iPOD

quote:

Originally posted by Peter Stockwell:
What I do care about is getting reasonable, i.e. equivalent to the FM tuner I use occasionally, results through my main system.

Hi Peter,

Of course, the best quality to be had is with Apple Lossless compression, which is not the default setting in iTunes, so you will need to select it in iTunes' drop down menu. ALC was shown by Stereophile's John Atkinson to spit out exactly the same bits as it was earlier fed. Differences in sound quality can be blamed on the necessarily small DAC in the iPod. ALC compresses to about 1/2 the size of the original CD. If you figure an hour long CD is about 700 MB, then the resulting file will be about 350 MB. In practical terms, I have yielded a little bit more than 3 CDs per GB of iPod capacity. iTunes adjusts the file size depending on how complex the input signal is. Dave Matthews Band has yielded the largest files at approaching 1000kB/sec; Mozart piano sonatas the smallest, at 2-300kB/sec.

Oh, and I second the recommendation to take a line out signal from the dock connector. An excellent portable alternative to Apple's dock is SendStation's PockeDock Line Out. I found the best price for mine at Amazon.com

Norman

Gary & Norman,

Thanks for your responses. I was intending to use the iPod on a dock for the hifi system. I don't want to have my current computer (pentium 3, 450Mhz, noisy) running to access the music stored in it. I was thinking store music on one external harddrive, to start with, and transfer a goodly portion of it to the ipod as needed. Using ALC I can get about 700 CDs on one 250GB hard drive. This is largely sufficient, since I have about 700 CDs now and I'd consider half of them first division material. But, for instance, I only occasionally listen to classical on CD so there's about thirty that could go.

Down the road, I want to integrate 2nd division music storage and video recording (PVR) on a new computer. I have my eye on the Mac mini, which apparently while not being intended as a media center computer can be adapted as such with, notably, sofware & Hardware from Elgato systems.

FYI, Here in Paris there's a 100% classic and neo classic Jazz fm station called TSF, and that's what I listen to on the FM tuner, occasionally, they have live broadcasts, or rather, recordings of concerts every night at 21h00. 89.9 if anybody is interested.

I was charging the battery of my iPOd for only four hours,and the battery needs to be charged for 6 or 7 hours.Now the life battery is much longer

I usually plug my iPod in to charge in the evening and leave it until morning. By then, I know it is completely charged. I usually get about 8 hrs of play, but all my files are Apple Lossless, so the drive spins up more often than most. By all accounts I have read, that play time will be headed downward.

Norman

Cosmoliu a shufty round ebay will bring up many manufactuers dealing with iPod replacment batteries get one for your iPod with the highest rating.

I replaced mine and it was very easy to do and now I get a good 14-15 hours out of it.

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
Cosmoliu a shufty round ebay will bring up many manufactuers dealing with iPod replacment batteries get one for your iPod with the highest rating.

I replaced mine and it was very easy to do and now I get a good 14-15 hours out of it.

For me who has the proficiency to change a plug usually in under 30 minutes, how easy or difficult is it to replace an ipod battery?

Piss of piss (I have the one with orange buttons) it took about 6 minutes.

Make sure you get the battery which comes with the two plastic thingies, whic you simply put between the metal and the plastic and unclip, very much like changing a bike tire.

Inside is very logical, carefully remove the harddrive and there is the battery.

I suggest a Google on the various ipod battery replacement sites as you will find very useful photos on how the two halves of the ipod case separate.

So,for how many hours I´ve to charge the battery?6 or 8 hours?

I have been using a Nano Ipod dock as recommended here to input to my 2nd CD2 system and it sounds quite reasonable

I am also getting a 30gB Video Ipod can I use a lead like this succesfully http://www.spectravideo.com/?page=shop/flypage&product_id=377&category_id= to connect (with a phono din adaptor) or do I really need another £25 Apple dock?

Hi,
I am getting an Alpine head unit for a new motor I've just purchased, the head unit is this one:
http://www.alpine-europe.com/content/english/a583.det.C...3---WMA-RECEIVER.htm

I know I need the alpine interface:
http://www.alpine-europe.com/content/english/a2036.det....ADAPTOR-FOR-iPod.htm

my question is will this work with either a 2gig or 4 gig nano?

thanks
for any replies.

andy c!

quote:

Originally posted by Sloop John B:

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
Cosmoliu a shufty round ebay will bring up many manufactuers dealing with iPod replacment batteries get one for your iPod with the highest rating.

I replaced mine and it was very easy to do and now I get a good 14-15 hours out of it.

