Listening habits on iPod

[Salty Swift]

So I'm considering getting one of these 160 Gig iPods.
Question I have for you is how have large storage music [MP3] devices altered your listening habits? Is it easier for you to listen to music in this manner or more tedious?
Should I go ahead and buy this gadget or should I just stick to my portable CD player?

Pluses, minuses and rants on the topic are greatly appreciated.

[Damon_Smith]

I find it a lot easier. I still listen to lps and cds at home, but I also have my laptop plugged into the stereo. Obviously, it is great for traveling, which is why I got it in the first place. As far as movies it is great to have you favorites on there. It is not great place to experience new films, but the contents at http://www.ubu.com" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false; is nice to have on there sometimes. I was really glad to have "No Country for Old Men" and several others on mine during some recent long flights.
I use public transit and walk so I often have idle time while I am out, so I can check out a lot of the art films from Ubu.
I tend to listen to full albums, and I put the cover art for all of them.
I would get different headphones and also, it defaults at half volume so go I in and turn the volume up on every file.
You can put liner notes in where the lyrics go.
An ipod is only as good or bad as it's contents.
As far as the record-cd-as object, I would take my full ipod over most lps or cds.
Several years ago I also started to collect high end art catalogs and real artworks and multiples - those give a better visual experience than LPs and CDs, so a purely audio experience is what I am looking for. I like how it can equalize a bootleg or cdr
with a "real" album.
As far as quality, high quality mp3s get the point across fine. If I am really knocked by the fine details and want to hear the work often I will keep/get the cd version. In recent times there have only been two so far R/S and Topos.
I have also stopped buying shirts without a breast pocket.

[Richard Pinnell]

Should I go ahead and buy this gadget or should I just stick to my portable CD player?.

Well if you use your portable CD player a lot then an iPod should be a godsend to you.

Personally, these days I only really listen to music on my iPod when I am away in hotel rooms with work or something, times when I can sit and listen without the distractions that take place on trains, planes or walking about. I have hundreds of hours of spoken word radio on my full to the brim 80G model, and barely a day passes without me using it for that purpose.

I personally only rip CDs to lossless files, I've bought better headphones and I couldn't even begin to imagine trying to watch film or TV on an iPod, but I'm on my third iPod these days and I wouldn't want to be without one.

Also, they're great if you present a radio programme and suddenly realise you left a CD at home....

[Dohol]

I always fall asleep using mine...

But then again, that's one of the reasons I use it..

[Salty Swift]

I always fall asleep using mine...

But then again, that's one of the reasons I use it..

That's one of the intended uses I'll have for the iPod.....as long as I get a good protective cover, I figure I should be fine in making sure the device is protected from any nicks and bruises.

[Salty Swift]

Should I go ahead and buy this gadget or should I just stick to my portable CD player?.

Well if you use your portable CD player a lot then an iPod should be a godsend to you.

Personally, these days I only really listen to music on my iPod when I am away in hotel rooms with work or something, times when I can sit and listen without the distractions that take place on trains, planes or walking about. I have hundreds of hours of spoken word radio on my full to the brim 80G model, and barely a day passes without me using it for that purpose.

Let me ask you this then - are you ever disappointed with the limitations of the iPod as far as storage capacity is concerned or is 80 Gig fair enough for what you need?
Do you think 160 Gig model is just good storage wasted?

[jon abbey]

Let me ask you this then - are you ever disappointed with the limitations of the iPod as far as storage capacity is concerned or is 80 Gig fair enough for what you need?
Do you think 160 Gig model is just good storage wasted?

I have an 80 currently and haven't quite filled it yet. I primarily use MP3s for hiphop or dub or Screw or whatever, but use lossless AIFFs for anything in the electroacoustic realm. you can stuff a LOT of MP3s into 80 gigs: right now I have 10 gigs of DJ Screw on there, which is over 123 hours of music. unless you're using it as a primary listening device and you rip everything lossless, I'd say that 80 is probably adequate, but if I was buying one now, I'd still go for the 160, because what the hell, isn't it just $100 more?

[the_mission]

i have a 4gb nano ipod. when i bought it i thought it would be more than sufficient regarding storage. of course it isn't...
i'm thinking of getting a 160gb now.
i have to commute to work everyday by train, so for me it's a necessity.

[nonightsweats]

i have a 30 gig and find that's enough space for my usage - sleeping and waking up on my 3 hour commute. i use high bitrate mp3 solely and a reasonable set of earbuds and they sound fine enough for the purpose.

[Dan G]

i'm in the same situation as the_mission. My 4gb nanopod is Ok for anything I do - not sure when I would need it to have more than 24 hrs music on it, because whenever I travel, I have my laptop with me so I have about 50 gb of music, but I get tired of re-loading nanopod. I only listen to pop/rock/country on it, never jazz/improv, and that is almost all stuff I've d/led, so no control over bitrate/file type. I really think of it as a good radio station, and dump much of it after one listen. If i were to lose all the music files on my computer, I really wouldn't care. If I like something enough to hear at higher fidelity I buy it and listen on real system.

Will some day splurge on a bigger ipod, but not yet - hoping they make a really small one soon, as I like the nano size. 80 gb would probably do me in case I decide to not take lptp on vacation, not sure if I would ever need 160, but, as Jon says, for the extra $100 why not go big.

[Ivan]

I only listen to pop/rock/country on it, never jazz/improv,

This is a good point. Most of my iPod listening is done while commuting or driving, where there's lots of external sound bleeding in. Not ideal for (some) jazz and improv. I've got some of the noisier shit on it, since it's busy enough to be able to block those outside sounds from getting too distracting.

