Like music? Ready to join the 21st century?

If you’re still spinning CDs, tapes, or God forbid, records, it’s time to face the facts; the days of these artiques are long gone, and the new kid in town is the MP3 file. These handy little files have gained such popularity that they can no longer be considered a passing fad; within our time, it’s now generally accepted that mp3s and other digital audio formats will become the main medium of music. MP3 files can be made from your existing CD collection, enabling you to put every piece of music that you own on a single hard drive.

But what if you want to take it with you? With the plethora of digital audio players currently swarming the market, it’s tough to decide what you need. However, by understanding your own habits, needs, and budget, you can easily make a wise decision while stepping out of the stone age.

What is Digital Audio?

Music files that can be listened to on your computer are considered digital audio files. Most of these files are highly compressed, enabling a great deal of music to be stored on a relatively small file. The most popular of these compression formats is MP3, but it is by no means the only format in existence. Others include Apple’s AAC, Sony’s ATRAC3, and Windows’ WMA. Programs such as Apple’s iTunes and Window’s Media Player can be used to transfer music from a CD to one of the above file formats, and this process is called “ripping” a CD. Online music stores and peer-to-peer file sharing services can also be used to acquire digital audio files.

When picking out a portable digital audio player, it’s important to consider what digital audio format you’re ripping your CDs to and whether the player you’re looking at is able to play the file. Since nearly every modern player on the market is able to use MP3 files, it’s a wise decision to rip your CDs to that format.

Also, if you’re planning on buying music online, you may want to consider a subscription to a music service such as Napster; this will allow you to listen to any music that you want for a low monthly fee, and you can even transfer music you’ve downloaded to your digital audio player if it’s able to play Janus files (Apple’s iPod is not).

There are basically two kinds of mp3 players, those that use flash memory to store music and those that use hard drives. The advantages and disadvantages of each are fairly simple.