themoos

Hello all! First post, I know. I have to make a hard decision and I thought I'd get some other people's opinions before I go and buy. I want a portable audio player and I have narrowed down what I want to either an MZ-M200 (RH1) or an IPod Classic 160 (6th Gen). My problem's being I use linux, I don't care for the proprietary codecs that are tied to each, I'd like to be able to record (I'm going to a concert in september that I'd like to be able to make a recording of and I am going to uni so I'd like to record my lectures) and I'd like to have some semblance of quality in the audio. Maybe I need to get real? Here's how I see it. MZ-M200: Audio quality +1, Recording ability +1, Proprietary codec -1, Software -1 I've used openmg and then sonicstage (as well as the latest version) with my N505 and I hate it. It's beyond that even! It drives me into a rage just thinking about how terrible it really is. SimpleBurner was tolerable but still I'd rather just be able to drag and drop to the player. All the linux projects that were getting anywhere have seemingly, all but died. I could abide Atrac, despite it's being proprietary as I imagine it is an excellent codec (quality wise - lossy or lossless). I saw a glimmer of hope recently, suggesting that sony, having ditched the codec and opened up the DRM on new files would also be releasing a SDK for developers. But that only opens up atrac. Still I can't see the encryption being broken between the PC and MD so even an open codec means nothing as far as getting the files on and off the device goes and I don't want to have to run a virtual machine just to run sonicstage. Does anyone know of anything I could possibly have missed? I have been dreaming of a driver that lets me mount the player and copy files to it (for playback, not for storage) but this will probably never become a reality. Minidisc, it seems, just never had the backing it needed. How does the optical input go? I have seen apps that tag tracks and sync the upload's via a small circuit and the optical jack (realtime transfers could be painful transferring my entire library). I also read that the built in compression isn't as good as what sonicstage puts out? Anyone know about that? IPod Classic: Audio quality 0, Recording ability -1, Proprietary codec -1, Software 0 IPod's have never been my thing. But what else is there? I feel like I am selling my soul!! but there is software in linux that uploads to the 6th gen. Rockbox doesn't work on the classic but it works on the 5th gen. Rockbox working on a 6th gen would sell me. Drag and drop support in linux. FLAC and ogg support. Still the rockbox guys don't seem to have much hope for breaking the encryption that locks down the firmware it seems. I saw somewhere that you can get the DAC upgraded, aftermarket of course, and that would solve any quality issues. All that's left is recording ability and I'm sure IPods can probably do that too. But when it all comes down to it, I don't really want an IPod. I want a MZ-M200, but I want it to suit my needs. I'm dreaming I know. What do you guys think?