For me who has the proficiency to change a plug usually in under 30 minutes, how easy or difficult is it to replace an ipod battery?

as Gary says, it's a doddle. The worst bit is cracking open the case which is a bitof an act of faith but actually quite easy. Look here and you'll find a video clip of the replacement process (select the battery type on the left then follow link for instructions. I used these people for a new battery on my G1 ipod, highly recommended.

Steve.

Just goy a 4GB Nano ipod and after loading it with Apple Lossless tracks (I find I get about 150) and playing back through an older pair of Sennheiser HD600's I find that the reproduction is really very good, although the ipod can just about drive the HD 600's.

I also got some px100's which are also very good (especially for the money).

I find that ALC makes a big difference to my 'on the move' listening pleasure, however I could do with more tracks.

I guess my options are to buy another Nano (love the compactness of the Nano over the Mini) or wait for the 10Gb Nano????

Question is, is it worth trying to run two ipods or wait for the next ipod innovation - any thoughts on when a bigger capacity Nano might emerge given past ipod innovations???

My opinion on this is that on the move with all the noise and distraction around you, high quality compression is just a waste of time.

I suggest you try it with apple AAC at 192, this works just fine for on the move music.

Try to keep it in focus an iPod or similar is never going to be an audiophile product, if you can get your head across that hurdle you will find the iPods are a lot more useful (we have 500 tracks on ours.

quote:

My opinion on this is that on the move with all the noise and distraction around you, high quality compression is just a waste of time.

....not sure about that, I find I can listen longer and at higher volumes with less fatigue using ALC...it's a question of at what cost/benefit....

quote:

I suggest you try it with apple AAC at 192, this works just fine for on the move music

....why 192?, is this a particularly good compression algorythm?. itunes appears to offer 18 different compression options in AAC between 16 and 320, difficult to decide which ones to try....

quote:

Originally posted by PS:

quote:

My opinion on this is that on the move with all the noise and distraction around you, high quality compression is just a waste of time.

....not sure about that, I find I can listen longer and at higher volumes with less fatigue using ALC...it's a question of at what cost/benefit....

quote:

I suggest you try it with apple AAC at 192, this works just fine for on the move music

....why 192?, is this a particularly good compression algorythm?. itunes appears to offer 18 different compression options in AAC between 16 and 320, difficult to decide which ones to try....

192 is about the best compromise between a higher quality sound v storage space. I had mine at 256 before but ran out of room on a 20g model. Same number of tracks at 192 gave me half the storage space back.

It is difficult for sure if you really are set on a audiophile sound on the move. But tha really is not what any MP3 player is about, any that have pretentioons to being a great sound are lying they all sound prosiac.

A mess in the EQ can make tunes sparkle a bit more, but this drains the battery significantly quicker. I don't have an answer, I am more than happy with the sound of the nano, I have to confess though that the 10000 or so tracks in in iTunes range from 'aquired' 120 MP3s right up to AIFF so god knows which is what, and perhaps tellingly for either the quality of the headphones, nano or my hearing I wouldn't know the difference without looking.

It becomes more than apaprent when through the dac into my HIFI though

The best portable sound is obtained by having a source with a digital output, like the old i-river, a portable DAC and a portable amp. The problem is that no-one currently sells an MP3 player with a digital output.

quote:

Originally posted by Rockingdoc:
The best portable sound is obtained by having a source with a digital output, like the old i-river, a portable DAC and a portable amp. The problem is that no-one currently sells an MP3 player with a digital output.

True, the iRiver H140 is transformed by running it through an external DAC like a Benchmark, though it is very susceptible to the quality of the toslink optical cable. Then the limiting factor becomes space, if you use uncompressed formats, or quality once you use a lossy compressed format.

What I would like to see is a higher capacity hard disc player (>200 Gbytes) with a S/PDIF coaxial digital output. Unfortunately the trend seems to towards the portable mediocrity of smaller less well specified machines.

Nick

quote:

any that have pretentioons to being a great sound are lying they all sound prosiac.

quote:

A mess in the EQ can make tunes sparkle a bit more

4GB Nano with ALC and EQ Off through HD600's really does sound good - at the moment I am listening to this over my Headline2/HC2/HD650's, with added benefit that I can do the ironing & washing up at the same time and avoid a good slapping off the wife

OK my frieds,the shop swap my Mini for a new Nano,as the battery of mini was faulty.But with the Nano appears on the screen :~
Disk mode
OK to disconnect
I eject the iPod on iTunes and appears the same message:
Disk mode
OK to disconnect
And doesn´t appear the menu!What can be the problem?Or how can I fix it?It seems to me the problem is related with the messageisk mode

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Bull:

quote:

Originally posted by Sloop John B:

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
Cosmoliu a shufty round ebay will bring up many manufactuers dealing with iPod replacment batteries get one for your iPod with the highest rating.

