any Expanium owners in here ?

DSPguru · 16th June 2002, 02:08

hi guys

,
i were thinking of buying Phillips' protable mp3-cd player.
anyone experienced with it ?

here are the two interesting models, both supports AAC :
http://www.audio.philips.com/found.a...AbsPosition=10
http://www.audio.philips.com/found.a...AbsPosition=12

MxxCon · 16th June 2002, 05:14

i never used these newer expanium models. i "beta tested" their original model. it was pretty decent for that time.
of all players that i've seen i think Iriver SlimX is one of the best players. currectly it doesn't support AAC. i don't know how important this is for you, but it has flashbios and it's possible that in the future it'll be able to play AAC and OGG.

Apfelstruhdl · 16th June 2002, 18:57

i had the expanium 501 and it was pretty good. then a friend kicked it from a table and i bought after that a cheaper one (jamba) for only 100€. if u want aac i think philips is the best to go. for just mp3 playback you could think about buying a cheaper model.

I don't know if it was normal or only an error on my pplayer but the 501 had problems with mp3 containing a tag of version 2.
the displaying of these mp3s was a bit strange. i would try to get some info on that... but maybe it was just my player....

DSPguru · 17th June 2002, 05:46

yea, i know about the SlimX model, but was looking for AAC support.

@Apfelstruhdl
- did you test its quality with AAC tracks ?
- did the id2 problem only regarded displyaing ? or also playbacking ?

Apfelstruhdl · 17th June 2002, 21:40

i used it just with mp3

just displaying. it didn't delete the memory, just overwrote it.
when 1st song was :"xxxxxxxxxxx - xxxxxxxx"
and second title was :"yy - yy"

then it was displayed like this "yyxxxxxxx - yyxxxxxxx"
so the old title remained and was just overwritten and if new title was shorter there are still some charachters left from the old title.

DSPguru · 17th June 2002, 21:46

hehe, i can live with it.

question :
a. what about vbr mp3s, all cool ?
b. why did you buy the 501 rather than 301 ?

10x

,
Dg.

Apfelstruhdl · 17th June 2002, 22:04

no probs exept the displaying prob.
501 is the only one with title displaying ( i'm pretty sure about that)

i actually got a 301 for xmas but i gave 50€ to get the 501 as the 301 had just numbers for titles and if u have a cd with 300 titles and they just have numbers..... yeah pretty hard to find anything

.

DSPguru · 17th June 2002, 22:10

you're right !!! no id3, no go

.

mrbass · 18th June 2002, 11:06

I bought the exp301 the day it (seems like 2 or 3 years ago I think)came out for $199 at circuit city. About 8 or 10 months later about I bought a rio volt for $140 (friend worked at compusa) and liked it better cuz of filename and dir navigation. With the exp I was carrying around playlists for my cds. Sound output was a tad better on the expanium though. Not sure what it is nowadays though just know they're cheaper than dirt.

DSPguru · 18th June 2002, 18:10

and you haven't tried to playback aacs ?

DSPguru · 25th June 2002, 20:56

update :
i bought EXP501 for 169.5 euros.
did a quick test with AAC LC @ 160kbps (vbr!).
it worked fine

.

Cheers

,
Dg.

Apfelstruhdl · 26th June 2002, 16:40

where did u buy it????

payd 224 € and got it directly at the workers store(???) but that was shortly after xmas.
did they lower the prices that much??

DSPguru · 26th June 2002, 17:37

duty free in Netherlands.
but hey, prices are always falling down in this kind of consumer gadgets..

The Belgain · 16th October 2002, 20:50

A couple of questions: if I want to be able to play an AAC file, does it have to be encoded with Low Complexity? Does this make the quality any worse than Main?

Will it play aps mp3s properly?

If the files have no ID3 tags (none of my mp3s do...i don't like them) will the EXP303 model just display the filename or will it simply display a number?

Also, can the player (and most mp3 CD players in general) read CDs with the Romeo naming convention (which allows filenames longer than 64 characters)?

DSPguru · 16th October 2002, 21:05

i own exp501.
i mostly use aacenc with "-normal" and acheive reasonable quality that can be playbacked with exp.

it plays aps without a problem. it shows filename for non-id3-tagged files. it will even play badly burned cds (sometime i have buffer underrun problem and end up with cds that can't be read in windows due to crc error - exp doesn't check for crc integrity and keeps playing the mp3).

didn't check romeo naming.

The Belgain · 17th October 2002, 00:39

Do you mean "-normal" for the quality? Standard doesn't seem to be a profile with the version of aacenc I have.

