Should I Buy a Yepp (YP-55)?

[plucker]

For all those who own this player, would you recommend it to others (like me) who are considering buying it? Do you experience a lot of problems or limitations with this player?

Also, does the firmware upgrade really do what it's supposed to (i.e. read playlists, show lyrics, etc.)? What other features are added with the new upgrade?

Is the voice recording function for this player good? I would like to record lectures with it.

Questions I have about this player:
*Does the player let you scroll through folders while a song is playing?
*Can you program the order that you want the mp3s played in?
*Is there an AC adapter socket?
*Can you rewind/fast forward/scan through a track?
*Does the player resume playing where you stopped it (instead of strating at the beginning of the last song)
*Does the player convert voice recorded files into mp3s?
*Does the LCD show names of folders?
*Any other neat features?

The only thing that is really stopping me from buying this player is the fact that it can't be expanded. Also, I need to know how good the voice recorder is.

Thanks!
plucker

[bentonquest]

Originally posted by plucker
For all those who own this player, would you recommend it to others (like me) who are considering buying it?


Absolutely.


Do you experience a lot of problems or limitations with this player?


No.


Also, does the firmware upgrade really do what it's supposed to (i.e. read playlists, show lyrics, etc.)?


Yes.


Is the voice recording function for this player good? I would like to record lectures with it.


It works fine for me.


*Does the player let you scroll through folders while a song is playing?


No.


*Can you program the order that you want the mp3s played in?


Yes.


*Is there an AC adapter socket?


No.


*Can you rewind/fast forward/scan through a track?


Yes.


*Does the player resume playing where you stopped it (instead of strating at the beginning of the last song)


Yes.


*Does the player convert voice recorded files into mp3s?


Yes.


*Does the LCD show names of folders?


Yes.


*Any other neat features?


Records from FM, the WOW thing is very neat.

Cheers,

-Benton

[plucker]

Awesome, thanks a lot Benton!!!

I went out to buy the player today...I love it! I also bought the Wave X and the YP-35 to compare (spent almost $600 on mp3 players!!!...but I'm gonna return the other two). The YP-55 blows them all away! I love the line-in recording, the FM recording, the voice recording sounds great too, and the SRS WOW is really good, like you said! It was the most expensive of all the players I purchased, but I think the extra $$$ is worth it. The player also feels and looks quality made, unlike the Wave X one, which feels and looks a bit on the cheap side.

I can't seem to get my player to record voice files in .mp3 format though. It will save the file as .wav, but for recording off the radio, it does save the files as .mp3. Can someone help me out with this?

Also, my friend recorded lectures on an mpio FL-100, but when I transfer the .wav files on to the YP-55, it won't play them! However, if I convert the wav files to mp3 files, it will play them, BUT to go from wav -> mp3, the file size increases by 4 times! Each lecture is a ~10 MB wav file, but when I convert to mp3, it becomes ~35-45 MB...it's eating a lot of my space up. Does anyone have a solution for this?

Thanks!!! :)

[bentonquest]

Originally posted by plucker
Also, my friend recorded lectures on an mpio FL-100, but when I transfer the .wav files on to the YP-55, it won't play them! However, if I convert the wav files to mp3 files, it will play them, BUT to go from wav -> mp3, the file size increases by 4 times! Each lecture is a ~10 MB wav file, but when I convert to mp3, it becomes ~35-45 MB...it's eating a lot of my space up. Does anyone have a solution for this?

Weird, it should be backwards. MP3 is a lossy compression format so WAV->MP3 = smaller file size. What program and settings are you using to encode the wav to mp3? I recommend dbPoweramp. Very easy to use, works with a right click over the source file. Try encoding to 64Kbps or even 32Kbps and see what happens.

Cheers,

-Benton

[plucker]

Originally posted by bentonquest
Weird, it should be backwards. MP3 is a lossy compression format so WAV->MP3 = smaller file size. What program and settings are you using to encode the wav to mp3? I recommend dbPoweramp. Very easy to use, works with a right click over the source file. Try encoding to 64Kbps or even 32Kbps and see what happens.

Cheers,

-Benton

Thank you so much for letting me know about dBpowerAMP!! I was looking everywhere for a free wav -> mp3 convertor and I couldn't find one that was this easy to use!

Before, I was encoding the mp3s at 128kbps using CDEx and the LAME mp3 encoder(?). It took 20 minutes to complete the conversion!

Using dBpowerAMP, I tried encoding them using 32kbps, and it took around 7 minutes and the file size remained the same this time! I can see what I was doing wrong now, I was encoding a 33kbps WAV file into a 128kbps mp3 file...that's probably why the size increased 4x when I went from wav ->mp3. :o

One question: is there a way to speed up the conversion process? Or is my computer just slow?