Hi, I'm using two iPods - a 80GB device which is linked to my stereo and a nano for while I'm
en route. (The 80GB is way too unhandy to be carried around your neck.. ;-))

I've ripped and transferred my scores to an external HD, using Apple's own 128kBit AAC
encoding. I've did some rips as 192MP3s but couldn't tell the difference. As the Apple
encoding works much faster, I decided to opt for it.

Organisation is so damn easy with iTunes. Each time I listen to a track which I don't like that
much, I uncheck the respective box and the next time I sync the device, it has disappeared.
Those tracks I enjoy get synced to my nano-list to be carried with me when I'm driving - I'm
using a BMW linking system to the car stereo - or especially when I have to spend hours on a
plane.

As for the sound quality, there's nothing to complain about. At least not, since I got the
Sennheiser earphones. The only disappointment I encountered was, that US iPods are able to
be tuned much louder than their european counterparts. Perhaps a question of medical
regulations?

My main reason for using an iPod was, that it was easier to maintain a constant musical
background. And, as I chose to let my iPod run in random mode, I got to listen to scores
which I presumably wouldn't have picked from my shelves in that moment.
But I wouldn't give up my CDs and I enjoy having them piled around my desktop. It's simply
a matter of sensoric delight, which a purely technical device can't offer.

Greetz,

David

coma, June 29, 2007; 6:34 PM

I require my own personal space in order to feel comfortable while indulging in things pertaining to personal satisfaction and peace of mind.

I don't care for some of the new technology. It's as if it may very well get to the point where human beings are so dependent upon convienance that little or no effort will be required in order to partake it what makes life fullfilling.

I don't like for something to be there at the snap of a finger. Where is the anticipation when something is so easily attainable? The longing is destroyed and replaced with a tendancy to take for granted some things that should not be taken for granted.

I say everyone should be deprived of their favorite things from time to time in order to achieve a maximum overall enjoyment.

Have you ever went without hot water for six months?





victoravalentine, June 29, 2007; 6:24 PM

To each his own. :)

A.

akwarner, June 29, 2007; 6:22 PM

Hot water, knives? Who the heck needs hot water? I'm surprised to learn you're a sissy...

;-)


PS: I completely agree with your theory of deprivation!

coma, June 29, 2007; 6:33 PM

wwk I agree to a point...

It is good to tantalize oneself every now and then so this coming winter when the temperature is steadily dropping to roughly minus 17 Celsius (around 0 degrees Fahrenheit), I will definitely turn off the heating units and hot water for 6 months and see what happens.

I might as well turn off the electricity too and provide some candle night romance whilst listening to ''Body Heat'' in my SONY Discman (yes... I still have one) and gazing at the icicles in my living quarters.

Just think all the money I will save from utility expenses could be used for the purchase of MORE! soundtracks coming spring.

Wonderful!

serifiot, June 29, 2007; 7:05 PM

Hi, I have a 40 GB (fourth generation/Click Wheel/monochrome display) iPod. When I bought
it in 2004 it slowly revolutionized the way I'm listening to music. I still only buy original CD's,
I never used iTunes as a way to purchase music. For backups original CD's are the thing for
me and I will never part from them. Having said that, I do sell off CD's that I hardly ever
listen to or that just don't appeal to me (anymore). I have records and a small number of
them I transferred to my iPod. The way I organized my iPod is this; I used to pick out a CD
from my collection that I filed by composer and sometimes genre (say British TV scores).
Once I got a great many CD's on my iPod I found it difficult to compare CD's from a certain
composer to choose from. Like I want to hear something by Herrmann, but his scores were
scattered all over the iPod. So I introduced playlists that have names that start with four
letters of the composer, like 'Herr Beneath the 12-mile reef', 'Herr Citizen Kane' etc. These
playlists can be changed in that you leave out tracks that you don't want to hear, change the
order, or add other tracks from other CD's (to stick with the Herrmann example, I have many
different versions of, say, Fahrenheit 451, so that playlist includes suites by McNeely,
Salonen, his own recording on Decca Phase4 and the Tsunami release). For Vertigo I have
different playlists for the original soundtrack and the McNeely re-recording so I can listen
uninterrupted to either of the two. Because the display on the iPod is limited I make sure
that I can recognize which recording I click (here I chose as titles 'Herr Vertigo-McNeely'95'
and 'Herr Vertigo-original'58'. This way I can pick a title the same way I used to do with CD's
from the shelve.

Still with Herrmann as an example, I made a playlist of the original score from the Ryko CD of
North by Northwest and replaced the 'damaged tape-tracks' (Overture, Wild ride etc.) with
those I ripped from the isolated score DVD that has a better soundquality of these specific
tracks.

The way it revolutionized my listening experience was of course that I can carry almost all my
CD's (sorry, music) to anywhere I want. And the shuffle mode makes it possible to hear at
random any tracktitle (I don't do this by album) from my collection of around 10000 tracks
on the iPod. This always gives you nice surprises, great tracks that you forgot you had, new
discoveries of tracks you hardly heard before, great music that you would never picked as a
title to listen to but that works wonders for the moment when you're riding that bicycle and
look at that group of trees in the setting sun, or in that busy street with all those shoppers
passing by. Filmmusic provides a soundtrack for your life. I also like to listen on shuffle play
before I fall asleep, it sometimes almost becomes a quizgame to recognize the track, or the
composer. The problem is that I can listen for ages and it will become very late at night.
Needless to say I often prefer to just listen to an 'album' and stick to a Mozart piano concerto
or something (I don't have soundtracks exclusively on the iPod, also classical music and some
popmusic as well).