DSPguru · 17th October 2002, 20:10

yeap.

Phobos · 8th December 2002, 20:14

i remember that it can also handle extreme encodes for us uber quality freaks

since i live in america, im getting the exp503 for christmas

. It would be swell that iRiver implements AAC on slimX, but they are being so slow on ogg which is free that it makes me think AAC will have a hard time on it, if not all kinds of hardware players

well, at least without DRM crap

16th June 2002, 02:08	#1 \| Link
DSPguru BeSweet Author Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: On top of a supercompact cardinal Posts: 3,506	any Expanium owners in here ? hi guys , i were thinking of buying Phillips' protable mp3-cd player. anyone experienced with it ? here are the two interesting models, both supports AAC : http://www.audio.philips.com/found.a...AbsPosition=10 http://www.audio.philips.com/found.a...AbsPosition=12 __________________ FAQs : BeSweet, Audio :readfaq: Homepage : DSPguru's Webpage http://dspguru.notrace.dk/cs.gif Guides : Multilingual Guides of my tools http://dspguru.notrace.dk/1zhelp.gif

16th June 2002, 05:14	#2 \| Link
MxxCon Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 161	i never used these newer expanium models. i "beta tested" their original model. it was pretty decent for that time. of all players that i've seen i think Iriver SlimX is one of the best players. currectly it doesn't support AAC. i don't know how important this is for you, but it has flashbios and it's possible that in the future it'll be able to play AAC and OGG. __________________ [Sig removed by administrator: Signature can not exceed 20GB]

16th June 2002, 18:57	#3 \| Link
Apfelstruhdl Dead Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 115	i had the expanium 501 and it was pretty good. then a friend kicked it from a table and i bought after that a cheaper one (jamba) for only 100€. if u want aac i think philips is the best to go. for just mp3 playback you could think about buying a cheaper model. I don't know if it was normal or only an error on my pplayer but the 501 had problems with mp3 containing a tag of version 2. the displaying of these mp3s was a bit strange. i would try to get some info on that... but maybe it was just my player.... __________________ höhöhö hehehe muh muh möhh

17th June 2002, 05:46	#4 \| Link
DSPguru BeSweet Author Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: On top of a supercompact cardinal Posts: 3,506	yea, i know about the SlimX model, but was looking for AAC support. @Apfelstruhdl - did you test its quality with AAC tracks ? - did the id2 problem only regarded displyaing ? or also playbacking ? __________________ FAQs : BeSweet, Audio :readfaq: Homepage : DSPguru's Webpage http://dspguru.notrace.dk/cs.gif Guides : Multilingual Guides of my tools http://dspguru.notrace.dk/1zhelp.gif

17th June 2002, 21:40	#5 \| Link
Apfelstruhdl Dead Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 115	i used it just with mp3 just displaying. it didn't delete the memory, just overwrote it. when 1st song was :"xxxxxxxxxxx - xxxxxxxx" and second title was :"yy - yy" then it was displayed like this "yyxxxxxxx - yyxxxxxxx" so the old title remained and was just overwritten and if new title was shorter there are still some charachters left from the old title. __________________ höhöhö hehehe muh muh möhh

17th June 2002, 21:46	#6 \| Link
DSPguru BeSweet Author Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: On top of a supercompact cardinal Posts: 3,506	hehe, i can live with it. question : a. what about vbr mp3s, all cool ? b. why did you buy the 501 rather than 301 ? 10x , Dg. __________________ FAQs : BeSweet, Audio :readfaq: Homepage : DSPguru's Webpage http://dspguru.notrace.dk/cs.gif Guides : Multilingual Guides of my tools http://dspguru.notrace.dk/1zhelp.gif

17th June 2002, 22:04	#7 \| Link
Apfelstruhdl Dead Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 115	no probs exept the displaying prob. 501 is the only one with title displaying ( i'm pretty sure about that) i actually got a 301 for xmas but i gave 50€ to get the 501 as the 301 had just numbers for titles and if u have a cd with 300 titles and they just have numbers..... yeah pretty hard to find anything . __________________ höhöhö hehehe muh muh möhh

17th June 2002, 22:10	#8 \| Link
DSPguru BeSweet Author Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: On top of a supercompact cardinal Posts: 3,506	you're right !!! no id3, no go . __________________ FAQs : BeSweet, Audio :readfaq: Homepage : DSPguru's Webpage http://dspguru.notrace.dk/cs.gif Guides : Multilingual Guides of my tools http://dspguru.notrace.dk/1zhelp.gif

18th June 2002, 11:06	#9 \| Link
mrbass Moderator Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Las Vegas Posts: 2,029	I bought the exp301 the day it (seems like 2 or 3 years ago I think)came out for $199 at circuit city. About 8 or 10 months later about I bought a rio volt for $140 (friend worked at compusa) and liked it better cuz of filename and dir navigation. With the exp I was carrying around playlists for my cds. Sound output was a tad better on the expanium though. Not sure what it is nowadays though just know they're cheaper than dirt.

