Millions have enjoyed recorded music since 1877 when Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. Then came radio, records, tapes and CD’s. But today’s digital audio players really are a quantum leap forward in music technology. To comprehend what makes these music players so revolutionary, let’s explore the question, “How do mp3 players work?”

Until recently listening to music recordings involved mechanically moving the media past an interface to pick up an analog signal known as a wave-form. This signal of vibrations was amplified and delivered to the speakers where we heard it as sounds. When digitized, the wave-form becomes a WAV file. It’s a major improvement, but the file is extremely large along with a CD disc is restricted to about 80 minutes of music.

So What is definitely an iPod, and How does a music player work?

Apple’s iPod is the greatest known music player. In answer to the question, How can iPods work, the next two paragraphs really describe how all portable digital music players function.

Software converts the music to a small digital file, usually WAV to mp3, utilizing a codec like MP3 or WMA. The codec compresses the file by discarding sounds inaudible towards the human ear. Digital file is kept in the mp3 player’s flash or micro-drive memory. Because the file is so small, a person no larger than a deck of cards holds as much as a large number of songs.

For play-back the mp3 player executes several functions. Embedded software reads the file, decompresses the encoding, converts it to analog, amplifies the signal and sends it to the headphones. And voil?, we have superior sound with no annoying cracks, pops and hisses particularly common to records and tapes.

How We Do MP3 (Player Types, Functions & Features)

Even with an apparently never-ending stream of recent products, you will find basically three types of audio devices that work well for audio CD duplication in a portable personal player.

1. Flash Players – the smallest, least expensive, and most reliable. Using solid state memory with embedded software, they’ve no moving parts, so batteries keep going longer and skips are eliminated. They’ve limited memory, but will still hold a large number of songs. Most players have search, shuffle, repeat along with other popular features.
2. Micro-Drive Players – the little hard disk drives in these mp3 players have up to 60GB of memory and will hold thousands of tunes. Some also store and display photos. Anti-skip technology helps, but shock or vibration can still cause skips. They typically have more features and functions than flash players.
3. CD MP3 Players – the new generation of portable CD players. Using formats like mp3, WMA and ATRAC, they play (some also burn) CD’s that hold 10 to 45 hours of music per disc. They play standard and/or 3″ MiniDisc CD’s. Standard CD sized units cost less than most audio players. MiniDisc player price is higher but they contain the most music, and they are about the same size as a micro-drive music player. Most play both pre-recorded and CD-R/RW discs. Features are the same other players.