one obvious shortcoming to the Fuze

[arnold]

Well, I'm about to order the 8GM Fuze because of it's sound quality and expandability (microSDHC), but the Sansa Fuze seems to have one obvious shortcoming:

1) There is no way to jump to the next/previous album while playing a song (via buttons)

2) I also notice that (correct me if I'm wrong here) there is no way to show the songlist while playing a song

Either one of these would helpo navigate the songs better, but especially the first one!

Apparently most of today's media players don't have a way for navigating through albums while playing, but my Sony nw-s706 has a button (control wheel) for navigating trough files OR albums and it's damn convenient! You really don't even have to look at the player while navigating through songs, when you can just jump song or album at a time. I would stick with my trusty Sony, if it wasn't just running out of space... :/ 4GB is just not enough.

In case somebody is wondering what kind of Sony player I'm talking here: http://www.testfreaks.co.uk/mp3-players/sony-nw-s706f/

[CrowdAds]

[WalkGood]

If you like the sony so much, why not stick with it ... they make an 8 GB and 16 GB now and from what I've read they're very good. http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/...ategoryId=3690

btw, your #2 assumption is wrong on most sansa players you can see music list by song or album while playing another tune.

[arnold]

Ok, thanks about the #2.

Well, the audio quality of my s706 is very good and I trust that the Sony players with bigger memory capacity are not worse. As of why not sticking with Sony:
- they are so incredibly expensive
- I'd be paying extra for the (admittedly very good) earphones, but I'm using noise isolating Shure IEM's these days, so I don't care for the included earsphones
- recent Sony players don't have a way to advance albums either
- they don't have expandable memory, which I have to say is killer feature on the Sandisk players
- Fuze (and Clip) audio quality appears to be equally good the the Sony A-series (I'm trusting Graham Skee's word on this one, as well as some other reviews

[WalkGood]

I understand your points and I’m not knocking the fuze as it does have great sq, but there are other players with sd slot as well.

[arnold]

Sure, there are plenty of good players. I've looked at some Creative offerings, but I get the impression that audio quality would be better in the Fuze. Audio quality and usablity are both important to me (especially audio quality) and it looks like these two pretty well in balance in the Fuze.

The thing is, that the player has to be pretty easy to operate without looking at it. This is because I use the music player a lot while cycling and running. This rules out a lot of players, like just about everything from Samsung (not that I care much for buttonless, touch sensitive operation anyway).

If someone has an idea about a player with great audio quality and great operability, reasonable price and a memory card slot, I'm all ears and will surely take a look : )

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by arnold

Sure, there are plenty of good players. I've looked at some Creative offerings, but I get the impression that audio quality would be better in the Fuze. Audio quality and usablity are both important to me (especially audio quality) and it looks like these two pretty well in balance in the Fuze.

The thing is, that the player has to be pretty easy to operate without looking at it. This is because I use the music player a lot while cycling and running. This rules out a lot of players (not that I care much for buttonless, touch sensitive operation anyway).

Heh, I'd rule out the creative as well, if it's just sq & expandable memory then the fuze is a great choice. But if you want vids too, you may want to look at the d2.

[arnold]

I'm actually happy with just music. Watching videos is something that I don't have time to do while cycling or running...

Also, I rather watch videos on a bigger screen and 5.1 sound. Watching videos on a 2" screen is just something that isn't appealing to me.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by arnold

I'm actually happy with just music. Watching videos is something that I don't have time to do while cycling or running...

Also, I rather watch videos on a bigger screen and 5.1 sound. Watching videos on a 2" screen is just something that isn't appealing to me.

heh, I feel the same way about watching vids and that's why I bought the i7, size, great build quality, great sq, JetEffects sound enhancements, ... Then the fuze will work fine for you

[arnold]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

Then the fuze will work fine for you

Well, I hope so. Shame about not being able to jump albums while playing, but maybe I'm being too picky.

So far the only alternative compared to Sandisk Fuze appears (for me) to be the Creative Zen.

