Ipod type player - Which One

Woodsea · « **Reply #20 on:** 6 Sep 2005, 07:21 am »

Of course once Apple loses their 80% market share they will come out with the Bose/iPod mini elite player and there goes the neighborhood. Having the two most prominant names in sound and computer technology is a WAF no-brainer.

Feisal K · « **Reply #21 on:** 6 Sep 2005, 07:27 am »

Quote from: PhilNYC

Well, there's another thing...how many women do you know who are into continuous albums...?

*LOL* ok, maybe not Floyd, but uhmm.. there were some dance compilations back in the 80s that were continuous ;D

PhilNYC · « **Reply #22 on:** 6 Sep 2005, 11:30 am »

Quote from: Woodsea

Of course once Apple loses their 80% market share they will come out with the Bose/iPod mini elite player and there goes the neighborhood. Having the two most prominant names in sound and computer technology is a WAF no-brainer.

You mean like this?

http://www.bose.com/controller?event=VIEW_PRODUCT_PAGE_EVENT&product=mwr_sd_freeship&ck=0

DS-21 · « **Reply #23 on:** 6 Sep 2005, 04:52 pm »

Quote from: Atol

Apple's marketing is pretty freakin' good. They somehow brainwashed every person from age 9-21 that the iPod is the ONLY mp3 player on the market and alternatives that are in fact superior are "bootleg ipods"

Superior in what aspect? Design? No way. Ergonomics? Don't flatter yourself. Sound quality? Well, I do not feel the least bit cheated when I listen to my CDs ripped at AAC192 on a Headroom Total Airhead and Sennheiser HD-580s, though obviously most of my iPod listening is done on lesser headphones (Koss KSC-35s or KSC-75) driven only using the internal amp. (Admittedly the iPod is not as clean as using iTunes on my Powerbook to wirelessly feed Apple Lossless encoded music bit-perfectly over my Airport Express, but there are D/A-A/D conversion issues - Panny digital-amp receiver - and of course the difference between lossless and lossy encoding there. So if someone else has an iPod sized player that will also by itself stream losslessly encoded music bit-perfect digitally I'll concede the sound quality issue as long as you concede that for most of the uses of a portable player that ability is irrelevant.)

I'm old enough to have had other digital music players (Archos Jukebox modded to 20GB, Neo25, Creative Nomad) and all of them were as frustrating as they were useful. I resisted buying an iPod for quite a while, until last December actually, because I just didn't see how it could have been much better in daily use. Now, I'd rate it as every bit the improvement to my daily life that upgrading from WinXP to MacOS X "Jaguar" was. (Panther and Tiger both improved upon Jaguar, but neither was nearly the leap that going from a crash-box to "it just works" was.)

Quote from: Atol

1. Your in Radioshack, you see an Apple display. Everything around you is dull and gray. (Typical radio-shack environment) Theres the crappy Aiwa boombox in the back playing some static through a bad radio station. Everything is dull and the iPod just does't seem special.
...

Actually, in that environment a gleaming white and chrome iPod stands out even more than it does when surrounded by numerous other examples of good design as in an Apple Store....

John Ashman · « **Reply #24 on:** 6 Sep 2005, 05:56 pm »

Funny how an American company does something just right and many people want to go out and find an Asian alternative. I'm *glad* the iPod has got an 80% share. They're the home team.

JohnnyLightOn · « **Reply #25 on:** 6 Sep 2005, 06:01 pm »

Another vote for the iPod. Both the mini and full-size are great.

(I have the 3rd generation 40GB.)

jon_010101 · « **Reply #26 on:** 7 Sep 2005, 10:20 pm »

See the iPod nano yet? My goodness that thing is sexy. In black too! If someone buys me a 6 gig black one I'll send them my 30 gig old-gen ipod

And, no, I'm so not kidding.

sm4r2d2 · « **Reply #27 on:** 7 Sep 2005, 10:39 pm »

I would like line-out for a portable amp, and battery power as opposed to built in recharger.

-Richard D C -

texasphile · « **Reply #28 on:** 7 Sep 2005, 11:48 pm »

They are being shut down by their parent company very soon.

http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/portable_av/0,39033465,39251541,00.htm

Chris

Atol · « **Reply #29 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 12:26 am »

Quote from: DS-21

Superior in what aspect? Design? No way. Ergonomics? Don't flatter yourself. Sound quality? Well, I do not feel the least bit cheated when I listen to my CDs ripped at AAC192 on a Headroom Total Airhead and Sennheiser HD-580s, though obviously most of my iPod listening is done on lesser headphones (Koss KSC-35s or KSC-75) driven only using the internal amp. (Admittedly the iPod is not as clean as using iTunes on my Powerbook to wirelessly feed Apple Lossless encoded music bit-perfectly over my Airport Express, but there are D/A-A/D conversion issues - Panny digital-amp receiver - and of course the difference between lossless and lossy encoding there. So if someone else has an iPod sized player that will also by itself stream losslessly encoded music bit-perfect digitally I'll concede the sound quality issue as long as you concede that for most of the uses of a portable player that ability is irrelevant.)