Now, for the soundquality, I am not that happy with the AAC 128 kbps encoding. Huge
orchestral scores and deep bass sounds often sound distorted. When this iPod is spend I will
buy the 80 GB (or preferably an even bigger new version that will hopefully show up in the
future) and switch to 224 kbps or higher. MP3 is even poorer than what I have now, and
Apple Lossless, AIFF or WAV should give you CD quality but take up a lot of your disc-space.
So the compromise would be AAC 224 kbps. If this doesnt give me the desired result I will
switch to Lossless, but that would reduce the capacity on my 40 GB iPod from 10000 tracks
to just 5000. If I buy the 80 GB the same music that I now have should fit in higher quality.
The only drawback now is that I need to import all my CD's once more (a process that took
me months!!!). I also have a backup of all my playlists on an external harddrive.

As for headphones, these are also very important for the soundquality. I don't use the iPod
earphones because I don't think they are comfortable to wear and the quality is not that
good. I have a Sennheiser PMX 30, and recently bought small 'earplugs' by AKG (K 324 P).
These fit in your ear (they come with three sizes of plugs) and the sound is very good. You
don't hear environmental sounds that much anymore (great for planes and trains) and the
level can be kept lower than with the Sennheiser. This is an advantage because my European
iPod can't generate enough volume for quiet pieces in a noisy train. And yes, this is because
of different regulations between Europe and the USA. I heard there is a simple way available
on the web to convert the European adjustment back to the US levels but I never bothered
because I like to keep my good hearing :-)

Finally I have to remark on batterylife. I don't know about the fifth generation versions but
my battery looses power very quickly. In fact my last battery lost it's capacity altogether in
about 1 and a half year and I had to change the iPod for a new one under an Apple battery
replacement program. This cost me quite a lot of money, so if it happens again with this one I
will just throw it away and buy the newer one with, hopefully, a better type of battery. Still
I'm very happy with the iPod, especially because of the way iTunes let you organize the music
and the click-wheel that is essential when you have long playlists that you need to scroll fast.

And as a matter of courtesy, I don't shut myself out with my iPod when I'm in company. I
listen to it over the stereo a lot, just like I would with my CD's. I know there are more
important things in the world than new technology that makes us lazy but for easy access to
my music collection it's hard to beat and it's a constant pleasure to listen to great music.

chris, June 29, 2007; 7:10 PM

I must say this conversation has me thinking about the 80GB iPod again. A year or so ago I was given a Shuffle (or Mini or whatever), the one with no screen, so you could never choose a specific cut out of the 150 or so that you could load on the machine. So I gave it to my kid. But that prompted me to dedicate a 4GB memory card to scores, which I dropped into my Palm T/X and carry wherever I go. I have found the sound, loaded via Pocket Tunes v. 3.0 software, to be comparable to the iPod I gave away.
I have about 30 CDs on the card, and can probably get that many again before maxing it out.
But back to the king-size Pod. Akwarner, I would do as you do, I think: leaving out the songs and counting two-fers as one CD, etc. But 1100-plus titles would still cause me to be highly selective, given how many scores I've picked up over the years. To maximize space, I suppose I would not load the art.
So, how many CDs do you think one can put on an art-less 80GB Pod?

sowhatsplanb, June 30, 2007; 4:39 AM

Well, if you use Apple's default bit rate of 128, 1 minute approximately equals 1 MB.

80GB = 80000MB = 80000 minutes = 1000 CDs. At least.

You can easily calculate that 1000 CDs is the MINIMUM number, given that it is calculated on an 80 minutes per CD ratio. I would actually think 60 minutes per CD is still a generous estimate of how long a CD runs on average. So if you work on the assumption that the average length of your CDs is 60 minutes, you would be able to put 1333 CDs (CDs, not titles) on an 80 GB iPod. Depending on how many 2CD albums you have, it might even fit your current collection.

Urs

handstand, June 30, 2007; 5:42 AM

Regarding BATTERY LIFE. I know it is less convenient, but I deactivated the automatic lighting of the screen whenever you use the wheel. That should save a lot of energy and you can still switch on the light if really needed by holding the MENU part of the wheel.

handstand, June 30, 2007; 5:47 AM

I used to carry every CD I owned around me with me to college and out to my girlfriend's
for the weekend. If my bag had been stolen, I would've been completely boned,
musically. iPod has changed my life forever.

I sadly only have a 30gb video iPod. A couple of gigs is taken up with some of my short
films, which is incredibly useful for pimping my stuff on the move. :P

I rip at 160kbps. It's not quite CD quality, but it's better than 128kbps, I rarely notice
any compression. That said, I had to encode Akira Ifukube's Godzilla score at 320kbps
'cos the original master tapes were so screwed up that any attempt at compression
results in hideous sound.

As for playlists, I've got them arranged by composer or director. I've got George Romero/
Sam Raimi/Stuart Gordon playlists, and also Robert Rodriguez/John Carpenter/Pino
Donaggio/Jerry Goldsmith and Danny Elfman. And one dedicated to Random Crap, which
is a little bit 'o' everything.

I really need to upgrade soon. I've only got about 3/4's of my collection on it now 'cos I
ran out of room.

his_dudeness2002, July 2, 2007; 8:55 PM

A bit of resurrection of this thread here. I grabbed a 160GB iPod Classic when they were announced and now I carry pretty much my entire collection with me all the time. I have now been able to include the songs that I had not been syncing over (in order to save space) and I still have about 60GB free for future growth. Each new CD purchase can now simply be dropped onto the iPod without having to delete something else first.

If you can catch a decent sale like I did, this is a terrific use of $320 to help with the feeding of our "addiction". :)

Thanks.

A.

akwarner, November 28, 2007; 10:34 AM