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archi...zen-review.php

But as I read, the memory card function is crippled and that at least is steering me away from the Zen. If someone can tell how these two differ in terms of audio quality and usability, I'd be happy to hear. Edit: I got plenty of info from the "compare mp3 players" department of the forum... Looks like Fuze is the way to go vs Zen.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by arnold

Well, I hope so. Shame about not being able to jump albums while playing, but maybe I'm being too picky.

I'm not 100% sure about the fuze, but on the e200 you can be listening to an album and switch to another. One would think it's also possible on the fuze.

[soft_knee]

You can switch to a different album while playing by going back to the music list as per most players nowadays, but if I'm correctly interpreting the original poster's intent, he's looking for a fast "next/previous album" pathway. I haven't found a way to do that with the Fuze, and I doubt it exists. That doesn't stop me from loving my Fuze though.

[JK98]

The higher capacity Sony players are expensive though. The 4 gig S616 can be bought for $90, however if someone wants 8 gigs instead, the S618 8 gig is $150! Paying $60 more for just 4 gigs more of storage seems ridiculous. In this age of SD card memory at around $4 a gig, paying $15 a gig for extra internal memory in a player without an expansion slot seems exorbitant.

[arnold]

Originally Posted by soft_knee

You can switch to a different album while playing by going back to the music list as per most players nowadays, but if I'm correctly interpreting the original poster's intent, he's looking for a fast "next/previous album" pathway. I haven't found a way to do that with the Fuze, and I doubt it exists. That doesn't stop me from loving my Fuze though.

You got me exactly right, soft knee. One thing that's kind of stopping me from buying the Fuze, is that they are not in stock where I live! It looks like the importer isn't getting them in a month or it might take even longer, which I find pretty incredible (this is in Finland / Europe). I guess the reason for the shortage is demand/supply. If someone knows a good place to buy the Fuze that ships to European countries, please let me know.

Originally Posted by JK98

The higher capacity Sony players are expensive though. The 4 gig S616 can be bought for $90, however if someone wants 8 gigs instead, the S618 8 gig is $150! Paying $60 more for just 4 gigs more of storage seems ridiculous. In this age of SD card memory at around $4 a gig, paying $15 a gig for extra internal memory in a player without an expansion slot seems exorbitant.

Yeah, the Sony prices are a bit silly and they cost even more around here! : (

[sweet spot]

I too just bought a Fuze (4 gig 8 wasn't in stock) because I really wanted something small, to fit in my vest pocket at work, and the View just wasn't doing it for me (buggy, crashed, locked up etc). The Fuze with its smaller footprint seemed to be a good option to check out, especially since I heard that the firmware was a lot more polished in terms of stability.

So far, I really like the sound quality, and the eq plays well with a couple of pair of cans I've thrown at it. I do have some minor gripes though, and really hope that the SanDisk people listen to their customers. I posted something at the official SanDisk Forums here

Basically, my biggest gripe is not having file tree browsing for the reason that you absolutely have to tag your albums with a number before the name of them, if you intend on having them play in the order of which the albums were released. For example, take Radiohead and the 8 albums they have (I'm counting In Rainbows disc 2 as #8)

Pablo Honey
The Bends
OK Computer
Kid A
Amnesiac
HTTT
In Rainbows
IR Disc 2

But what gets displayed first is Amnesiac, then Hail To The Thief and so on and so forth, so I'd have to tag them which is a pain. You get the idea. The same can be said for files or folders which were encoded from FLAC's, as the tags get lost etc..

Second gripe: I believe the e250 has this feature, so why shouldn't any other Sansa DAP: Looping scroll lists for the menus and files/folders/songs. This would make everything so much more convenient !

I am thinking about getting the 8 gig, simply because the price is right and outside of getting an Nano and ROCKboxing it, I can't think of any other DAP of this size with decent enough SQ (to my ears) which won't need software for my Linux box. Otherwise, I really like the Fuze so far.

Doug

[sweet spot]

Ok, what the heck. So I ripped several cd's last night, and a few of them after transferring them onto the Fuze, had shown up with files out of order. I just tried tagging the files again whilst still on the Fuze, but that only seemed to make things different, but not right.

