One man's junk...
January 19, 2007 6:53 PM   Subscribe

 
GAIN NOTARIETY ON METAFILTER W/THE POWER OF YR MIND!!!11 L@@@@K
posted by Smart Dalek at 7:14 PM on January 19, 2007


Ah, yes, I remember the future. Back when I was a kid, it was a long way away. Kids these days...
posted by johngumbo at 7:27 PM on January 19, 2007


Ooo! I have an old Yepp MP3 player from 1999/2000 that is somewhat broken, but if fixed is probably playable. Hmm... *thinks*
posted by divabat at 7:34 PM on January 19, 2007


I own the third MP3 player/recorder in the second link, except mine is branded mpman model MP-F30, not Sensory Science RaveMP 2100.

I've still used it for years because it actually recorded fairly high quality audio via the mic and line in. There are very, very few solid-state MP3 recorders out there. Looks like it may be time to sell it on eBay.

I recently replaced it with a Truly MP313X, which also records from mic, line or radio, not to mention plays MPG-1 movies, text files, a few puzzle games, with 1gb onboard and up to 2gb supported with a mini SD slot.

While I'd love 40-60 GB of space, in reality 3 gigs is more than enough for my needs, and there really aren't any decent, affordable portable digital recorders.

Anyway, 3 GB gets me a couple of days of music, a movie or two and with plenty of room of texts and room left over for field recording when I find it, which I do a lot of for experimental music purposes. And considering all the features and capabilities, the price wasn't bad, either. ($70-something USD for the player, another $30 something for the 2 GB SD card. It can only get less expensive from there, barring mass catastrophe at chip/memory manufacturing centers.)

On preview: I think my "mpman" player was marketed by Yepp. divabat, does it look like the 3rd player in that second link? Goofy curved sides, etc?
posted by loquacious at 8:13 PM on January 19, 2007


loquacious: No, it was a pretty standard design. Small thin-ish silver rectangular box, LCD screen, slot for memory card.
posted by divabat at 8:29 PM on January 19, 2007


Damn, and here I was saving my old Diamond Rio thinking it was the first consumer MP3 player. It lives in a box with a StarTac and some old HP calculators for my future Museum of Portable Technology.
posted by exogenous at 9:33 PM on January 19, 2007


Ten years seems a little short of a time for technology to have collectible value. I mean, I bought an Atari 2600, two controllers and one copy of each unique cartridge they had in my local Sally Ann for like $10 in the late '90s, and that was ten years older and with far greater cult/hipster appeal. Mind you, now would probably be a good time to snag one of those 5 gig, Mac-only 1st gen iPods.
posted by arto at 9:58 PM on January 19, 2007


Ten years seems a little short of a time for technology to have collectible value. I mean, I bought an Atari 2600, two controllers and one copy of each unique cartridge they had in my local Sally Ann for like $10 in the late '90s, and that was ten years older and with far greater cult/hipster appeal.

You probably got a pretty good deal. Clean, working Atari machines can go for 100s at this point, depending on the version.

However, you drastically overestimate the cult/hipster appeal. Ataris are common.

There were a whole heck of a lot more Atari machines made than early MP3 players. A more accurate comparison would be Atari VCS is more like an iPod, while something like the mpman is more like a Magnavox Odyssey or an original Atari/Sears Telegames Pong console.

The Atari VCS and 2600 were, like the iPod (or even the Rio), a rather long way from being the "first" in catagory, and that combined with their overwhelming success and popularity counterintuitively degrade their long term value as collectibles.

Which isn't to say that the Atari VCS/2600 systems aren't collectible, it's just not likely to elicit any excited squeeling noises from any serious video game collectors unless there's a Custer's Revenge cartridge stuck in it or some other rarity.
posted by loquacious at 11:01 PM on January 19, 2007


Of the players listed in Part 1, I have all but the original Nomad. For the PJB100, I have the 6G versions of the titanium Hango and the black HyTek Music Compressor. The most valuable as a collectible is probably the original, single digit serial number models of the PJB100, which were hand built by the designers and sold at a special auction for upwards of $1000. Next I say the F10, just because it was the first and most historically significant.
posted by MajorDilemma at 11:02 PM on January 19, 2007


Dude. Dude. You're worse than I am.

Can you enlighten me any on my mpman branded MP-F30? Which was, oddly, apparently supported or sold by Yepp instead of as Sensory Science's RaveMP 2100.

