By Jen Nelson

Long gone are the days of carrying around bulky boom boxes or listening to irritating power ballad songs at the gym. In today’s high tech community, even Walkmans and Discmans have become nearly obsolete as MP3 players take over the music scene. The MP3 format is “a compression system for music,” according to Howstuffworks (www.howstuffworks.com). This compression system can be downloaded in minutes rather than hours, allowing dozens of songs to be put onto an MP3 player using a small amount of memory. MP3 players can range in memory from 64 megabytes (MB), which holds approximately 15 downloaded songs, to 40 gigabytes (GB), which can hold up to 10,000 songs. While most MP3 players, especially the ones with lower memory capabilities, are considered flash players, the more advanced MP3 players, such as Apple’s iPod, have entire hard drives inside, allowing documents, voice recordings, pictures and video to be held on them, as well as songs. Apple’s iPod is one of the most popular digital music players available today — and one of the most expensive. iPods range from $299 to $499, according to Apple’s Online Store (www.store.apple.com). The price of the iPod depends on how much memory the player contains. According to Apple’s Web site (www.apple.com/ipod), “the super-slim iPod defines what a digital music player should be.” The iPod is a mere half inch thick and weighs only 5.6 ounces, less than two CDs and even most cell phones. The recent addition of iPod mini’s, which cost $249 at the Apple Online Store and hold 1,000 songs, provide the same features of the original iPod in an even smaller package. Both versions of the iPod feature games, calendars, an alarm clock and notepad, as well as other features not available on most other digital music players. While the many features of the iPod make it nearly as useful as a mini computer, students aren’t too crazy about the high price tag. “The price is a turn-off,” said Lucinda Spurr, a junior marketing major. “I’m in the car a lot, so I just listen to the radio.” One other aspect of the Apple iPod adds to the price tag of the player — users must pay to download music from Apple’s iTunes to their iPod at a price of 99 cents per song. Many other MP3 players on the market today allow users to download music free off the Internet to put onto the music players. iRiver, another popular brand of digital music players, produces both flash MP3 players and players with hard drives. The flash players are as inexpensive as $79.99, according to iRiver’s Web site (www.iriver.com), and have 64MB of memory, enough to hold about 15 songs. While the cheaper iRiver models lack most of the extra features the more expensive iPod does, the iRiver is packed into an even tinier package, with a width of only 25 millimeters and a length of only 80 millimeters. As the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) continues its crackdown on illegal music file-sharing over the Internet, students feel the sales of MP3 players may decline. “Ultimately, it already has [affected the market for MP3 players],” said Abel Livingstone, a senior electrical engineering major who owns two digital music players. “It’s tough to stop something as big [as file sharing] though,” he said. Despite the high price tag on most MP3 players with large amounts of memory, some students feel the investment is worth it. “[MP3 players] are definitely worth the money,” Livingstone said. “It’s better than silence.”