter that will rival the sound quality of the pro audio FireWire sound cards. Though there are a few caveats- read on for the full scoop.

Having gone through an reviewed some of the most popular music organization applications for MP3 players it's time to turn to the other part of the equation: how to get a hold of media in the first place. Amazon MP3 is the first in a series of reviews that will test to see what media stores offer the best value for money, has the best selection and the best overall experience.

It’s been quite a while since we reviewed the CrossRoads MylarOne X3/XB and X3i/XBi. While they were good sounding in-ear phones in the sub-$100 price range, their build quality was more than questionable. Jaben, the company behind the CrossRoads brand, certainly considered these shortcomings in durability when they designed the new versions of their MylarOnes. We’re going to take a closer look at their Bijou 2, Bijou 3, and Quattro.

To make matters more confusing – or interesting – Jaben introduced a second brand of IEMs as well, called Hippo. While the MylarOne brand appears to be targeted more towards the “serious” listener, the Hippo brand seems to be catering more to the “fun” crowd. Well, at least that’s what the branding and naming scheme looks like to me. “Fun” might actually sound more scary than appealing in this audio context – but fear not, the Hippos are of course nothing like, say, your average Skullcandy IEMs. We’re going to analyze the Hippo VB (Variable Bass) and Hippo Boom in our super secret ABI laboratories, right after the jump.

One of the most commonly suggested applications to review on ABi>> has been J. River's software. Unfortunately the Media Center software is $50 and I therefore ignored it at first. Then someone linked to the free Media Jukebox, a stripped down version of the software that will only do music. Read on to see if it's stripped down too much or still has a chance of scoring some points.

While not a competitor to any of the other music organizing applications I've reviewed lately, foobar2000 deserves somewhat of a "special mention" for it's computer side music playback capabilities. Read on for a quick review-slash-walkthrough.

Next up in my series of software reviews is an old champion that hasn't changed much over the last few years. How will it hold up to the more updated music applications?

With the S540 review out of the way, it's time to shift focus to its baby brother, the E340. How does it compare to the S540?

With previous generation Zunes being discontinued, the Zune HD will be rolling solo into the next generation of the Zune platform. This hardware along with the software and services is a walled garden approach that tightly integrates content delivery across your Zune HD, PC, Xbox, and Windows Phone. It is an approach that creates a very seamless and easy to use experience but on the flip side can be limiting on choices of software and formats.

This Zune HD review will show off the features of the HD hardware and how it meshes with the Zune ecosystem.

Continuing my reader requested quest for the best music organizing software, I've made my way to one of the big ones in the field. MediaMonkey has been around for ages, and continues to stand as perhaps the single biggest independent music organizing application out there. Read on to see how it holds up.

With Windows 7 just out , Windows Media Player 12 is slowly making its way onto PCs everywhere, replacing outdated version of a software mane – including me – haven't really had much love for. Considering the amount of people using default applications, and WMP12's ability to use Windows 7 features out of the box, I decided to take a closer look.

It's that time of year again; the time when Sony takes a look at their MP3 player line up, decide it's time for an update, and run a computer application that randomly adds and removes some features and then releases the result as a new player.

The S540 is a Sony player, which means the same menus, format support, video support, screen resolution etc etc as the previous models. New in this model is integrated stereo speakers, FM and voice recording and a couple of more tweaks. Read on to see how it hods up.