With all the hoopla over Napster, you might think that online downloading of MP3s is a bad idea. Think again. There's nothing wrong with downloading MP3s as long as you're downloading them legally.

This article explains what MP3s are, what to look for in an MP3 player and introduces you to several great legal download sites.

How MP3s Work

MP3s. Why would you even bother with this format? In a word? Space. Here's enough about MP3s for you to sound like you know what you're talking about. You know how they say that dogs can hear things that humans can't? Well the hard working scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute found that we really don't notice all the sound coming out of sound recording. We just don't hear it at all. MP3 is a piece of audio that's been compressed with an algorithm. For those webheads out there it's to a regular piece of music the way a JPEG is to a GIF. It's going to take up less space because you need less of it to convey the same auditory richness of the original sound byte.

Okay, you still with me? The way an MP3 file works is that it had to be compressed going in and then it has to be uncompressed going out. This is why your regular CD player can't play MP3 files. It needs to have a piece of computer technology that would allow it to decode the MP3 file back to an uncompressed state. You know, it's sort of like the way the Energizer works on a Star Trek transporter. You can buy CD players that are MP3 playable but there are also cute digital MP3 players all on their own.

MP3 Players

MP3 audio players can be either software or hardware. You can download many MP3 software players for free and use them to listen to music on your computer. Many of these software MP3 players also allow you to purchase songs and manage your digital music collection. The most popular software MP3 player is iTunes and is a free download for both Mac and PC.

But if you are looking for a portable MP3 Walkman type device, then you need to consider what features you're getting. The big thing to look at is memory. How much memory does the player have? That is what will dictate how many songs you can store on your MP3 player at any one time. Besides the memory space, you'll want to consider how big the screen is, if it also lets you listen to the radio, and does it let you record MP3s as well as play them?

When you consider buying an MP3 player, you have your choice of getting either a hard drive player, a mini/micro hard player, a flash player or a MP3 CD player. Each type of these players has their pros and cons:

Hard drive player. Imagine the ability to hold aprox 17,000 songs (128 kbs) on 60GB of memory. Do you even know 17,000 songs? Maybe you would have if you could have ever had the chance to keep so many near and dear to you. Cons? This type of player is larger, heavier. Plus their rechargeable batteries won't hold a charge after a few years. And don't plan on taking this baby jogging with you. It's probably too big.

Mini/Micro hard drive player. Okay, now imagine 1,700 songs on your MP3 player. Enough for you? These have the same pros and cons as the larger hard drive-based player. They're just smaller. Some of them do have rechargeable batteries that you can replace yourself after the batteries stop holding their charge.

Flash player. Tiny, tiny, tiny! Great for keeping up with the action because they don't have any moving parts the way a hard drive player has. They cost more per song than any other MP3 player (they don't really charge by the song, but I'm talking about how much memory you're getting for your dollar). Usually tops out at 2 GB, many of them offer at least 32 MB of memory. These babies can hold about 500 songs for you.

MP3 CD player. Okay, why would you buy this? If you want to listen to MP3s and regular CDs on the same player. These are cheap but they'll skip like a regular CD player when bumped. You can burn about 150 songs on one CD. Imagine a party compilation like that? You'll literally be dancing all night long.

Two popular MP3 players are the iPod and the Creative brand. If you would rather have a Volkswagen over a car from Hyundai, then buy an iPod. If you think Hyundais are cute, consider buying a Creative MP3 player because you're going to get a lot more bang for your buck.

APPLE MP3 PLAYERS

iPod (fourth generation). A classic product. Excellent choice. Will set you back $299 (20 GB) to $399 (40 GB).

iPod Photo. This baby will let you view photos with a 2 inch color LCD screen. It has a 15 hour battery life. You don't need this unless you really, really like to show off photos and your photo cell phone isn't enough. Is that worth $499 (40 GB) to $599 (60 GB)? Truthfully, you decide.

iPod Mini will get you 4 GB of memory. They come in fun colors like silver, pink, blue, gold, and green. Suggested retail price is $299.

iPod Shuffle. Sleek and stylish. Small enough to wear around your neck or in an armband. No LCD. You have to shell out close to $99 for one of these for one that has 512 MB of memory or about $149 for one that can hold 1GB of music for you.

 

CREATIVE MP3 PLAYERS

Creative manages to give Apple a run for their money with these products:

The Zen Touch. First off, this player has a great battery life compared to the iPod. You should be able to find one of these for $249 (20 GB) to $349 (40 GB). You can't replace the rechargeable battery when it stops holding a charge. Heavier and larger than the iPod. Has a touch sensitive touch pad for you to use to navigate through your music menu.

MuVo Micro N200. Cute. It's almost as small as a lighter. How much you spend on this player depends on how much memory you gotta have. Suggested retail prices are $99 (256 MB), $129.99 (512 MB), or $199.99 (1 GB). These come in cool colors like red, orange, lime green, and light and dark blues).

No matter which MP3 player you end up getting, just plan on upgrading the cheesy headphones that come with it. Most MP3 players out of the box have headphones that are less than perfect (way less than perfect) in conveying the music's sound qualities. Ha-ha, I'm not talking about you buying your daddy's huge-ass ear muffler head phones. But if you shell out even as little as $15 for another pair of headphones, you're listening experience will increase in the pleasure factor by tenfold easily.

Where to find the music online

Now you're armed with your new MP3 player. Where can you find legal copies of your favorite songs online to download?

You can find MP3s of everything from music to audio books in a variety of places. To get started, try the iTunes Music Store, MP3.com and file sharing programs like LimeWire, Hotline, BitTorrent and KaZaA.

AllofMP3 is a great example of a legal online file vendor. Make sure when you go to their website you pick English as your language of choice or you probably won't get too far. Not unless you're taking Russian right now. That's because AllofMP3 comes all the way from Russia with Love! They've got over 300,000 audio tracks. This isn't only music songs, you can also find movie soundtracks as well as taped books.

You can register for free; when you do you get a free 10 Mb bonus to start you out. You get to preview anything before you buy it. To keep you from taking off without buying it, the preview is only available as a low quality download. This way you get to hear the whole entire song, not just the first 30 seconds.

AllofMP3 is getting a lot of positive reviews for its competitive pricing. Turns out you only pay 2 cents per Megabyte of music that you download (about 10 cents a song). That means you get about 10 X the music you'd get from most other sites like iTunes that charge you an average of 99 cents per song. They support all the popular formats such as mp3, wma, mpeg, and 4AAC-iTunes for downloading. It's Online Encoding Service (OEEX) lets you download your music in uncompressed CD quality (flac,wav) or if you prefer in compressed bitrates of 64kbs, 128kbs and 192kbs.

Be careful downloading free illegal music. You could get caught. If you have the budget, stick to legal download options like AllofMP3 and iTunes . Also remember that bands and fan sites will often offer free and legal MP3 downloads.

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