Top six Rhapsody-worthy MP3 players
Philips GoGear Aria is made for Rhapsody.
(Credit: CBS Interactive/Corinne Schulze)If subscription music was a drug, I'd be one of its biggest pushers. I'm a huge proponent of paying a flat monthly fee in order to enjoy all the music I want at any time (and in any order...without commercials). It's even better if you can take as much of it as possible with you anywhere on an MP3 player. A handful of services and devices offer this option.
You can pair Zune Marketplace with the Zune player, or choose from a seemingly endless array of other non-iPod MP3 players and sync up with Napster To Go or Rhapsody To Go. Of course, the best devices are going to be the ones gussied up with onboard software specifically made to work with a particular service.
If it's Rhapsody you're interested in, you're going to want a player with DNA, and you can choose from six of them by following the link below.
For more than five years, Jasmine France has covered a variety of tech products for CNET--from scanners to keyboards to GPS devices--but she's happiest where she is now: sitting atop a pile of MP3 players, "testing" every music service known to man, and jamming a variety of earbuds in every shape and color into her absurdly small ears. E-mail Jasmine.
Donald Bell is an electronic musician, a veteran record store employee, and a fearless hardware hacker. He's also CNET's Senior Editor for MP3 and digital audio.
Jasmine France is CNET's resident digital audio doyenne, writing and editing product reviews, crave blogs, and feature stories on all things MP3. And if you need advice on headphones, she's your girl.
1) You don't already have the music you want to hear.
2) There will be $15 worth of new music out every month that you *do* want to hear.
If you wouldn't buy $15 worth of new music every month that you have the service, then it's not worth the money.
Add to that the fact that with a *pure* subscription service, you don't keep any tracks, and it becomes a tough sell.
I'm not saying that the subscription services aren't good for anyone. Clearly, some people enjoy them and they fit their needs. I wouldn't begrudge them that. But your tastes have to be fairly eclectic for that to be true. It only makes economic sense if there are 15 new tracks you want to hear every month.
The point is this: You may buy $30,000 worth of songs in your lifetime (as the ZunePass ad indicates) but the reason people can afford to do this is because they pay for it a little at a time, and only once. With a subscription, whatever you listen to, you're buying it over and over again each month. Unless your music is *very* varied, I just don't think it makes sense past maybe a couple of months or so.
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by asemeco
May 18, 2009 11:40 AM PDT
- One more factor to consider when choosing a Rhapsody-friendly player: Ford Sync compatibility.
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(5 Comments)For those of you who drive a Ford/Lincoln/Mercury car with Sync, there are two ways you can connect your MP3 player to Sync: Through the USB port, and as an AUX device. In AUX mode, you use the player's buttons to play your music; not recommended while driving.
Through the USB port, Sync takes over, and you can issue commands via the voice interface. Plus, the player is being charged, and starting and stopping the music is automatic when you start and stop your car.
The only downside: Most players will not play protected contents (like Rhapsody-to-go tracks) in USB mode. Two in Jasmine's list will, though: The Sansa Clip, and the Fuze.
I have a Clip, and it gets along with Sync wonderfully.