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Ipod...to keep or return?


Coytee

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I got a 100gb Ipod (with speakers) from my employer as a reward for customer satisfaction and never used it. I just gave it to my 8 year old nephew for Christmas... I know he'll use it. [:D]

100 gig???

LOL! I meant 10gb...

stilll........... It comes in now 1 gig shuffle, 2 gig nano, 4 gig nano, 8 gig nano, 30 gig ipod, 80 gig ipod.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_shuffle

From looking at the pictures it is the first generation iPod shuffle, so I stand corrected. It came with a speaker system as well but I can't find that out there. Regardless, it's a pretty cool gift for an 8 year old...

Mike

the 1 gig ah lol went from 100 to 10 to 1 [:P] but its a real nice gift for a 8 year old and plus that shuffle will take far more abuse then any other ipod

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It looks like th decision has been made! But, for those who are reading this and debating an iPod purchase, I can only strongly recommend it. Especially for the fellow who started this thread. My goodness, having your *entire* CD collecting, plus radio shows etc., available with you at work and play is invaluable for me. MP3 CDs and radio of any kind just isn't the same as your entire personal music collection. I would strongly recommend that you keep the iPod. If you don't find it indispensible after a couple months you can always give it away or sell it. But, it really is one of those things that you don't think you need until you have it... like heated seats in the car for the midwestern winter. 


Mace
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right now my Imac, which serves as my office 'jukebox' and is used for burning CD compilations and houses only a small portion of my CD's at mostly 192 bits, has 11 days of music and takes up 45 GB. On average, is that a bad bit rate or ??

I have probably 1000 CD's even at a miniscule bit rate, there would be no way to get it all on any Ipod, yes? But it'd be fun to have a few dozen discs worth of high quality tunes at my disposal.. maybe I'll get one. Which is the most economical model in terms of GB per $??


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right now my Imac, which serves as my office 'jukebox' and is used for burning CD compilations and houses only a small portion of my CD's at mostly 192 bits, has 11 days of music and takes up 45 GB. On average, is that a bad bit rate or ??

I have probably 1000 CD's even at a miniscule bit rate, there would be no way to get it all on any Ipod, yes? But it'd be fun to have a few dozen discs worth of high quality tunes at my disposal.. maybe I'll get one. Which is the most economical model in terms of GB per $?

I have my MP3 collection stored on a dedicated server that I created out of a old computer. However, I cannot exactly lug that thing to work if I want to listen to the music on it. Yeah, I can burn it to CD-ROM and listen to it that way. In the end, the iPod turned out to be the best solution. I have a 30-gig one and now wishing I went with a higher capacity one.

Believe it or not, in terms of $'s/GB, the 80-gig model is the most economical. Here is a table I cut and pasted from this article on iLounge.com:

Model Capacity

Price

Ratio
shuffle (original) 512MB

$69

$138 per gigabyte
shuffle (new) 1GB

$79

$79 per gigabyte
shuffle (original) 1GB

$99

$99 per gigabyte
nano 2GB

$149

$74.50 per gigabyte
nano 4GB

$199

$49.75 per gigabyte
nano 8GB

$249

$31.13 per gigabyte
5G iPod (new) 30GB

$249

$8.30 per gigabyte
5G iPod (orig.) 30GB

$299

$9.97 per gigabyte
5G iPod (new) 80GB

$349

$4.36 per gigabyte
5G iPod (orig.) 60GB

$399

$6.65 per gigabyte
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Hi,


You have an iMac at the office? like, Klipsch office? I would love to have a Mac at work... but it isn't meant to be... yet.

11 days = 11*24*60 = 15,840 minutes. At 192 kbps = 192/8*60 = that is 1440 kB/minute = 1440/1024 = 1.4 MB/minute.  So, 15,840 minutes at 192 kbps should take up about 22 MB.  You may have a lot of stuffed ripped at higher bit rates (you said it was 45 GB)??  Maybe you have some raw AIF files lurking in your library (uncompressed)?  You can have iTunes show you the bit rate and format and then just sort by those columns to quickly see. 

