Hey everyone, I’m a newbie to the Sansa realm. I’ve been looking for a while to purchase one, but before I do I have a few questions that I hope can be answered.
Right now, I have an 80gb Ipod, but I am looking for something smaller for my everyday use. Working out with the 80gb is a pain! Anyway, I’ve played around with the Fuze at the stores and I really like it.
1st question: All of my music is on itunes and Winamp. They are all mp4 files. Will the Fuze play those or do I need to convert to mp3? I have over 5000 songs that I’ve ripped from cd’s and it would be nice not to have to convert all of them!
2nd question: Can I use Winamp to manage the Fuze? Winamp has the capability, but I was wondering if anyone around here has ever used the 2 together. Or is it easier to just drag and drop?
3rd question: I’m thinking about getting the 4gb and then purchasing 2, 8gb microSD cards. Can I use more than 1 memory card? (I would just buy the 8gb Fuze but I’m not crazy on the silver color.)
I think that is all for now, but I’m sure I’ll think of something else. Thanks in advance for the help.
Firstly, with your vast music collection you certainly don’t need to install Rhapsody! Besides being un-necessary in your case, it takes up quite a bit of space in your player’s memory that would be put to better use holding your music.
As to your questions:
Sorry, all your .mp4’s will have to be converted to .mp3’s. If all your music was ripped from your own CD’s, you may just want to rip them again, but in .mp3 format. The more you ‘convert’ or mess with a music file, the more the quality is going to degrade.
You can certainly use Winamp if you want to ‘sync’ the music to your player, but I find drag & drop in MSC mode not only easier, but I get to control what goes on and what doesn’t, not some piece of software. I do find Winamp invaluable for creating playlists that will work though. I have an e280v2 (same processor as the FUZE) and they prefer .m3u format playlists. Winamp has been the ONLY reliable method I’ve found to create these (_ and _ have them play). You just have to remember to put the playlist in the MUSIC folder though, and not the PLAYLIST folder.
The good news is the price has really come down on the 8GB cards lately. Here’s a link to another post giving you 3 low-cost options. The bad news is you have to change out the cards, based on your musical tastes “du jour”. Are you always going to have that other card with you? You have 2 other options you could consider; wait and get one of the 12 or 16GB cards that are due out sometime before Christmas or (and I think this is the better option) get the 8 gig FUZE, silver or not. Silver ain’t so bad; just tell people you had it custom-chromed! They’ll be impressed. :wink: If you absolutely can’t stand it though, get a protective case for it (you should anyway) and cover it up. I think you’ll be happier in the long run with the larger internal memory of the 8 gig unit, and you can always still supplement it with SDHC cards.
I am considering the 8gb Fuze, I just think black looks so much better than silver (any word of if they will release it in black? Or is black available outside the US?)
But as you said, I will probably be happier with the 8 instead of a 4gb. So I’ll probably end up getting the 8gb and look for one of those 12 or 16gb microsd cards. Thanks again for the help, I really appreciate it.
One other thing you might want to know: you can’t just swap out cards and start listening to music. When you swap out the card, the Fuze will have to re-build its database - it just goes dumb for a few minutes. The more songs you’ve changed, the longer this takes.
Also, if those iTunes songs were purchased from the iTunes store, you’ll have to burn them to an audio CD (72 minutes max) then rip them to MP3. It can be pretty time-consuming. There’s a program called Doubletwist that is supposed to help with that, but I’ve never tried it.
Database refresh on the Fuze is very quick, compared to the e280v2 (I have both). The refresh is done only once for the card swap. The device remembers what’s on the card.
@george_w wrote:
Could you please point me to the protective cases for the Fuze? I can’t seem to find them in stores around where I live… Thanks! George
Message Edited by George-W on 09-01-2008 04:44 PM
Well, I just purchased the 8gb Fuze. Here’s my plan (any feedback would be appreciative):
Like I said before, all of my cd’s are in m4a format b/c I used Itunes to rip them to my computer. I have dbpoweramp on my computer and am planning on converting everything to mp3. My plan is to use the drag-and-drop mode b/c to me that sounds easier. Sound good?
What I did to convert a lot of my mp3s was (Not convert from a different format, but from 192 to 128 kbps) I got MediaMonkey and set it to convert to 128 mp3, just left it overnight, and it did the job!
It’s funny you mention that b/c I JUST downloaded MM!
For some reason, Winamp kept skipping through all of my songs and wouldn’t play any of my songs. This was the 2nd time it did it (after re-installing it). So I decided to try MM after reading that it converts to mp3. I’ll give it a try. Thanks!
