I Pod with headphones

[Harry]

It is pretty clear that I will buy a I Pod with 80 gb space to record many of my cd's, so that I can listen to my music on travel.
Is the software easy to handle, the I Pod itself, when does it compress the files, if it reaches the 80 GB?
I plan to record the cd's on the I Pod. Tips?
What is the best quality small headphones I should use. The sales guy said Sennheiser, forgot the typ, very small, an bout 50 euros.

[Kullervo]

You rip CDs to AAC (Apple Lossless) format, which is more or less CD quality... takes up more space, though.

[Harry]

You rip CDs to AAC (Apple Lossless) format, which is more or less CD quality... takes up more space, though.

And how many cd''s you'd figure, could I get on a 80 gig I Pod in cd quality?

[Que]

And how many cd''s you'd figure, could I get on a 80 gig I Pod in cd quality?

In Apple Lossless, that wouldn't be very much. I reached the 12 CD limit with my 2 GB nano...
So, that would be 480 CD's.

Q

[AnthonyAthletic]

Harry,

I just ripped a cd Tate's Elgar 1st & Sospiri (a cd of 1 hour 5 mins of music) to mp3 @ 320kbps which is excellent quality.

On a standard mp3 player this would take up 125 megabytes of data.  Appx one eighth of one Gigabyte.  The mp3 maths at appx just over one hour per cd = 8 cds per 1 gig x 80 gig space = the region of 600 - 640 full cds, presuming that some cds run to 75 mins as offset.

This is at a high ripping standard for mp3 (320kbps), if you halved the kpbs then of course it would be double the space for the music.

This is based on mp3 ripping and as the other poster stated you do have to convert to an AAC format which takes up much more space.

You just need the figures from an Ipod user (AAC's) based on one hours music @ its byte size...then the calculation can be done

I will be buying an mp3 player soon, but not an Ipod...can't be bothered with converting etc...but I don't mind ripping to mp3 and listening to music on my travels that way.  The mp3 sound at 320kbps is excellent by the way.

Tony

PS:  Mark will be on hopefully with his views, I await his input on this thread forthwith  

[Harry]

In Apple Lossless, that wouldn't be very much. I reached the 12 CD limit with my 2 GB nano...
So, that would be 480 CD's.

Q

And you call that not much! Blimey how much time does it take per cd to rip them?

[Harry]

Harry,

I just ripped a cd Tate's Elgar 1st & Sospiri (a cd of 1 hour 5 mins of music) to mp3 @ 320kbps which is excellent quality.

On a standard mp3 player this would take up 125 megabytes of data.  Appx one eighth of one Gigabyte.  The mp3 maths at appx just over one hour per cd = 8 cds per 1 gig x 80 gig space = the region of 600 - 640 full cds, presuming that some cds run to 75 mins as offset.

This is at a high ripping standard for mp3 (320kbps), if you halved the kpbs then of course it would be double the space for the music.

This is based on mp3 ripping and as the other poster stated you do have to convert to an AAC format which takes up much more space.

You just need the figures from an Ipod user (AAC's) based on one hours music @ its byte size...then the calculation can be done

I will be buying an mp3 player soon, but not an Ipod...can't be bothered with converting etc...but I don't mind ripping to mp3 and listening to music on my travels that way.  The mp3 sound at 320kbps is excellent by the way.

Tony

PS:  Mark will be on hopefully with his views, I await his input on this thread forthwith  

Thanks Tony, useful info, although my knowledge about these things is zero.
At the shop they told me that the I pod is very easy to use, and the menu is accessible for anyone even a digibet like me!

[orbital]

At the shop they told me that the I pod is very easy to use, and the menu is accessible for anyone even a digibet like me!

iPod is indeed easy to use, but the software, I don't know. It has one of the worst interfaces that I've seen in a media library software. If you are going to rip CD's for use with iPod be very careful to tag all tracks correctly. Although the software checks a database online to get the file names, artist, title, album etc information, you still have to double check to see if everything is correct, plus obscure CD's generally are not represented in the CD database archives. It is just too much work IMO.

[greg]

my mom (who works at Apple taking iPod sales over the phone) has heard rumors that they'll eventually release a 120 GB version. If so, that's what, over 700 CDs?

i have around 200 now, and i've decided to not get anymore more, ya know, free ones....... i wonder if such an iPod will be able to hold all the music I ever decide to keep for the rest of my life? 

wowwwwwwwwww

at least it's just a rumor.....

[mahlertitan]

how many CDs you can put into the IPod depend upon the quality of the music (128,256,320) , the higher the quality the more space you are going to use, vice versa.

but, IF you want to fit EVERYTHING onto that ipod, believe me, 80 gigs is not gonna be enough.

[greg]

how many CDs you can put into the IPod depend upon the quality of the music (128,256,320) , the higher the quality the more space you are going to use, vice versa.

but, IF you want to fit EVERYTHING onto that ipod, believe me, 80 gigs is not gonna be enough.

so is that 480 CDs for 128?

[Mark]

Hello Harry.