General rule of thumb:  128 kbps = 1 MB/minute        192 kbps = 1.5 MB/minute        256 kbps = 2.0 MB/min

As far as 1000 CD's: Assuming that each is 60 minutes, that is 60,000 minutes. At 128 kbps AAC* you get about 1 MB/minute of music. Therefore, you'd need about 60 GB of storage so the 80 GB iPod would get you close. 192/128 = 1.5. So, you'd need about 90 GB for your collection. If you can wait there will most definitely be a 100+ GB version eventually (<a href="http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/peripherals/toshiba-announces-100gb-18inch-drive-100gb-ipod-on-the-way-219296.php">click here for Toshiba drive link)</a>.  At any rate, you can get way more than a few dozen CD's on an 80 GB iPod using 192 kbps bit rate!! Assuming 70 GB of usable space you can get roundabout 770 CD's at 192 kbps, roundabout 1150 CD's with 128 kbps! 

Economy question is already answered! 80 GB is the best buy. 

Just for your info, I rip classical at 256 kbps and all other (except kids and Christmas stuff) at 192 kbps. Kids and Christmas get 128 kbps.  All AAC format. To be quite frank, I don't think I'd notice a difference between 128 and 256 through my car stereo or 2.1 system at work, or my Good Will stereo system in the garage.... 

Regards,

Chad

* AAC is also called MPEG4 audio. It is a more modern form of mp3 and has a bit better quality at the same bit rate. It is an open source format. When you buy tunes from the iTunes store they are in "protected AAC" format, 128 kbps. Apple adds there copy protection scheme to the files. But, for ripping CD's, AAC is unprotected. 
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right now my Imac, which serves as my office 'jukebox' and is used for burning CD compilations and houses only a small portion of my CD's at mostly 192 bits, has 11 days of music and takes up 45 GB. On average, is that a bad bit rate or ??

I have probably 1000 CD's even at a miniscule bit rate, there would be no way to get it all on any Ipod, yes? But it'd be fun to have a few dozen discs worth of high quality tunes at my disposal.. maybe I'll get one. Which is the most economical model in terms of GB per $??

192 is fine for most listening except critical.

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As Dr. Who pointed out, the lossless option is the best choice. I can put about 2000 songs on my 80 GB iPod In that format( AIFF) and it sounds a lot better! I could change it to MP3 and get 10 times that amount of songs on the thing, but I'd rather have quality. I have a standalone 500 GB harddrive hooked to my iMac, and I can keep 20,000 songs in lossless format on it, so I can add/delete songs on my iPod when I get tired of what's on there..of course, at 2,000 songs on hand, I don't have to swap out selections very often.

I don't pay for downloads, what with 2000 plus CDs..I could take 10 songs off each CD and fit it on my 500 GB harddrive, so who needs to buy anything? Also, take the iPod for what it is. A great way to have portable music, your choice, and a ton of it! PLug it in your car stereo, wear headphones when you walk/run/bike/etc. It will in no way, shape or form serve as a home stereo. It's portable listening.

When it's serious music time, listen to your dedicated home system!

My 2 cents.

Steve

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Steve:

"It will in no way, shape or form serve as a home stereo. It's portable listening."

It's not going to replace anything we have here, but I have actually read testimonials of those who described themselves as 'former audiophiles' who said they got so tired of the cable debates; arguments/discussions over the 'best' parts to use; and the seemingly endless component upgrade addiction, that they simply tossed all of that out of the window in order to use the iPod as the center piece of a much more humble system for listening -- as opposed to a far more complex and expensive organization used for tweaking and auditioning different cables, capacitors, resistors, etc., etc.

I have also known professional classical musicians who seem completely happy with very modest home systems.

I'm agreeing with you, Steve, but just recognizing the fact that there are those for whom the iPod seems to have been a much needed detour.

Erik

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Erik,

I have an 80GB ipod with over 1000 songs on it, all are CD quality 1411-kbps. I use the ipod when I jog, cut the grass, etc.but there are times when I will put it into my second 2ch. system for backround music or just to listen to music. It will play for days without ever having to get up to change CD's.

