MP3 players with variable playback speeds
The Sansa Fuze offers three playback speeds--fast, normal, and slow--for podcasts and audiobooks.
(Credit: SanDisk)As its title may suggest, an MP3 player's primary duty is to play MP3s, which are more often than not music files. But audiobooks, podcasts, and other spoken-word content enjoy plenty of face time on portable audio devices, and why not? They offer an informative and entertaining way to pass the time. But for those of us who prefer our information and entertainment in condensed form, time is of the essence. Spoken-word content is one type of audio that (generally) doesn't sound completely absurd when sped up, and doing so gives the listener a way to get through said files with due haste.
Luckily, there are a handful of MP3 players on the market that offer a feature known as variable playback speed, which allows you to speed up (or slow down) audio on-the-fly--no clunky software conversions required.
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.
I'll stop. And admit that the thing is the size of a portable CD player before the first "slim" CD player was ever marketed. And weighs more. But miniaturization should have allowed some of those features to soldier on 7 years later.
I've read some news that Samsung is incorporating its DNSe 3.0 into their high-end smartphones. I hope to see some models soon.
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by 4dthinker
July 14, 2009 1:16 PM PDT
- Don't leave out the Cowon S9. It'll let you change the speed of audio from 50% to 150% in 10% steps, and you can do the same with video playback. Both let you choose to keep the pitch the same or let it change with the speed.
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