Love music? Now take your favorite songs anywhere with one of the hot new mp3 portable players on the market. Some are as tiny as a pendant. And from the deepest lows to sharpest highs, the digital sound is fantastic!

Made by Apple, iPod is synonymous with portable mp3 players. The popular iPod Shuffle is about the size of a pack of gum. The Dell Jukebox and portable players from Creative Labs, Archos, iRiver, Rio, Sony, Samsung, iRock, and many more have an incredible array of features.

Easy-to-use software lets you rip tunes from your CD collection in mp3 format and load hundreds or even thousands of songs in your player. Some players can even burn tunes directly from a built-in FM tuner, a CD player, or other source.

MP3 Revolutionizes Music Enjoyment

Until 1989 the traditional digital music format was the WAV file. Basically a digital conversion of the analog wave-form signal, it provided high quality sound recordings. But a 4 to 5 minute song consumed up to 50MB of memory. By selectively discarding sounds inaudible to the human ear, the mp3 format was able to store the same song in less than 5MB. Some formats like WMA and OGG can cut that to around 2MB with even higher quality sound.

With the advent of flash memory and tiny hard drives known as micro-drives, by the late 1990's manufacturers began introducing small digital music players. And today some portable music players can store thousands of songs, photos and other data in a portable player about the size of a deck of cards!

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MP3 players information from A to Z: player types & features, how they work, accessories, comparisons and more - plus free music download tips and info at A-Z MP3 Players.com, Your Complete A-Z Resource for MP3 Players, Accessories and Information. This article may be re-printed in its entirety, with this resource box included. © 2005 www.a-z-mp3-players.com All rights reserved