Clearly you are in denial

and from the looks of it, your lineup of older players are crap too which probably means you haven't tried the newer mp3 players that have came out. I admit iPod is a pretty good mp3 player for people who aren't very good at using computers, but if you basically know how to drag and drop a file to a usb thumbdrive, you can do way better.

The best thing the iPod actually has is its line out since its headphone out is just plain out bad, but like you said, that that would require an amp and kill the whole reason for portability right?

I would seriously look at other mp3 players before saying the iPod is superior to others. The Rio Karma and the iAudio X5 are ipod-killers, not to mention the other offerings by iRiver or Creative's Zen series.

[Edit] Don't tell me its easier to navigate too, since when was having to pull out the mp3 player out of your pocket to change a song every time easier? [/Edit]

zybar · « **Reply #30 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 12:36 am »

Quote from: Atol

Clearly you are in denial icon_rolleyes.gif and from the looks of it, your lineup of older players are crap too which probably means you haven't tried the newer mp3 players that have came out. I admit iPod is a pretty good mp3 player for people who aren't very good at using computers, but if you basically know how to drag and drop a file to a usb thumbdrive, you can do way better.

The best thing the iPod actually has is its line out since its headphone out is just plain out bad, but like you said, that that would require an amp and kill the whole reason for portability right? icon_razz.gif

I would seriously look at other mp3 players before saying the iPod is superior to others. The Rio Karma and the iAudio X5 are ipod-killers, not to mention the other offerings by iRiver or Creative's Zen series.

Where are the consumer and professional reviews backing up your claims?

While many other players out there have improved, everything I read keeps putting the iPod at the top of the list.

Here is just one example:

http://reviews.cnet.com/Music/4521-6532_7-5021434-3.html?tag=dir.temp

If you like something better, no issue with that. However, the public and media clearly like Apple's offerings.

George

jon_010101 · « **Reply #31 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 12:58 am »

Quote from: Atol

Whole post

The biggest problem I see with all non-iPod players is that they look and feel as if they were designed in the former Soviet Union. They tend to be bulkier, with lots of oddly placed buttons, a bit unsightly, with curiously undesirable accessories, and without the sense of refinement and attention to detail that an iPod offers. I am actually willing to sacrifice a tiny bit of sound quality if it means having a player that I enjoy using and that works brilliantly with a minimum of accessories and hassle. Not to mention that iTunes is a fantastic application (which just got better today with v5), and that it interfaces beautifully with Apple's Airport Express. I enjoy the music a lot more with my iPod than I ever did with my portable CD player (which certainly sounded better).

Atol · « **Reply #32 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 01:42 am »

Quote from: zybar

Where are the consumer and professional reviews backing up your claims?

While many other players out there have improved, everything I read keeps putting the iPod at the top of the list.

Here is just one example:

http://reviews.cnet.com/Music/4521-6532_7-5021434-3.html?tag=dir.temp

If you like something better, no issue with that. However, the public and media clearly like Apple's offerings.

George

A real site dedicated to mp3 players such as DAPreview has many reviews on various mp3 players. I doubt the credibility of CNet reviews, they gave a Bose Triport a rating of a 7.8 and the QC2 an even higher rating of 8.0, even higher than the Grado SR-60.

sm4r2d2 · « **Reply #33 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 02:01 am »

If you want portability check out mobiBLU at the Walmart site.

konut · « **Reply #34 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 02:34 am »

How about the new iPod announced today? The Nano http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/

EchiDna · « **Reply #35 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 09:20 am »

think back 2 years...

who would have thought Nokia would be losing money and it's 'candy bar' phones would be so out of favour now? we were all so hooked on the ease of use, the form factor and the *ahem* intiutive *cough* menu system... you could pick up any other Nokia phone and have a very good idea of how to use it. These days Motorola, samsung, sony etc etc have all surpased Nokia in sales globally thanks to their clamshell phones and added 'bling' features.

the same will eventually occur to the Ipod range when the public realise that there are other, just as simple to use and just as good looking competitors at a cheaper price.

IMHO, It aint form or function - it's fashion.

Captain Humble · « **Reply #36 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 02:25 pm »

Quote

How about the new iPod announced today? The Nano http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/

Thanks for the link konut.
I didn't see this option a couple of days ago.

As a former road warrior myself I can fully appreciate my wife's aversion to the walkman CD player I bought her. Heavy travel drives home the virtue of traveling light and assuming the Nano performs well it looks like the way to go. I'll probably hold off on the purchase until I see a few reviews, but then again I may not. I've got the itch again.

Thanks.

Al Garay · « **Reply #37 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 05:44 pm »

Can iPod be configured to play FLAC files?

Would be nice to use one library for Squeezebox and iPod. I expect processing FLAC may be more battery intensive (that's speculating).

zybar · « **Reply #38 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 05:48 pm »

Quote from: Al Garay

Can iPod be configured to play FLAC files?

Would be nice to use one library for Squeezebox and iPod. I expect processing FLAC may be more battery intensive (that's speculating).

Unfortunately no.

You can use Apple's lossless version on both the iPod and SB2.

George

Al Garay · « **Reply #39 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 09:01 pm »

Bummer! I'm commited to FLAC for now. I'll take iPod off my Christmas list.

thanks,

Al