I just now ripped another cd, and made sure that the tags were on there (or so I thought) but not only are the tracks out of order again, there are no track numbers like the tagging scheme said there would be.

Is the Fuze known to be sketchy like this ? I'm using Linux Ubuntu fwiw.

Doug

edit: For the record, they're not even in alphabetical order, just totally random. This might put me off of the Fuze if it's not my system. Bah.. I just realized that this is the case with all the cd's I ripped last night.

[sweet spot]

This is one example of how an album is displayed. I'm actually surprised that the track numbers are present, as it's the only album out of those I ripped in which they appeared. Though I'm wondering now if it's because of using EasyTag after the fact. I can't remember though.

[arnold]

Originally Posted by sweet spot

This is one example of how an album is displayed. I'm actually surprised that the track numbers are present, as it's the only album out of those I ripped in which they appeared. Though I'm wondering now if it's because of using EasyTag after the fact. I can't remember though.

Why are the songs not displayed in numbered order?

Btw, for tagging, I can recommend Mp3Tag http://www.mp3tag.de/en/index.html

It's great! Very intuitive and fast to use.

[ActissX]

Yes, try MP3tag. And also, make sure the tags are in id3v2.3 format versus the newer v2.4. I seemed to be having the same problem with mine, but when I retagged all my MP3's as v2.3 it worked fine.

Oh, and make sure you remove the files, let the player refresh the database, and then add them again so that the fuze indexes with the new tags rather than keeping the old information.

[sweet spot]

Originally Posted by arnold

Why are the songs not displayed in numbered order?

Btw, for tagging, I can recommend Mp3Tag http://www.mp3tag.de/en/index.html

It's great! Very intuitive and fast to use.

Um, yeah. That's what I wanted to know ! The whole point of my posting that, actually. I've no bloody idea as to why.

Originally Posted by ActissX

Yes, try MP3tag. And also, make sure the tags are in id3v2.3 format versus the newer v2.4. I seemed to be having the same problem with mine, but when I retagged all my MP3's as v2.3 it worked fine.

Oh, and make sure you remove the files, let the player refresh the database, and then add them again so that the fuze indexes with the new tags rather than keeping the old information.

Ok, V 2.3 hu ? Well, as stated in another post above, I'm using Ubuntu Linux, so Mp3tag isn't an option.

If there are any Linux users here, please chime in with what you're using to tag your stuff, because K3b doesn't seem to be doing the job. Thanks.

Doug

Edit, thinking about it, wow.. What a pain in the ass that the tags have to be that freekin' specific !

[sweet spot]

Update: In the weee hours of the morning, I downloaded Mp3tag because I was told that it worked well under WINE, and it does So I then messed with the settings, and finally got an album I had just ripped to sort properly on the Fuze, success !

Ok, so that's one time. I'm currently ripping another album, and about to test the results. One thing though, is that when copied over, the song numbers did not go with them, which I really want. And now I"m wondering, is it possible to tag the albums with an actual number for the whole album, so that say, three albums will be listed in alpha numerical succession ? This would make things all that much better in my eyes.

Now I'm hoping to find a program which will rip, encode and properly tag my files with the same idv2.3 scheme, so that I don't have to perform this extra step.


Edit: Aaaaaand failure. I just don't get it. Mp3 tag worked with one album, but now after ripping several all over again, I can't get the same results. The behavior is just too erratic and I'm not sure of what's up. More investigating to do.

Edit #2: Success again. Changed the settings so that Mp3tag uses ISO -8859-1 and both strips and replaces the id3v2 tags. Well, it worked this time, at least. Then I had to click the automatic number thing, and then make sure to leave the "track" field "blank" and then choose "tag-filename". Now I only want it to do one more thing which I can't seem to figure out, which is how to actually include the track number in the tag. More testing...

Edit #3: Had success again, which is nice. So now, I'm going to try tagging two albums at the same time. If that works, I can work in bulk, and things will be a lot better. I'm also trying different name schemes for the albums in an attempt to number the actual albums so that they'll be in chronological order, the way I like them. Will report back....