Ultimate MP3: Personal Jukebox PJB-100
Jan 13 '00
MP3 audio, like so many technologies that emerge these days, has been generating a tremendous amount of hype during the last year without really touching the vast majority of consumers that would benefit from the format. There just aren't many good options for actually listening to these music files. The PJB-100 Personal Jukebox is likely to be the first piece of hardware that actually delivers on the promise of MP3.
There are players of all shapes and sizes for conventional, CD-based music. You have portables, boomboxes, car stereos, home stereos - devices that actually fit a lifestyle and most budgets. MP3 playback, however, is limited to either using your computer, tiny devices that don't hold enough, and really expensive stuff that just crawled out of the lab. And none of it is terribly easy to use.
The PJB-100 changes the MP3 landscape. It has (enough) features to make MP3 music easy to use and desirable to the masses. Some of the features of this excellent unit include:
* Ability to hold about 100 CD's worth of material, or over 80 hours of music.
* Fairly small size - about two-third's the size of a portable CD player.
* Long rechargeable battery life - over 10 hours.
* Easy to use software and digital readout.
* Excellent audio quality.
When most MP3 player storage specs are measured in megabytes, the PJB-100 offers nearly 5 gigabytes space. This comes courtesy of a tiny notebook hard drive built into the unit. Due to an innovative caching mechanism, and the use of an extremely tough hard drive unit, the PJB-100 is nearly skip-proof and highly shock-resistant. It has handled violent airline turbulence and a taxi accident without missing a beat, and has easily digested 40 CDs worth of material while leaving room to spare.
The PJB-100 is huge in comparison to other MP3 players, but is fairly small compared to other audio systems. About the same size of two walkman or minidisc players put together, but smaller than any portable CD player, it fits easily into a coat pocket. Weight is a bit heavy for joggers, but won't bother most other portable audio users.
Battery life is extremely impressive. It easily matches its 10-13 hour rating. The included AC adapter, although bulky, will sync up with any local voltage and will recharge exhausted units in about four hours. The included Lithium Ion battery should prove durable and memory-free.
The Compaq-designed unit comes with extremely easy to use software that should work with most PC hardware on the market, provided that it has a fairly recent CD-ROM drive, USB ports, and Windows 98. While USB compatibility is always a crapshoot, the PJB-100 worked great with my finicky desktop that has a chipset that gives almost every USB device headaches. The software works just like the Windows Explorer file manager, and it'll go out to the Internet and find the titles of songs and albums automatically. Best of all, since the software uses digital extraction of audio files from CDs, it typically does the transfer very quickly - I can "record" even the longest CDs in about 15-20 minutes. A faster processor and newer CD-ROM drive than what I have would make even shorter work of the transfer process.
The digital readout and controls allow extremely flexible audio playback. Songs are classified by Set, Disc and Track. You can design your own Sets and call them anything you want, while Disc and Track are typically fetched from the Internet. You can make your own playlists, and can assign songs to as many different "virtual" discs and sets as you want without using up additional storage. Controls include volume, track/disc/set selection, music quality (normal, extra bass, super bass), and a button lock to prevent accidents. Playback options include Sequential, Repeat and Shuffle (random), and the options can be applied to Tracks, Discs, Sets, or Everything. While the LCD display works well, it isn't backlit (a problem in a dark car), and there is no graphical equalizer function.
The audio quality is, at least to untrained ears, great. I recorded at the default 128 kbps setting, but there are options to either save space or increase quality nearly three-fold. The included Koss headphones are a better grade than what usually ships with most portable audio. An adapter cable is included to allow home audio use, but a car adapter is not. Use of a Radio Shack cassette type adapter provided mediocre results, while the included adapter works well on my home stereo.
As good as the PJB-100 is, it has some problems. The non-backlit readout is possibly the biggest problem - you just can't see it in the dark, and it can be hard to see through the clear window of the included case. There is no remote control offered, which makes the PJB-100 cumbersome to use as a home audio add-on (I just set it to play back every song in shuffle mode, and let the unit pick the songs). The unit's storage is non-upgradeable, although the firmware is. While this won't bother most users, it is not an attractive piece of equipment to look at. One reseller, HyTek Manufacturing, has especially nasty looking writing on the front cover, making it even harder to look at. The unit's headphone jack does double duty as the output for home stereo and car audio adapters, and seems to compromise the quality when used this way. It also has a hard to afford price: $799, from most of the vendors carrying it.
Still, this is a great first example of what the future of audio looks like, and it is likely to be the only player of its kind until the middle of next year when Creative Labs ships its hard drive based unit. And while it won't replace any stereo components in the home or car, it makes a nice add-on. MP3 lovers won't be disappointed.
More information can be found at www.pjbox.com, or at www.hytekmfg.com, the two current vendors for the PJB-100.
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hirschma
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