18th June 2002, 18:10	#10 \| Link
DSPguru BeSweet Author Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: On top of a supercompact cardinal Posts: 3,506	and you haven't tried to playback aacs ? __________________ FAQs : BeSweet, Audio :readfaq: Homepage : DSPguru's Webpage http://dspguru.notrace.dk/cs.gif Guides : Multilingual Guides of my tools http://dspguru.notrace.dk/1zhelp.gif

25th June 2002, 20:56	#11 \| Link
DSPguru BeSweet Author Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: On top of a supercompact cardinal Posts: 3,506	update : i bought EXP501 for 169.5 euros. did a quick test with AAC LC @ 160kbps (vbr!). it worked fine . Cheers , Dg. __________________ FAQs : BeSweet, Audio :readfaq: Homepage : DSPguru's Webpage http://dspguru.notrace.dk/cs.gif Guides : Multilingual Guides of my tools http://dspguru.notrace.dk/1zhelp.gif

26th June 2002, 16:40	#12 \| Link
Apfelstruhdl Dead Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 115	where did u buy it???? payd 224 € and got it directly at the workers store(???) but that was shortly after xmas. did they lower the prices that much?? __________________ höhöhö hehehe muh muh möhh

26th June 2002, 17:37	#13 \| Link
DSPguru BeSweet Author Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: On top of a supercompact cardinal Posts: 3,506	duty free in Netherlands. but hey, prices are always falling down in this kind of consumer gadgets.. __________________ FAQs : BeSweet, Audio :readfaq: Homepage : DSPguru's Webpage http://dspguru.notrace.dk/cs.gif Guides : Multilingual Guides of my tools http://dspguru.notrace.dk/1zhelp.gif

16th October 2002, 20:50	#14 \| Link
The Belgain Registered User Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: UK Posts: 335	A couple of questions: if I want to be able to play an AAC file, does it have to be encoded with Low Complexity? Does this make the quality any worse than Main? Will it play aps mp3s properly? If the files have no ID3 tags (none of my mp3s do...i don't like them) will the EXP303 model just display the filename or will it simply display a number? Also, can the player (and most mp3 CD players in general) read CDs with the Romeo naming convention (which allows filenames longer than 64 characters)?

16th October 2002, 21:05	#15 \| Link
DSPguru BeSweet Author Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: On top of a supercompact cardinal Posts: 3,506	i own exp501. i mostly use aacenc with "-normal" and acheive reasonable quality that can be playbacked with exp. it plays aps without a problem. it shows filename for non-id3-tagged files. it will even play badly burned cds (sometime i have buffer underrun problem and end up with cds that can't be read in windows due to crc error - exp doesn't check for crc integrity and keeps playing the mp3). didn't check romeo naming. __________________ FAQs : BeSweet, Audio :readfaq: Homepage : DSPguru's Webpage http://dspguru.notrace.dk/cs.gif Guides : Multilingual Guides of my tools http://dspguru.notrace.dk/1zhelp.gif Last edited by DSPguru; 17th October 2002 at 20:11.

17th October 2002, 00:39	#16 \| Link
The Belgain Registered User Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: UK Posts: 335	Do you mean "-normal" for the quality? Standard doesn't seem to be a profile with the version of aacenc I have.

17th October 2002, 20:10	#17 \| Link
DSPguru BeSweet Author Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: On top of a supercompact cardinal Posts: 3,506	yeap. __________________ FAQs : BeSweet, Audio :readfaq: Homepage : DSPguru's Webpage http://dspguru.notrace.dk/cs.gif Guides : Multilingual Guides of my tools http://dspguru.notrace.dk/1zhelp.gif

8th December 2002, 20:14	#18 \| Link
Phobos Registered User Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Guadalajara, Jalisco, México Posts: 122	i remember that it can also handle extreme encodes for us uber quality freaks since i live in america, im getting the exp503 for christmas . It would be swell that iRiver implements AAC on slimX, but they are being so slow on ogg which is free that it makes me think AAC will have a hard time on it, if not all kinds of hardware players well, at least without DRM crap Last edited by Phobos; 8th December 2002 at 20:16.

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