Sandisk 16 GB Extreme III CF card for $250 at J&R

[LocutusBorgMan]

The SanDisk Extreme III 16GB CF card is now available directly from Amazon.com for $249.99 with free shipping! That's over $25 in savings in tax and shipping for those in NY.

[solorray]

But will the 16gb work on a Axim x50V?

[LocutusBorgMan]

But will the 16gb work on a Axim x50V?

I don't see why not, but jediassassin can confirm since he has this card and both the X50v and X51v.

[jediassassin]

It works beautifully. Most godly purchase for my x51v yet.

[0gopogo]

Less than one year ago I would have been all over this one! Since then I have lost interest in the Axim as a music source (well, in most other aspects, too), so I no longer need large cards. $250 is a great price, though, last year I had to pay $210 for each of my 4GB Extreme III cards!

What's the word on the Extreme IV cards?

[bill_n_opus]

Less than one year ago I would have been all over this one! Since then I have lost interest in the Axim as a music source (well, in most other aspects, too), so I no longer need large cards. $250 is a great price, though, last year I had to pay $210 for each of my 4GB Extreme III cards!

What's the word on the Extreme IV cards?

Can you briefly comment on your "evolution" from using the Axim before to less now? I'm interested in the transition that you went/are going through.

I'm thinking of picking up a 8gb card and i'm still getting the most of my Axim. I don't anticipate for awhile to lose interest in mine unless it poops out on me.

[LocutusBorgMan]

Less than one year ago I would have been all over this one! Since then I have lost interest in the Axim as a music source (well, in most other aspects, too), so I no longer need large cards. $250 is a great price, though, last year I had to pay $210 for each of my 4GB Extreme III cards!

Funny you say that. Found this quote on you MyPDA screen from Feb 2006:
"Unfortunately I still need more... 20+ GB on a SINGLE card would be great. I want a card that can store ALL of my music."

I just picked up a Sansa e280 a week ago and while I haven't played around with it too much, my first impressions are that I like the Axim more for music. Using the same headphones in each, Creative EP-630, I find the music on my X51v to be a bit more dynamic. Maybe I need to play around with the EQ feature on the Sansa, but those are my early impressions.

What's the word on the Extreme IV cards?

The highest capacity Extreme IV CF card is only 8GB at the moment and goes for about $190 after a $20 rebate from B&HPhotovideo.com. Don't know of anyone who has tried in in an Axim so far.

[0gopogo]

Can you briefly comment on your "evolution" from using the Axim before to less now? I'm interested in the transition that you went/are going through.

I'm thinking of picking up a 8gb card and i'm still getting the most of my Axim. I don't anticipate for awhile to lose interest in mine unless it poops out on me.

Bill,

The evolution, if you can call it that, occured completely outside of the PDA realm: within the last 10 months or so I have built a pretty decent high end stereo system. Now I am spoiled. MP3 music played by an Axim through headphones is no longer enjoyable. I still use the Axim and E3Cs to play music on air planes but I no longer travel as much on business as I used to.

And frankly, I also had become bored by the lack of technological progress in the PDA market. I had explored the possiblities and limitations of it. The Axim was stable and I could not think of any new productivity or entertainment software to put on it. Today I am doing the occasional update but the basic configuration has remained unchanged for ages.

[0gopogo]

Funny you say that. Found this quote on you MyPDA screen from Feb 2006:
"Unfortunately I still need more... 20+ GB on a SINGLE card would be great. I want a card that can store ALL of my music."

I just picked up a Sansa e280 a week ago and while I haven't played around with it too much, my first impressions are that I like the Axim more for music. Using the same headphones in each, Creative EP-630, I find the music on my X51v to be a bit more dynamic. Maybe I need to play around with the EQ feature on the Sansa, but those are my early impressions...

Locutus,

Well, it's perfectly logical. Since I hardly use the Axim for music anymore I no longer need all that storage. See my reply to Bill's question above. My tastes have changed. Even if I did still use the Axim for music, single card storage is no longer practical. My Redbook CDs are now ripped in lossless FLAC. With 192kb/s minimum VBR MP3 I could put most of my collection of a 32GB card, I think. With FLAC I'd need closer to 160GB...

For the record, I am not saying that the Axim or the Shures are bad. What it boils down to is that I prefer a well set up speaker driven system over one using headphones any day.

[LocutusBorgMan]

Locutus,

Well, it's perfectly logical. Since I hardly use the Axim for music anymore I no longer need all that storage. See my reply to Bill's question above. My tastes have changed. Even if I did still use the Axim for music, single card storage is no longer practical. My Redbook CDs are now ripped in lossless FLAC. With 192kb/s minimum VBR MP3 I could put most of my collection of a 32GB card, I think. With FLAC I'd need closer to 160GB...

For the record, I am not saying that the Axim or the Shures are bad. What it boils down to is that I prefer a well set up speaker driven system over one using headphones any day.

I ripped my CDs using 192kb/s also but not FLAC, just using WMP10 as I thought that I would one day stream my music files to an AVR and that it would give me better quality than the CD quality 128kb/s. I have already used up more than 5MB out of my 8GB Transcend Cf card with more than half my CD collection to go. In fact, I have not heard of FLAC until your post. Thanks for the info.

Just curious what are the components of your high end stereo system? Using Pio1014TX driving Paradigm Atoms myself..pretty entry level.

[0gopogo]

I'm playing FLAC through a Squeezebox into an external digital/analog converter, or SACD from an Arcam DV137 player, both into a passive line stage, into a pair of mono block amplifiers, into a pair of Martin Logan Vantage electrostatic loudspeakers.

Since you mentioned streaming, let me mention: Squeezebox. It's server software is installed on a PC or Mac. The Squeezebox player connects to the server software via TCP/IP over wire or WiFi. Music on the PC/MAC is then streamed to the player over wire or WiFi. The player converts the digital bitstream to analog signals. It is connected to your AVR like any other analog stereo component. The player has a remote to select which album/artist/genre/mix to play. It streams most music formats and sounds much better than its $300 price suggests, especially with WAV, FLAC or other lossless formats! Think: as good as CD players 2x, or uni-players 3x - 4x its price.

Now I'm totally OT. Sorry about that. I'm sure the Squeezebox has been discussed on Aximsite before.

[bill_n_opus]

Bill,

The evolution, if you can call it that, occured completely outside of the PDA realm: within the last 10 months or so I have built a pretty decent high end stereo system. Now I am spoiled. MP3 music played by an Axim through headphones is no longer enjoyable. I still use the Axim and E3Cs to play music on air planes but I no longer travel as much on business as I used to.

And frankly, I also had become bored by the lack of technological progress in the PDA market. I had explored the possiblities and limitations of it. The Axim was stable and I could not think of any new productivity or entertainment software to put on it. Today I am doing the occasional update but the basic configuration has remained unchanged for ages.

Cool, i'd love to hear more about your audio system.

I have Bryston pre and power, Sonic Frontiers frontend and processor, Tara Labs cabling and interconnects and the Dunlavy SC-3's ... then I got married and now it's all stored away.

I listen to the radio now through an el cheapo Sony shower-proof unit and my car deck and that's about it. Some various music through my Ax here and there using some Senns. Ah, to be single and have money again. Those were the days.

[Lofty]

Its going for $229 last I checked.