Requesting Some General Help, Please. . .Thank You!!

SanDisk MP3 players All other MP3 players
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Hello All,

I am new to this forum and this community. I am also relatively new to SanDisk, as well. I have been an avid user of Apple products, but am considering a change here at the moment.

I do not own any Sansa products as of yet, but am very seriously considering getting an 8GB ClipZip (or, if not a “Zip”, then either a Clip+ or a Fuze+ — but most likely the “Zip”, though).

Having said that, I have a few questions, and wonder if someone can help clear up some confusion for me. Mostly having to do with music and audio formats, and things of this nature. 

I realize that getting a Sansa product will mean I will no longer be using iTunes for music management. Herein lies a few issues for me (and please forgive me for my ignorance in this regard). Over the past 3 to 4 years I have purchased several (hundreds) of song tracks from the iTunes Store. It has just recently come to my attention that using these with a non-Apple player is going to be a challenge, to say the least. I am not sure I completely understand all of the DRM-related restrictions regarding these music files, however if I’m not mistaken I do believe that much of these restrictions were done away with by Apple nearly 3 years ago (again, something I just recently found out about).

So, anyway, long story short. Not all of my music library was purchased from the iTunes Store, but quite a bit of it has been down through the years. When I recently attempted moving my library files over to WMP, only some of the files were successfully moved, and not my entire music library (which has well over 1000 song titles). This is very frustrating for me, as I’m sure you can imagine. And while I AM aware that I can change music formats using iTunes, however after having tried this, I am even more frustrated — for 2 reasons. One, the MP3 format does NOT sound as good to me as the standard iTunes format (when doing a side-by-side A/B comparison of songs, etc.), and secondly, iTunes still seems to have issues converting some sort of copyright-protected drm song titles (which I don’t understand, since I figured that Apple did away with these restrictions with the advent of “iTunes Plus”, some 2 or 3 years ago).

Basically, what I want to be able to do is manage my whole entire music library, AND have the option of playing any and all of these song tracks in my library — all without having to sacrifice audio quality. I don’t care if I do this using Windows Media Player, or with some other software. But I would also like to have the option available to me of being able to use a Sansa player to play song tracks in my music library (it is especially important to me to be able to build playlists and have them eventually show up on my music player).

I don’t really care about the radio, or being able to play videos (a picture viewer would be nice though). But I DO want the color screen that the Zip has (but preferably not the crappy controls on the Fuze+ — I would much rather have the better control options provided by thoseof the Clip (either the Plus or Zip — again, preferably the Zip).

So the questions I have (in a nutshell):

-Is there an easy way for me to get my entire music library onto a ClipZip player (using any of the known music management software options that are out there)? And, if so, can someone please give me step-by-step instructions how to do this, please?

-And, since I can obviously tell the difference in SQ between MP3 files and whatever the default 256kbps Apple (iTunes) format happens to be, then can someone please tell me what the best music file format system is that I personally should use with a device such as a ClipZip, and how do I convert my music into this format system?

On a final note, I will probably never use either the radio or the card slot, but it doesn’t hurt to have them available, in case I change my mind at some point in time.

Thanks for any help that anyone here can provide for me :smiley:

PS — Sorry for such a lengthy message.

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ok so the good news is that the Clip Zip supports non DRM protected iTunes music. Any of the files you purchased through iTunes that are not DRM protected will work with the Clip Zip all you need to do is open the file location.(right click the song and select open file location) then drag and drop the file to the Clip Zip.

If you downloaded some songs before iTunes went DRM free i think you can either pay to strip the DRM (not completly sure about that one though) or you will need to strip the DRM yourself. An easy way to do this is burn the DRM tracks to a CD and rerip them in either AAC or MP3 format. 

as to the quality question. you can change the import settings and set a higher quality for MP3. the best iTunes offers is 192kbps MP3. not as good as the default 256 AAC but that is as good as iTunes will give you. 

The Clip+ does not support AAC files so your entire library would need to be converted to MP3 so I would suggest going with the Clip Zip.

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Hey,

I appreciate that very much. You are very helpful, indeed.

Thanks!! :smiley:

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I Purchased the clip zip . . .then returned it to Radio Shack as the quality of play through my car radio FM using a Monster cable FM transmitter was very poor. (static & very low volume even with radio sound turned all the way up). 

I have enjoyed the quality of the Clip + playing through my car radio for the past year–which is the main use for the MP3 player.     I thought the newest version (clip zip) would be the same or even better. I was sooooo wrong!! WHY does it not work like the Clip +???

Does SanDisk plan some kind of update to solve this problem? 

If they do solve it, I would buy another Clip Zip!!

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"One, the MP3 format does NOT sound as good to me as the standard iTunes format (when doing a side-by-side A/B comparison of songs, etc.), and secondly, iTunes still seems to have issues converting some sort of copyright-protected drm song titles (which I don’t understand, since I figured that Apple did away with these restrictions with the advent of “iTunes Plus”, some 2 or 3 years ago). "

The problem isn’t mp3, it is taking a compressed file and recompressing it. That results in plenty of loss of sound quality. MP3 files ripped from CD at 256 kbps or 192 kbps ave. variable bitrate sound quite good. I guess you may have to make some compromise to get away from being stuck with buying Apple players. Since you have AAC files, the Clip Zip would be your best bet. What percentage of your music library is protected AAC? If it is high, then staying with Apple players might still make sense. Apple players aren’t that bad, except that imo they are very overpriced. They also lack a card slot which Sandisk players have. As card prices have gotten so cheap, the advantage of a card slot has grown greatly.

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> I thought the newest version (clip zip) would be the same or even better. I was sooooo wrong!! WHY does it not work like the Clip +??? The hardware is identical to the Clip+, so it does. My guess is that you didn’t set the volume to “max” or whatever it is in the settings. Without that you can’t drive line level accessories like FM transmitters.