by Mike Shea on 10 February 2003
With my new addiction to mp3s still strong, I purchased a Creative Nomad Muvo solid state MP3 player. It's about the size of a cigarette lighter, has 128 megs (about 21 mp3 files) and cost $150. It is very fast, should run for a long time on a single AAA battery, and very portable. So far I've thrown a mix of Loreena Mckennett, Enya, The Two Towers, and the Rolling Stones on it. While having a lot more memory would be nice, this is still an easy way to bring some songs with you on the go. The only disadvantage I have found so far is the speed of copying songs to the unit which takes about 8 minutes for 128 megs worth. Faster would have been better as I may want different songs each day.
For the time being I am listening with a set of Koss Porta Pro headphones, but I have been wondering if the audiophile ear canal drivers like the Etymotic ER-6 ear canal headphones. With this combination you could have an audiophile studio that fits in your shirt pocket. If I have to go on travel I just may pick up a set to see how they work.