MP3 players with folder support?

KMGor

I've been looking at various MP3 players. I'm not using this for music, but instead for listening to Cantonese audio, a language I'm trying to learn. Because of that, I want to be able to sort different files in very specific ways (artist and genre is not enough, and entering in that many ID3 tags would be a pain anyway). The easiest way I've found is with folders and sub-folders.

So basically, I want an MP3 players of 8 gigs or higher (flash-based please) that supports folders and sub-folders, and lets you play them in order or shuffle within any level(s) of a folder tree. For some reason, VERY few newer MP3 players seem to support folders of any kind (I was interested in a Creative Zen, but apparently it only notices folders on the SD card). I haven't a clue why, but it's quite annoying.

Oh yeah, and something in the $100-$130 range would be good. On a side note, why this is this such a rare feature now? My old Hi-MD player that I bought on clearance has very good support for folders, as did the two MP3 CD players I had a while back.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Daedalus

Do you have a Nintendo DS? You could get a flash card and an 8 GB MicroSDHC card and play your MP3s off of that. My DS was my primary MP3 player for a long time.

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Why not Genre -> Artist -> Album? Album is almost the same as folder for most things, anyways, and it's really easy to mass edit a folder's worth of ID3 tags. You can also make playlists, which offers as much customization as you need.

You could also try a good MP3 CD player. They're cheaper all the time, and the good ones support folders. The only problem would be that they're no way to search through MP3s, so if you're in the middle of a 30 minute lesson and you stop, you'll have to go back to the beginning. As I'm sure you know.

Aside from those, I don't think I've heard of an MP3 player that does exactly what you want. Maybe a PSP with a memory card, though that'd be way more than $100.

DeathPrawn

Daedalus wrote: »

Do you have a Nintendo DS? You could get a flash card and an 8 GB MicroSDHC card and play your MP3s off of that. My DS was my primary MP3 player for a long time.

A DSTT homebrew cart is $11 on DealExtreme, and an 8gb Micro SDHC card is about $20 on NewEgg. If you don't have a DS, you can get a used phatty on eBay for around $70.

KMGor

http://www.amazon.com/Cowon-iAUDIO-Portable-MP3-Player/dp/B000TB0RY4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1226259812&sr=8-1

Yeah, 8 gig flash based player with a 50-60 hour battery life. Oh yeah, and it supports folders and subfolders, at least according to some Amazon reviews. Hurray. Just in case anyone had similar problems to my own. The only thing which is sad is it has a much smaller screen than the Zen I was looking at and costs more, but really, audio is my major concern.

Just in case anyone else has a similar situation to me, thought I'd post that.