Digital Audio Players - Types

Types

Digital audio players are generally categorized by storage media:

• Flash-based players: These are non-mechanical solid state devices that hold digital audio files on internal flash memory or removable flash media called memory cards. Due to technological advances in flash memory, these originally low-storage devices are now available commercially ranging up to 64 GB. Because they are solid state and do not have moving parts they require less battery power, are less likely to skip during playback, and may be more resilient to hazards such as dropping or fragmentation than hard disk-based players. There are USB flash drives available that include basic MP3 playback capabilities.
• Hard drive-based players or digital jukeboxes: Devices that read digital audio files from a hard disk drive (HDD). These players have higher capacities as of 2010 ranging up to 500 GB. At typical encoding rates, this means that tens of thousands of songs can be stored on one player. The disadvantages with these units is that a hard drive consumes more power, is larger and heavier and is inherently more fragile than solid-state storage, thus more care is required to not drop or otherwise mishandle these units.
• MP3 CD/DVD players: Portable CD players that can decode and play MP3 audio files stored on CDs. Such players are typically much less expensive than either the hard drive or flash-based players. The blank CD-R media they use is very inexpensive, typically costing less than US$0.15 per disk. These devices have the feature of being able to play standard "Red book" CD-DA audio CDs. A disadvantage is that due to the low rotational disk speed of these devices, they are even more susceptible to skipping or other misreads of the file if they are subjected to uneven acceleration (shaking) during playback. The mechanics of the player itself however can be quite sturdy, and are generally not as prone to permanent damage due to being dropped than Hard drive-based players. Since a CD can typically hold only around 700 megabytes of data a large library will require multiple disks to contain. However, some higher-end units are also capable of reading and playing back files stored on larger capacity DVD; some also have the ability to play back and display video content, such as movies. An additional consideration can be the relatively large width of these devices, since they have to be able to fit a CD.
• Networked audio players: Players that connect via (WiFi) network to receive and play audio. These types of units typically do not have any local storage of their own and must rely on a server, typically a personal computer also on the same network, to provide the audio files for playback.
• USB host/memory card audio players: Players that rely on USB flash drives or other memory cards to read data.