I run my laptop directly into my Roland cm-30 cube for practice at home. On gigs we use an Archos Jukebox. It has outside buttons and the screen is easy to read. I just transfer songs in and out, from the laptop, with a usb cable. It has a 20gb hd. There is a slight lag when you push "play". For the type of gigs we do, I like to have the songs in order. Since it's like an hd, you can have as many different folders as you need for organization. We use one for some standard tunes such as happy birthday. We bought a rebuilt one for $179. That's not cheap, but the new ones are around $500. It has the headphone outlet, dc-ac power in, and a usb port. I had tried using a Sansa media player, but it was too hard for me to use the pressure sensitive buttons and the screen was too small. I should add that we are amateur players and we don't do commercial gigs. FWIW.

Cornet Curmudgeon