Question about MP3 and iPods

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Hagstrom, Aug 18, 2011.

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  1. Hagstrom

    Hagstrom Please stop calling them vinyls. Thread Starter

    Everyone in my life is telling me that MP3s and iPods are the way to go and that iTunes is the greatest thing ever. Everyone is burning their cds to iPods and then discarding them. They are shocked I buy and listen to vinyl on a daily basis.

    I've heard some CDs made from iTunes downloads and they sound a little off to me. I hear compression and sometimes it sounds very very flat.

    Am I missing out on something? What kind of audio quality do you get from MP3's?
     
  2. DaveinMA

    DaveinMA Some guy

    That's insane.
     
  3. Hagstrom

    Hagstrom Please stop calling them vinyls. Thread Starter

    Right? I thought the same thing.
     
  4. therockman

    therockman Senior Member In Memoriam

    You can not play MP3s on an iPod.
     
  5. readandburn

    readandburn Active Member

    Location:
    Vancouver, BC
    No one told my iPod apparently...it is full of them!
     
  6. Hagstrom

    Hagstrom Please stop calling them vinyls. Thread Starter

    I may have the terminology wrong. Sorry.
     
  7. curbach

    curbach Some guy on the internet

    Location:
    The ATX
    Obviously these people are not audio enthusiasts. Not surprising--most people are not. If you are looking for support, you've come to the right place :)
     
  8. Taurus

    Taurus Senior Member

    Location:
    Houston, Texas
    To my ears:

    192kbps MP3 file - minimum encoding rate for good sound.

    256kbps and higher - on mid-fi gear (Pioneer, Infinity, Boston Acoustics etc) very difficult to hear the difference between the file and the original CD. But on a boombox or typical car system? No difference at all.

    Throw away CDs? No way. Hard drives crash, viruses are worse than ever, backing up files is a hassle.

    And personally speaking I find iTunes to be irritating to use and the fact it can screw around with music files and randomly delete artwork - actual personal experience here, not hearsay - caused me to quickly delete it from my Windows 7 machine. I use a Philips MP3 player btw, finding its user interface i.e. mechanical buttons much easier to use in a mobile environment than an iPod's touch wheel system.

    A certain computer company's slick commercials may make it seem like MP3 players are the only way to listen to music (though I admit they don't actually disrespect other methods), but many of us have a very different opinion............
     
  9. IbMePdErRoIoAmL

    IbMePdErRoIoAmL lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate

    Location:
    Miami Valley
    A 'standard' 192 kbit/s MP3 = roughly 1/7th the audio information of a WAV file. You do the math. There are much better ways to encode audio.
    However, I am not an iPod hater. I wouldn't want it to be my only listening option but being able to carry thousands of albums around in your pocket is pretty sweet. As I've said before, if it wasn't for the advent of the iPod, I would never have lost over 100lbs & may well be already be dead. Seriously.
     
  10. Taurus

    Taurus Senior Member

    Location:
    Houston, Texas
    :confused:

    Actually, yes, you can (I own one, a 3rd gen Nano).
     
  11. Jim B.

    Jim B. Senior Member

    Location:
    UK
    The compression you hear may be in the recording/cd, so the player does not really have much to do with it apart from the fact you can choose what quality you want to rip a cd. Itunes uses an Apple copyright format called ACC, ipods play them and some other players (Creative I think). You can rip at 320kbs which is fine for casual listening. If it's more serious listening then Itunes has a lossless format you can rip with (but obviously this takes up much more space).

    It all depends how you enjoy listening to music. Personally I like to sit down at home and put a record or cd on through my system and hear it through speakers. However, if you're the type that wants music pumped into your brain all day long on the bus, doing the shopping, in lunch breaks etc then an Ipod is for you.
     
  12. DaveinMA

    DaveinMA Some guy

    You most certainly can. You can't drag MP3 files onto an iPod using the operating system file browser like you can with a normal MP3 player, but if you use the stupid allegedly user-friendly Apple software to put the MP3 files on the device, it works fine.
     
  13. KenJ

    KenJ Forum Resident

    Location:
    Flower Mound, TX
    I see a large trend towards having the bulk of our music digitized in full rez (including HiRez) and the a subset can be compressed for portable use.

    One should not archive to mp3 but to lossless and then compress for temporary mobile use where portable capacity is constrained.

    Many are saving space by archiving CDs to lossless music files well backup up hard drives.

    I think the newer trend is to have subscription access to music in the cloud supplemented by a smaller local collection of rare/unique/fav/great sounding items. This could also be backup in the cloud.

    They key is disaster recover/backup and archiving to full resolution.
     
  14. Jim B.

    Jim B. Senior Member

    Location:
    UK
    I read a report a while back how ipods are destroying music, a bit ott, but bear with me.

