a media system is disclosed which presorts media files thereby alleviating a media player from having to actively sort the files in real time . the system creates and uses presort information with the media files . the presort information contains one or more lists of the media files previously presorted according to different sorting criteria . the presort information permits a user the ability to play the media files according to one or more of the presorted lists without the player itself having to include logic to sort the files . broadly , the user selects one of the presorted list of media files and the player plays the files in the specified order . in one embodiment , the media files contain audio data and the player comprises an audio cd player such as an mp3 - compliant device .