Technology Upgrade ??

[Tony Falotico]

Ok folks, I think it may be time to upgrade the ol' 8 tracks a little ....... JUST KIDDING !! :D :D

My cd player bummed out, I've been looking at Ipods and MP3 players and it seems they are the ticket for everything. From what I'm reading on the websites (remember; they are trying to sell me one) I can store music, play it back with just a set of earphones (included with most), hook it up to speakers to play back, hook it up in the car / truck with a $40.00 gizmo from Wal-mart.

Sounds too good to be true. My questions are :


Will it really do all that stuff? More? Less?
Is the sound quality any good?
Is it a good method of bringing tunes into the shop?
Any recommendations on brands, models, features? I'm thinking in the 20Gig arena.


Seems to me, I can 'rip' (whatever that means) all my cd's into the unit and carry it from place to place (vehicle, shop, office) and get rid of the multiple boxes of cd's all over the place. What say ye fellow creeker's ??

BTW: Had a sweet young lady helping me at Wal-mart looking at them last night, she was definitely from the technology generation (at minimum 25 yrs difference in age between her and I). It was almost comical, as if we were from different planets talking in different languages !! :) :)

[Chuck Wintle]

Tony,
Mp3 players do deliver high quality sound, hold a lot of music tracks, are small and use only 1 battery. The IPOD has the most storage space because it has a small hard drive inside.
The others use what is called flash memory and the storage is less. I believe cd mp3 players are available too.

Some good brands are Iriver, Sandisk, and Creative.

the MP3 sound quality is a function of the algorithm used by the ripping program.
The ripping programs compress the huge .au track on the cd into a much smaller mp3 file.
One good ripping program is "Audiograbber" and it is free.
It can use either the "blade" or "lame" algorithm.

[Tyler Howell]

IPOD is great, holds a lot of tunes, data, and very versatile.
I frequently carry home large files of data to work on at home stored on the IPOD.
It is a bit delicate and doesn't like to hit the ground.
Very happy user

[Lee DeRaud]

Seems to me, I can 'rip' (whatever that means) all my cd's into the unit and carry it from place to place (vehicle, shop, office) and get rid of the multiple boxes of cd's all over the place. What say ye fellow creeker's ??Sounds good, depending on the size of your collection. How long it takes to rip a CD is highly hardware-dependent. If it only takes five minutes each, that's still over 8 hours to rip 100 CDs. In my case, with 600+ CDs and hardware that rips very slowly (more like 10+ minutes each) for no apparent reason...let's just say, no, I haven't even considered an MP3 player yet.:mad:

There's a service out there (http://www.ripdigital.com/) that will rip your CDs and put them on DVDs in MP3 format...costs about $1 per disk. I see now they're also selling Ipods preloaded with your music.

[Ian Barley]

I have the Creative Zen Xtra which has a 60gig (big) hard drive and which I use day in day out in the shop.

I use it mostly for audiobooks and have used only a tiny proprtion of the space available. I went for the Creative after reading some bad stuff about battery life on early Ipods. Mine has a user replaceable battery and a standard charge gives me at least 12 hours continuous use.

[JayStPeter]

Tony,

The iPod will do everything you want. You do have to be careful as each additional thing you want to do costs some money in accessories. But, I will soon move our large CD rack from our main living area to a storage room in the basement.

It does take some time to rip CDs, but it's a one time deal. Plus, you don't have to do them all at once. A poor reason not to get one IMO. I have only ripped around 100 of my CDs. As I went through the entire collection there were a number that I either didn't really want there or were repetitive ("best of" CDs don't make much sense when all the songs are already ripped). It took me around a year to get all the CDs ripped. I would kick one off before dinner or after surfing SMC when I thought about it. I started with ones I desired hearing the next day and then went alphabetically after that. My 20G iPod is about half full now I think. So, get larger capacity if you plan on more than 150-200 CDs or so. Remember, you also need that capacity on your PC and some form of backkup. My backup is my wifes computer hard drive (and her backup mine).