I replaced mine and it was very easy to do and now I get a good 14-15 hours out of it.

For me who has the proficiency to change a plug usually in under 30 minutes, how easy or difficult is it to replace an ipod battery?

as Gary says, it's a doddle. The worst bit is cracking open the case which is a bitof an act of faith but actually quite easy. Look here and you'll find a video clip of the replacement process (select the battery type on the left then follow link for instructions. I used these people for a new battery on my G1 ipod, highly recommended.

Steve.

I got the battery a cou[le of weeks ago and at last plucked up the courage. The video link is an excellent one, I don't think I would have managed from pictures alone, Thanks Steve.

For anyone with similar acumen to me it is worth downloading the written deatils also as these mention that it may take a couple of tries to open the IPOD, (it did I was nearly on the point of giving up!) and also warn to take care not to mess up the hold switch when repacing the case (which I nearly managed to do)

It was great to go out for a walk and the battery icon not to have gone down past half way and even better to come back to it two days later and not see the apple logo yet again.

Thanks for the help

Well I am very disappointed with the pod thing after today.

I bought my 60gb pod thirteen weeks ago, have since purchased better headphones (Etymotic 6r-somethings) carry case and a travel dock. I have loaded about two thirds of my music onto it, and am having extra memory and new USB ports put on my computer to accommodate the i-tunes behemoth I have created.

But then the ipod goes wrong.
No sound (intermittently) from the left channel. Headphones work fine with other things, pod works on both channels in the dock, therefore simply the socket. If I could be bothered with "cracking open" the case I could probably fix it myself. But it's £300 worth of supposedly state of the art equipment that is fewer than three months old.

So I take it to the Apple store in London.

I queue for some time. When I get to the head of this queue I am told I actually need to join a new queue upstairs. I join that. When I get to the head of that queue I am told that because I had not "booked" in advance (!) all I could be offered was the chance to wait for a "standby" place in . . . another queue. This was marginally ameliorated by the offer of a seat.

Th bloke downstairs at the end of queue#1 presumably could've saved me at least some of this by telling me I should have made a "reservation" in the first place. Something, incidentally, that cannot be achieved in the store, but only online.

I have had stitches in a very minor cut in a busy A&E department accomplished more quickly, and at the end I still have an ipod that would only really suit Van Gogh.

And what I am trying to achieve is simply my legal right to have a nearly new faulty item repaired, replaced or refunded.

If Crapple's stuff goes wrong with the alacrity suggested by a) my experience and b) the length of the bloody queue to get to talk to their engineers, then this is the first and last thing I shall purchase from them.

A triumph of style over substance with customer service so pisspoor it borders, I suspect, on not actually fulfilling its legal requirements. Have you tried to navigate through the 'support' area of their website?

Wish I never had, and would not advise anyone else to buy from them.

I think there is an emperor's new clothes thing going on. Everyone I know who has apple stuff (mac or ipods) has had things go wrong with them, but we all merrily excuse the shortcomings because they are so acheingly trendy and popular.

quote:

Originally posted by rodwsmith:
Well I am very disappointed with the pod thing after today.

Sorry to read your tale of woe, Rod. I cannot comment on how often iPods or other Apple products go wrong, but I have not read or been told of their track record being significantly worse than the competition. However, I do think you have every right to be put out with the service you received at the retailer. Unfortunately, that store seems to be manned by the same uncaring, likely underpaid, employees we all seem to face too often these days. When the battery on my wife's iPod lost its ability to hold a charge within the warrantee period, we got very good service by mail, with a three day turnaround. Perhaps that would be the better choice for you?

Norman

I use lots of Apple kit and have done so for years at home and at work - I'm using my PowerMac right now. I have not had any great problems with the kit and when I have Apple service has been excellent. I know my way around the support site so perhaps I'm not able to judge how difficult it is for a newcomer.

So I'm very disappointed to hear of your experience rodwsmith - I don't work for Apple so have no direct influence, but would recommend you complain quite high up.

I don't live near an Apple store - so if I have a problem I phone up and they send me a carton to put the faulty item in - I send it back and within a week it comes back repaired. This has not happened very often: one faulty CD writer in iBook and a PowerBook screen (no other faults to report).

I really hope you have better luck by giving Apple a call or writing to their customer service. You deserve a lot better service than you got.

Rotf