[Richard Pinnell]

Let me ask you this then - are you ever disappointed with the limitations of the iPod as far as storage capacity is concerned or is 80 Gig fair enough for what you need?

Well every time I want to upload something new now I have to delete something first... At the time this seems hard, what can I possible get rid of? But then when I really stop and think about it I probably haven't listened more than once to 80% of what I have on there... so it all depends what you intend to do with it and how often.

As for falling asleep, I have one of these:



A Sound Pillow by a company called Sensorcom. Its a pillow with a small speaker built deep inside (you'd never know it was there) and a 3.5mm jack feeding from the corner... so you fall asleep in comfort without that horrible pain you get when you wake up to find you've been laying on your headphones! I use mine pretty much every night. I always have my iPod on charge at the same time though, otherwise you wake up to a flat battery...

[Salty Swift]

Let me ask you this then - are you ever disappointed with the limitations of the iPod as far as storage capacity is concerned or is 80 Gig fair enough for what you need?

Well every time I want to upload something new now I have to delete something first... At the time this seems hard, what can I possible get rid of? But then when I really stop and think about it I probably haven't listened more than once to 80% of what I have on there... so it all depends what you intend to do with it and how often.

As for falling asleep, I have one of these:



A Sound Pillow by a company called Sensorcom. Its a pillow with a small speaker built deep inside (you'd never know it was there) and a 3.5mm jack feeding from the corner... so you fall asleep in comfort without that horrible pain you get when you wake up to find you've been laying on your headphones! I use mine pretty much every night. I always have my iPod on charge at the same time though, otherwise you wake up to a flat battery...

I have an 8 Gig MP3 player now. Whenever I want to load something new, I have to get rid of something first and it's really not easy picking something that I won't want to listen to in the future.

What did that pillow cost you Richard?
Looks like a good investment.
I too hate waking up with pain in whatever ear I'm lying on....

[Richard Pinnell]

What did that pillow cost you Richard?
Looks like a good investment.
I too hate waking up with pain in whatever ear I'm lying on....

I'm not certain exactly how much as it was a present from my girlfriend, but I think I've seen them advertised for around £20. I doubt she paid much more than that. Its certainly been well used... The speaker isn't the best quality obviously, but its good enough.

The only down side is the odd feeling when you wake up at 4AM and in a semi-conscious daze you start wondering where the voices are coming from. I can probably put a few of my stranger recent dreams to that pillow!

[Vincent Kargatis]

Also depends how you want to listen to a portable player. If you like shuffling, and having many full albums isn't that big a deal, than a smaller one is fine - you can manage the contents via smart playlists and automatically fill the ipod with stuff according to criteria you set (say, based on date added, last played, playcount, genre, playlist joins, whatever). That way, a smaller ipod can be viewed as a smart "window" on your library, and you just sync it when convenient. Once you set up your playlists (which typically grow more refined and detailed as you mess with them), then syncing's rather brainless and easy.

If you want random access to most of your master lib, then of course you want a bigger one. My 8GB nano suits me fine for the most part, but I have a complex set of 20-odd smart playlists that it syncs to.

[SOZ]

...but use lossless AIFFs for anything in the electroacoustic realm...

Do you know if there's much of a noticeable difference between AIFF and Apple Lossless? I was using AIFF for all my eai stuff, but when my ipod got full (80 gig), I started removing some stuff and and ripping it again with Apple Lossless. I can't tell much of a difference, but I'm curious if others can.

[Richard Pinnell]

...but use lossless AIFFs for anything in the electroacoustic realm...

Do you know if there's much of a noticeable difference between AIFF and Apple Lossless? I was using AIFF for all my eai stuff, but when my ipod got full (80 gig), I started removing some stuff and and ripping it again with Apple Lossless. I can't tell much of a difference, but I'm curious if others can.

I can't.

To be honest its only about 10% of the time I can really tell the difference between a high end Mp3 file and a lossless one, but when the difference is there it is really noticeable. The Halliwell / Korber release on Cathnor is a good example, so much of the beating effect caused by crossing feedback tones disappear with even the slightest compression.

[nebulabore]

when I had my 30 GB iPod, I would only listen to certain artists on the bus to school or to town or whatever. I don't have car, but I used to, and with the iPod I used to cruise down whatever street with my friends and smoke weed and listen to that. it's really good for bar hopping too if you have a car, cuz something crazy is always playing! but otherwise, I got rid of mine because I don't have a car anymore, nor am I a member of a gym so...but as far habits go for me, I tended to listen to a lot of pop oriented stuff rather than noise or eai material on the bus

[sound plague]

I have a 20gig iRiver which is about as unstable as a quadriplegic tightrope walker. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to reformat the thing and constantly have to hard reset the bastard. I think I'll go for an iPod next.

I have never filled my 20gig, primarily because I'm to lazy to rip my cds and vinyl. I use it for hip hop, blues and country & western most of the time. It does the job fine and is certainly useful during trips and on the commute to work.

I could live without it but I'm happy to have one.

[snailed]

...but use lossless AIFFs for anything in the electroacoustic realm...

Do you know if there's much of a noticeable difference between AIFF and Apple Lossless? I was using AIFF for all my eai stuff, but when my ipod got full (80 gig), I started removing some stuff and and ripping it again with Apple Lossless. I can't tell much of a difference, but I'm curious if others can.

Supposedly, there is absolutely no difference. Like a .zip file, all the data is there, just compressed. You use computing power to make things more efficient. That's the definition of a lossless compression, anyway. All those audiophiles sharing .Flacs and lossless .m4a would be mighty pissed if they found out they were getting jacked Whether it sounds as good coming from the ipods stock output, probably not as good as a high grade CD player.