iQuestions from the iIgnorant

Having last week frittered a little money on a new pair of headphones (Grado SR60s) something impelled me to plug them into my eMac and discover more about iTunes. To get into the spirit I loaded on a couple of CDs and clicked the play button. Gentlemen, I was staggered. It sounded quite superb. Suspicious of some EQ trickery I fumbled around and found the built-in equaliser only to discover it was switched off. However, checking the preferences, I noticed a 'sound enhancer' option, which was set at the mid point. Not very hifi, I'm sure, but who gives a toss when the combination of computer and headphones are providing such sweet and intimate listening? Then I happened upon the iTunes store. Gentlemen, I was staggered for a second time. All that music, at the click of a mere button. I've been sitting here for the past hour going through the shop listening to beautifully rendered samples of everything from EST to John Zorn, from Joni Mitchell to Joanna Newsom, from Iggy Pop to Brian Eno. Most of it's reasonably priced, too, at around £7.99 a pop for a full LP (sadly, I'm not sure I can live without the comfort blanket of a proper sleeve with lyrics, notes and what-not, but that's an other matter for another day).

I feel like digital music has just crashed on my head like a grand piano from on high. And all this has got me thinking about iPods and the such (particularly as the mini version is now a tempting £139). But there are questions, always questions. First off, does the iPod come with this sound enhancer gizmo? Is the quality going to come anywhere near that I'm getting from the computer? Second off, what's with the file sizes? I put 22 songs on the computer, which takes up 450mb. I'm no maths genius, but even I can see 4gb is not going to go as far as Apple says it will. But I'm certain there's something I'm missing here. What is it? Third off, if I download an LP from iTunes (and here I remain resolute; I am most certainly not a 'track' person) can I then burn it to CD to make a permanent copy? If so, what sort of quality will it have?

I'm getting all tingly about this. Enlighten me.

 

Ron.

The sound enhancement is a double edged sword and I suggest you try it without on. Overall the presentation is a little in yer face with the enhancement, I liken it to overdoing unsharp mask on a picture.

The ipod is a fantastic product, 4 gigs will get you a lot of tunes on there, and bare in mind that with itunes you can set up say 15 playlists of different song mixes and simple swap them onto your ipod as and when you get fed up with the last batch.

The itunes music store is great, you will need an account with apple to use it though. The songs are downloaded straight into itunes. From there is can be copied to your ipod. The tracks can also be burnt to CD 5 times if memory serves, and once to a DVD backup (this won't play in a DVD player but if you ever lose your harddrive you stick the DVD in and the data is restored to itunes. You can also do this onto CD.

If you do what I did and wipe your harddrive but move the itunes music folder to another harddrive, for some reason you loose your right to the music. Luckily I have it on CD now anyway.

The ipod will come with the same EQ as the itunes, but not the sound enhancer. If you play with the EQ settings you will get the same approximation on the acoustic setting.

Other things to consider: check out www.macupdate.com and search for visualizer this will pull up a load of itunes visuals. Also search for itunes catalog. This will go onto the web and pull all the album art work for your music and stick it into itunes, it will also create custom icons for your itunes music folder so each album folder has its artwork. It will also publish you itunes music to web, which you can use locally to search out tracks by album art work.

There is also a programme called clutter, which is fun.

 

Gary,

Thanks for the response. I've tried it without the sound enhancer and it stills sounds darn good, so it can stay off. However, I find it hard to believe that something as small as an ipod could deliver sound quality as good as the computer. My poor literal brain! Also, what's with the file formats? How do these differ between computer and ipod? What are the most common formats used?

 

The file formats stay the same, if itunes supports it, the ipod will play it. I guess MP3 is still most popular but after the rise of itunes, Apple Lossless has become quite popular. It takes up more space than mp3 (generally) but it does sound much better. Bare in mind though that larger files do run the battery down quicker as the ipod has to keep the harddrive running so it can keep its buffer full (i.e. so you don't get interuptions in playback).
My two cents on hardware which you may or may not be interested in (I'm quite bitter about ipods really ) is that the Iriver products have far superior D/A conversion (and they have some pretty damn fine A/D convertors, something the ipod doesn't) and battery life, and generally sound much better. The disadvantage though is they don't work with itunes in the same way so it depends on what your after really, if you prefer the convenience or want the best sound you can have (the ipods don't sound bad, just not as good).

 

Isn't Apple lossless MP4 ?

 

No lossless is .m4a
MP signifies MPEG which comes from MPEG labs- Motion Picture Experts Group.

 

ipodery

if you want best sound for least space then LAME alt preset standard is the baby
you can get an iTunes plug in(blacktree?)
then just import in apple lossless then reimport using LAME(MP3 format so get better compatibility too)
its what i use on my pod
get about 3-3500 tracks on 20GB
10 days listening - ideal for hols

 

i suggest you go for the new 6gig mini ipod @ £169
then u guarantee getting the latest model - improved battery life, now 18 instead of 12 hrs, plus they've tweaked the sound output to make it "better"
see http://home.comcast.net/~machrone/playertest/playertest.htm

oh, and itunes informs me i have 1062 songs, using 4.15 gig, and will play continuously for 3.1 days (all 128kbps mp3's)

 

I bought an iPod Mini about a month ago and am very pleased with it. Apple Lossless sounds pretty good to my ears @ 128kps for most things. It also makes a damn good job with MP3 playback as well.

I'm a bit annoyed that you can now buy a 4G Mini for £139 and a 6G Mini for £169, but even still, the £180 I paid for my Mini was well worth it. Ease of use/track navigation is spot on - logical and easy! Sound quality using Senn MX-400s is tight, deep, detailed and punchy and pisses all over MiniDisc for quality. I even managed to sell both portable/seperates deck for £100 for the lot, which wasn't too shabby.

I've just spent 4 weeks ripping all my 600 CDs into m4a (Apple Lossless) format @ 128kbs and also added my rather large MP3 collection to iTunes. Currently have 12306 songs/37.5 hours worth of music on my PC. This takes up about 50GB and is also backed up onto my external USB hard drive.

It's also made more than a few people in the office envious too!

 

nsherin I guess you mean 37.5 days worth of music there!

I have around 8000 track on the harddrive, there is convenience but its not a patch on the HIFI, comparison is easy as I output to a merdian dac into the hifi from the mac as well. Very good for 'listen again' on radio two broadband. Ah technology don't you just love it!

 

Gary - yup, I did mean 37.5 days That's what a few too many cans of Old Speckled Hen do to you late at night whilst posting.

Agree about the convenience factor - my PC also has a digi connection from the PC into my Yamaha AV amp, but sound quality is not as good as my CDP.