    Over compressed cds and downloads, because people listen to these things on buses, in the street whatever and so they are compressing music, the loudness wars, to make music sound good on an ipod. No matter that by doing that they make it sound bad on a hi-fi.

    And the whole concept means people are not listening to albums any more. They just skip all the tracks they don't like (but how often do we end up liking those awkward ones the best?) or just downloading the 'good tracks'. In fact reasearch points out peopel are not even listening to the whole song, but skipping to the next track before the end. All about modern societies lack of patience.

    Anyway, I have an ipod and would take it on holiday but that's it. I didn't like what it was doing to the way I listened to music. You can't beat a nice hi-fi.
     
  15. Taurus

    Taurus Senior Member

    Location:
    Houston, Texas
    In addition to the actual CDs, I think this is a good plan, especially if you keep the backup drive in a different location i.e. a fireproof safe, a friend's home, etc.

    I was just at a local electronics retailer yesterday and was checking out external standalone hard drives. For example I saw several major-brand drives with 1 terabyte(!!) capacities priced at only around a hundred bucks, so for many people they could easily backup their entire collection in .wav form and not have to deal with the hassle of fussing with FLAC, MP3 or other file compression formats.
     
  16. Billy Infinity

    Billy Infinity Beloved aunt

    Location:
    US
  17. therockman

    therockman Senior Member In Memoriam

  18. Everything on my iPod is MP3.
     
  19. Pants Party

    Pants Party MOSTLY PEACEFUL

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    FLAC. All the way. I've started backing up my CDs via FLAC... taking forever.

    All I need now is a hi-quality, portable FLAC player -- with 2TBs of space -- or capable of connecting to a cloud -- or streaming somehow. Maybe when I'm done converting all my CDs...they'll be such a player.
     
  20. Hokeyboy

    Hokeyboy Nudnik of Dinobots

    MP3's (which have ALWAYS played in iPods just fine) are great when you are on the go: in the car, on an airplane, working out, perfect.

    FLAC's are perfect for at home, on a quality system. Indistinguishable from CD-quality, anyone who tells you otherwise is full of poop.

    Don't equate digital music with only MP3s. That's like equating all steakhouses with Outback. :hurl:
     
  21. attym

    attym Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    ipod can also play apple lossless and aiff (wav as well?)
     
  22. Sckott

    Sckott Hand Tighten Only.

    Location:
    South Plymouth, Ma
    MP3 players are supposed to be the "helper" of how we listen, not how we seriously get emotionally connected to music. It IS better than FM radio, most poorly made stereo equipment, etc.

    People who sell or get rid of their CDs don't know fully well what they're doing most of the time, but some are really WANTING to remove bulk.

    Intellectual property is bad these days. Owning even cookware or having a lot in the fridge is played down too.

    Best to be at the end of a provider and pay to play? No. People will learn late and that's a shame.
     
  23. Thurenity

    Thurenity Listening to some tunes

    The people who are telling you that are not only misinformed, but will probably regret their actions in about 10 years. I will explain.

    First off, MP3's can sound very good - but it depends on how they are encoded, and at what bitrate. For example, there was a recent thread here about MP3 vs CD's and many of us here (myself included) said that it was very hard to tell the difference. But that was assuming the MP3 was encoded at its highest setting (V0, 320kps). But at 128kps, that's an entirely different story.

    As for CD's versus MP3 themselves, MP3's are lossy - even at V0. That means you are losing audio information when you transcode. For people who are transcoding to MP3 and then selling / trashing their CD's, it might sound "good" now but, if they upgrade their systems later, they may very well regret doing this. A better solution is to rip to FLAC (or for iPod users, ALAC) - these are lossless formats which means no audio information is lost. They can be used as personal "masters" and re-transcoded later, as the need arises.

    And vinyl is a completely different technology, as it's analog in nature. But the proof is in the pudding, with vinyl - if you want to show them just how good vinyl can be, do a needle drop and transcode that to a V0 320kps MP3, and then have them do an A/B test between that and their "regular" MP3. You don't need a high-end system to tell the difference - I've been doing this on my very modest system for months, now.

    Anyone know what the default setting is for MP3 encoding in iTunes? Just curious. I hope it's not 128kps, as most people probably wouldn't even change it. :eek:
     
  24. IbMePdErRoIoAmL

    IbMePdErRoIoAmL lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate

    Location:
    Miami Valley
    No offense but... what the hell are you talking about? :help:
     
  25. I agree with this basically. I go with 320 kbps when possible.

    I haven't thrown away any CDs although I never listen to them after I've loaded them on my computer. Backing up files is sort of a hassle but it's also an absolute necessity and far far easier than recreating your MP3 library from your CDs. Not just music but every thing you have on a computer should be backed up. If it's not worth backing up, it's not worth having.

    iTunes sucks big time for the reasons you mention and many others! I use an iMac and an currently sort of stuck with it. I'd love to find something for the Mac that works exactly like Windows Media Player.
     
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