Looking at the RaveMP in the picture, it appears to be identical except for the screenprints on the case.
posted by loquacious at 11:14 PM on January 19, 2007


Heh, from a different angle, in my opinion, my ancient circa-2001 hard-drive based player keeps getting more and more valuable every day, because these days just try to get an mp3 player with no DRM, no cripples, no gatekeeper software, TOSLINK compatible digitial output and digital input, in addition to the analogues, and a drive that is has been easily upgraded to the massive storage capacities of today.

Plus, I improved the backlight, and installed an indicator LED on the IDE interface, so I can see what the drive is doing without relying on the software-driven indicator :)
posted by -harlequin- at 1:21 AM on January 20, 2007


Woah. What player is that? I don't remember any portables with optical/TOSLINK. Plenty of DATs and MiniDiscs but no HDD MP3 portables.

See, that's why I was perfectly happy to buy my crappy little import player, -harlequin-, because it had no DRM requirements and did all the recording stuff I wanted to do with it. Optical would be a little overkill for 'cause most of what I'm going to do is mic recording, and I have digital out as files anyway.

*makes a note to buy stock in various foreign fly-by-night hardware manufacturers, finds that they're privately or state owned, screams in anguish and shakes fists full of worthless bonds at stupid, stupid Hollywood and totally fails to buy any content 'cause he's broke because Hollywood is stupid*
posted by loquacious at 1:49 AM on January 20, 2007


What player is that? I don't remember any portables with optical/TOSLINK.

The original iRiver H120 has a toslink connector. And it supports Rockbox as well.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:26 AM on January 20, 2007


I've got an MPman MP-F50. Works just fine still. The amazing thing is, only one AA battery. Biggest drawback is only sequential access to tracks (no tree), and it won't remember its place within a track, when shut down (and pause goes to off automatically). It serves its purpose well.
posted by Goofyy at 5:42 AM on January 20, 2007


Wasn't the Samsung Yepp one of the very first few mp3 players? I remembered twiddling with one in 1998-1999. Heck, I know people who still use it. Someone give me a value for this thing!
posted by thedak at 8:52 AM on January 20, 2007


On the Atari 2600 point, the Wife and I hit a local used equipment store (specializes in video games and DVDs) the other day, and we noticed that they had a pair of good condition 2600's on the shelf. We also noticed that at $80 they were selling for more than the Game Cubes sitting right next to them.
posted by quin at 11:19 AM on January 20, 2007




MajorDilemma: I have that player. It's also the mpman MP-F30 or the RaveMP 2100. The "Yepp" brand isn't visible anywhere on it, but I remember seeing the same players in stores and seeing it branded as either Yepp or Samsung, but always with an mpman badge, never the Sensory Science or RaveMP brand.
posted by loquacious at 3:24 PM on January 20, 2007


I have one of the first of the PJB-100s that came off the line. Won by auction as described by MajorDelimma, I think the serial number is #36 (there is a sticker with just the number 36 on it).
posted by ill3 at 3:33 PM on January 20, 2007


My wife's 2001 Archos was upgraded a couple of years ago to 120GB. Swapped in a few new AAs and its playtime tripled. Even though I've moved to an iRiver (yes the one with the funky red LED TOSLink mentioned above) as the main player, I love that Archos. It's built like a tank. I expect that when the last Ipod on planet earth craps out, that Archos will still be playing perfectly. And the auto-switch analog/digital I/O is neat. Modern mp3 players have really narrowed their feature set tremendously - they are all basically just build-outs of a couple of narrow, well-defined chipset assemblies.
posted by meehawl at 8:52 PM on January 20, 2007


I used to have a Diamond Rio 500. (Actually, it's around here somewhere..)
The software that came with it was the most worthless pile of cow shit ever. I used it to make a few mp3s. Then I tried to transfer them to the Rio, and the software didn't even recognize the mp3 that it had just created.

I plugged it into my Mac, and iTunes (1!) recognized it.
posted by drstein at 11:01 PM on January 20, 2007


Mind you, now would probably be a good time to snag one of those 5 gig, Mac-only 1st gen iPods.

Snag? I'm still using mine.

After paying $350 for it in late 2001, I said I'd use it as long as it still works. It's still working, in almost daily use for over 5 years.
posted by zarex at 7:19 AM on January 21, 2007


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