The MP3 Player I Want

I’ve got about 20GB of MP3s at this point.

I keep them all on my Mac under my desk at work, set on random play. Dead Kennedys, then Mozart, then the Pogues, then Charles Bukowski, then Gershwin. Short Attention Span Radio.

I’ve been looking longingly at the iPod — 10GB and FireWire is really great. 20 or 30GB would be better. A replaceable hard drive would be better. OSX Lite and a little keyboard would be even better. It could even be bigger; that’s fine.

But I’d also like something to take my music with me to Burning Man. Some sort of waterproof boombox that plays MP3s. The Sony S2 looks pretty cool and it’s only about $150 — I have the previous non-MP3 version and it’s taken a lot of Fredabuse™. But the S2 only takes MP3 CDs. Why can’t they drop in a standard replaceable IDE hard drive and throw a network port on the back? Or at the very least, give it a line-in jack so I can plug in an iPod?

I actually disassembled my yellow Sony and tried to figure out where I’d jack in external audio, but haven’t had the nerve to start cutting wires to test it.

There’s a market — of at least one — for portable (not pocket-sized) MP3 players with off-the-shelf hard drives, a network interface, and some design sense. Playa-dust-proof, if you please.