Jay

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Jay:

"I use the ipod when I jog, cut the grass, etc.but there are times when I will put it into my second 2ch. system for backround music or just to listen to music. It will play for days without ever having to get up to change CD's. "

Cool! We need to figure out the best way to get music onto the Nano, which should be in the instruction manual. How does one get CD quality onto it? Pardon me if that sounds like an obvious question, but I'm really ignorant with this stuff!

Erik

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Erik,

The way to do it is through itunes software, go to the edit tab top left. Scroll down to the preferences tab in the drop down menu click it, then click the advanced tab top right. Another menu will open go to importing, click there and in there you can change the bit rate to whatever you like. To be sure that you have got it, go to the view tab up top click it. In that menu on the left side check off bit rate. Then after you have imported your CD's use the slide control at the bottom of the page, to check the bit rate. Erik you can not change the bit rate of songs you buy from the itunes store, they only come in 128kbps.

Jay

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I have also known professional classical musicians who seem completely happy with very modest home systems.

I'm agreeing with you, Steve, but just recognizing the fact that there are those for whom the iPod seems to have been a much needed detour.

Erik

How about this for a "modest iPod-based" system....

Geneva Labs Model XL Sound System (available in black, white or red for a cool $1075 - review on iLounge):

R_XL_iPod_F.jpg

But anyway, I've gotten good results out of my iPod with high-bitrate MP3's (at least 192, prefereably even higher). Also, eMusic encodes everything at very high variable bit-rate and it sounds very good on my setup. Maybe I am not as anal-retentive as others about the quality of thier MP3s, but just about anything I have above 192kpbs seemed to sound quite good to me. Granted, whenever possible, I'd rather have the CD itself (and find myself going back to get the actual CD for stuff that I got off of eMusic that I ended up really liking). Also, I do like being able to just grab music and try it out before going through the hassle of trying to order and have delivered the actual CD.

I guess for those at are really anal-retentive about the quality, there is alway this:

MSB Promises 'audiophile iPod' with iLink

For only around $2349 with a modified 80-gig iPod (the onboard DACs are bypassed), you can have truly loss-less, digital, setup on par with high-quality CD transports (so they claim). If you already have an iPod, you can get the dock as well as get the iPod modified for around $2,000. They say that the iPod will continue to work "stand-alone" and with other accesories even after the mod in thier FAQ.

ilink-dac.jpg

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OK Richard, since you asked it here I'm giving my take based on mine and want you to know I would have been exstatic had my better half bought me a new 80GB model to replace my first run iPod Mini!!

Get your self one of these: (Emmeline "The Hornet" is the model you want)

http://www.raysamuelsaudio.com/index2.html

Then get yourself a pair of these:

http://www.headphone.com/products/headphones/in-ear-monitor/shure-e4-pro.php

Rip all your favorite music at the highest bit rate lossless you can and never look back[:D]

p.s. At this point you can toss those ear protectors or put them in your hunting bag[;)]

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I have a pair of the Shure E3c headphones, which I really liked. May not be "as good" as the e4's there, but I could not bring myself to pay that much for a pair of headphones that I'll most likely use occasionally. However, I am impressed with how they sounded with my iPod and the music I like to listen to. The amplifier sounds intriquing. I guess the next time I have a spare $350, I'll have to check it out.

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Ray makes an exceptional product Steve! If you can stand a little more size in the amp and about $45.00 more the SR-71 is like hooking you iPod up to a ML amp and I beg to differ on sound quality not even close to your home rig as I used to feel the exact same way but the combo I suggest to Richard is by far and away the best portable rig I have ever heard in my 50 years!

If I had Richards money, don't be shy Dr. Coytee[;)] I would go straight for the Ultimate Ears UE-5C's[:P]

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No Richard, you know if we were working together we would do much worse than fill your ears with plastic[6]

You know Seti is about to drop cash on MC-30's and I never knew what an impression your amps and Paul's speakers had on him other than the myth of K-Horns don't sound good in small rooms[:o]

You sure surprised me when you placed your Jub order as you did not let on that much about your desire at the farmhouse[^o)]

Hope I get to see you in Indy this coming summer[:D]

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