Invasion of the iPod people

Knight Ridder ^ | 5.4.05

[Yardstick]

Not calling you a liar, but I'd love to subject you to a blindfolded ear test. Same CD played via CD Player, Mp3, AAC, and Cassette tape, and then have you rank 'em in order.

I'd love to take you up on that. It'd be interesting. I have a kind of a musical background and worked for a while as an intern at some prominent studios in Nashville. I have good ears naturally, just by genetics I guess, but I've also had an opportunity to train them in a professional audio setting. Once you know what to listen for, it's hard to "unlisten" to the details in recordings, which is both a blessing and a curse.

[Yardstick]

Well, any true audiophile that is worth their salt will tell you that CD's are not comparable to vinyl quality which is not comparable to reel to reel quality.

CD's are about my lower limit for acceptable audio. If an iPod can do CD quality, then I'm interested. Below that, it's off the radar. But I've learned from this thread that iPod's are capable of CD quality, so I might be adding an iPod to my Christmas list.

[SeeRushToldU_So]

The CDs will be easy to rip and convert to mps3. You are going to have to hook a turntable to your computer for the vinyl.

[Yardstick]

Good points. I agree.

[Leonard210]

You'll be using iTunes to load your iPod. All you have to do is go to the Preferences > Importing > Import Using: AIFF Encoder when you first set up iTunes and choose some custom settings if you like to pull your audio directly off your CD's without compression. Figure about 1 MB per minute without compression. In other words, make sure you have a large drive on your computer and get the largest iPod available.

[SamAdams76]

So many people on this thread who dismiss the iPod are ignorant as to how they work. For example, you can listen to an album on an iPod in order without any kind of fussing around. Just turn off the shuffle option.