Having all your music at your fingertips is literally a life changing thing.

BTW, I use some earplug headphones in the shop that perform that dual function well (etymotic er4). They are a bit pricey though, but the couple of cheaper ones I tried didn't perform either function well. I also have a dock in my shop to play through the shop stereo (see the accessories adding up :)).

Jay

[Jim Becker]

I recently "upgraded" from an iRock unit to a Motorola M500. (being closed out) Dr. SWMBO already had one and the deal was right. I'm really impressed with what these little guys will do. Even with only 4gm of memory, it will hold something like 1200 songs, although right now I'm using mine primarily for language study. We use Dr. SWMBO's in her car on long rides for music as it's simply more convenient than changing CDs and we don't have to carry the CDs around, either. They can stay safe and sound at home, as it were. I use mine in the shop with an FM adapter and on the tractor with my Bose QuietComfort-II headphones. Very versatile.

[Roger Myers]

Tony,
Just did the same thing myself not that long ago. My choice was a 30Gig Ipod Photo along with the Bose Ipod Docking station for the shop and an FM holder/charger/transmitter for the car.
The IPOD is A++++
The Bose speaker/docking station is A++++
The car adaptor is A++ (some loss of fidelity in my opinion, but still really good)

The IPOD phot also allows you to store and display color photos on its display...kinda cool, but I could live without it. The 30Gig is more memory than I'll ever need.... although it can also store data just like a memory stick.

The Bose speakers hold the ipd, charge it and have a remote and sound awesome. They are my shop sollution!!

The Ipod Itunes makes ripping, creating play lists, etc...easy as pie.

Roger

[Glenn Clabo]

What Roger said...and...
I have the 40GB IPod but will hand that over to DrLOML so I can get the photo. I thought it was just a kids thing...but boy was I wrong. I haven't played a CD...or bought a whole CD in a long time. ITunes at .99 each has changed my ways.

The BOSE SoundDock gets a ton of use also. We take it on our travels (a little bit big...but man it's awesome) and have it on the deck whenever we want to relax and /or eat in elegance.

We take the IPod along for long car trips and listen to as many Car Talk episodes we have saved. It's a tough little sucker also. I've dropped it and it keeps on ticking.

Using the IPod is the easiest gadget I have...but because every song (2342 today) we own is at hand all the time it has put music in every aspect of my life and it sure makes the days (and hours on the threadmill) go by with less stress.

When I was looking I considered it a tool and went for the best that I could afford and like tools...I don't regret it.

[Tim Morton]

as every one has pointed out the iPod ROCKS...they come in many flavors, starting with the iPod shuffle which is a small inexpensive no frill player...great for the gym or for young teens. Then comes the iPod Mini...comes with a 6gig HD which is fine and the thing is full-out good looking, but the cost of $249 makes the full sized 20gig iPod at $200 the one to get...unless you have a ton of music in which case go for the bigger 40gig or 60gig...we have a shuffle a mini and a 20gig here in this house...they all rocks!! I think the iPod mini is my favorite..it makes the full sized iPod feel a little dated and bulky.

[Tony Falotico]

Thanks for all the info, I ended up with the iriver H10, 5 gb unit. It does mp3, FM radio, photo's, text and a bunch of other stuff I'll probably never use. It's a starter unit, I'll upgrade later if I have to. So far is seems pretty cool, hooked to a set of Creative I-trigue 3200 speakers It sounds pretty good. I'll probably just input it to my old AIWA mini system in the shop, the basic unit and speakers are still good even though the cassettes are long dead and the cd is now defunct.

Salesman tried to sell me a BOSE docking station, it sounded great but I couldn't see putting that much $$'s in the hot, dusty shop environment. I'll put those $$'s towards another good router! :D

BTW : I've looked and looked and looked ...... Where do I put the 8-tracks in it !! :D :D