[gui-talk] [Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Review of NLS player and digital downloads, etc.

Mon Jun 8 01:44:41 UTC 2009

It was the ability to vary the playback speed that I was looking for.
Thanks for the clarification.

-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Joel Deutsch
Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 4:55 PM
To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
Subject: [Bulk] Re: [gui-talk] [Bulk] Review of NLS player and digital
downloads,etc.

this device is a playback device, not a recording device. As I believe I 
said below, you can vary playback speed. You have no control over how the 
file you download to play on it is recorded, though. Hope that helps.
plaback udevice ----- Original Message ----- 
From: "tunecollector" <tunecollector at sbcglobal.net>
To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 3:50 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] [Bulk] Review of NLS player and digital 
downloads,etc.

Can you vary the speed of the recording?

-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Joel Deutsch
Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 3:43 PM
To: GUI-Talk
Cc: Will Smith
Subject: [Bulk] [gui-talk] Review of NLS player and digital downloads, etc.

Hi Will,

I've already read enough on this device, both as a pre-recorded cartridge
(really a sort of flash drive housed in a shell that looks something like an

audio cassette, except flatter, and also as downloaded files straight from
the NLS Bard site via a thumb drive inserted into the USB port in the unit's

side, to be able to have an impression of the basic model digital reader.

The sound, as you might easily guess, is impeccably clear. The reading
quality of the two readers I've heard is fine, no better or worse than many
NlS readers, so that's neither here nor there. No complaints.

And the usability is pretty darn nice. Even though this is the basic model,
and thus lacks what are probably more complex navigational controls, it's
quite a lot better than a tape player, and better than playing an
audible.com file on my own .mp3 player, too. Fast forward and rewind offer
increments of speed and travel distance that are easily mastered. There are
controls to raise or lower the pitch in terms of relative treble and bass,
one step at a time, which allows me to tailor the sound to my greatest area
of auditory comfort. I can also increase or decrease the playing speed by
similar stepped increments without altering the voice pitch, which of course

is great. Naturally there's a volume stepper, up and down, and there's also
a sleep function to allow for auto turn-off without losing the place where
it stops after a certain amount of time. And of course it always starts
playing again wherever you've stopped it last time.

All in all, a thumbs up from me. I'll be happier when I can begin to buy
blank, recordable cartridges from one or two blind products companies, soon
they say, as that will relieve me of having to stick a thumb drive into the
side like a dart fired into a large animal. It's a vulnerable thing, having
the thumb drive protruding, and requires more careful handling than would be

necessary with just the cartridge inserted in its slot.

the unit's smaller than a table top four track player, but dense and heavy
so that it feels able to take a beating from careless users, if necessary,
and feels solid to handle.

I'm going to send this reply primarily to GUI-Talk, because there's
something in your message that sounds as if you're referring to more than
just yourself. So I'd like to have this casual review readable by others,
also.

Thanks again for your stalwart efforts with the Slate compilation. They
certainly don't make it easy, do they. I still can't get to Slate with
either my IE7 browser or, when I installed and tried it out, the current
version of Firefox, either. I have never had such an experience, and used to

go to slate.com at will until sometime last fall when I started to get a
page not found result every time I tried. I have no idea what happened.

Hope my review helps.
Joel

P.S. I'm deleting the personal message to which I'm replying .)

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