So, you've decided to enter the Digital Audio Player (DAP, for short) market. And you'd like an iPod. Fair enough. Here are some things you should know:

1) When you buy (download) music from iTunes Music Store - using the freely available iTunes software, which is the ONLY software you can use with an iPod - you buy it in a format called AAC. Contrary to popular belief, this format is NOT owned by Apple, but is licensed by them; there are several (now obscure) Panasonic and other DAPs which can play back AAC.

2) A common misconception about the iPod is that it can only play AAC files. This is complete tosh. It can also play WAV (true CD quality) and MP3 files, amongst others. So, if like me you do your downloading at eMusic rather than risk being ripped off (and saddled with Digital Rights Management crap that restricts what you can do with the music you've bought) at iTunes Music Store, then you can play these MP3 files on an iPod.

3) As you'll be 'ripping' (copying) music from your own CDs, you've needn't worry too much about downloads. But you WILL want to familiarise yourself thoroughly with the settings in iTunes before you get started. In particular, you'll need to know three things:

a) How to change the format into which you'll rip your music (the default is AAC, I believe)
b) How to change the setting so that you achieve what's called 'gapless playback', ensuring that tracks on a CD which should run together seamlessly on playback continue to do so on your iPod
c) How to change (re-tag) your ripped music's display information when the database called Gracenote (which automatically fills in all the track and CD info for you before you rip) occasionally screws up and re-titles your Haydn symphonies CD as a work by metal band Anthrax.

4) Don't be seduced by the bogus number of 'songs' (proof that classical music has been sidelined by DAP marketeers) you're told will fit onto your 80Gb iPod. Yes, it will hold more music than you're ever likely to need on the move. But it won't hold as much as advertised. Reason? DAP capacity is always quoted as unformatted. This basically means that the figures you see on the side of the box take no account of the amount of space needed by the DAP's OS (Operating System). To give you an example, my 2Gb Creative DAP is meant to hold around 600 songs - a song being a 3-4 minute MP3 track encoded at 128kbps (we'll come to bitrates in a moment). But in practice, the player has only 1.87Gb of useable space: the rest taken up by the software needed to run the player's many functions. When you think about it, this makes perfect sense.

5) So, how much music CAN you squeeze onto your 80Gb iPod? Answer: a shitload. But much depends on whether you want quantity or quality ... and it's always a trade-off. I go for a happy medium and encode my music at 192kbps (kilobits-per-second). This basically means that every second of each track is made up of roughly 192 kilobits of digital information. This is using a method called CBR (Constant Bit Rate), but there's another method called VBR (Variable Bit Rate), and this is what eMusic uses. With VBR, a track is allocated more or fewer kilobits per second depending on the complexity of the music being encoded. But you needn't worry about all that. All you need to know is that in all probability, you'll be encoding in CBR, meaning a fixed bitrate. DO NOT encode at bitrates lower than 128kbps, especially for classical music. You really want to be using 192kbps or higher (as Tony said, 320kbps - the highest most DAPs can decode in, say, MP3 format - produces superb-sounding files) for classical, as you'll lose less information this way from the original recording. Which brings me on to my final point ...

6) There are, broadly speaking, two types of encoding: 'Lossy' and 'Lossless'. Most people choose 'Lossy', as this ensures they get more tracks onto their DAPs (albeit at the cost of a proportional loss of quality, which is governed by the bitrate used). What do we mean by 'Lossy'? Let's use the MP3 format as an example. An MP3 file is a digital compressed way of making a large amount of audio information fit into a MUCH smaller file size. It does this by removing sounds at frequencies which the human ear can't readily detect. So, it 'throws away' some of the information from the original CD in order to make files that are smaller. Most people won't notice this loss of information until the bitrate hits around 112kbps or lower. Then, wobbling, twinkling and all other sorts of weirdness become apparent on playback. This is why 128kbps is pretty much the base bitrate below which no one who cares about music should ever go. In short, then, the higher the bitrate, the larger the resulting music files (because less information has been thrown away during encoding), and so the fewer CDs you can fit onto your DAP ... in your case, your iPod.

Yes, I know the above is a lot to take in when you're new to all this. So in summary:

a) Get to know iTunes software thoroughly before you start ripping CDs. Believe me, it can be a very tedious process, and I assure you you'll only want to do it once - so get everything as you want it from the start!

b) If quality is important to you, expect to fit fewer CDs onto your iPod. If you want to squeeze on more music, it's best to go for a lower bitrate from the beginning (see (a) above). I suggest 192kbps.

c) Don't be afraid to experiment, or ask questions here or elsewhere on the net. The one advantage to choosing an iPod is that there are millions of people in the same boat as you, hence plenty of information available to help you as you learn how to get the most from your DAP.


Enjoy, Harry!

[George]

2) A common misconception about the iPod is that it can only play AAC files. This is complete tosh. It can also play WAV (true CD quality) and MP3 files. So, if like me you do your downloading at eMusic rather than risk being ripped off (and saddled with Digital Rights Management crap that restricts what you can do with the music you've bought) at iTunes Music Store, then you can play these files on an iPod.

Can WAV be played on most other MP3 players/computers?

[Mark]

Can WAV be played on most other MP3 players/computers?

All PCs should be able to play WAV files, and quite a few DAPs can, too. But don't put uncompressed music files onto your DAP unless you want to have next-to-no free space available for future recordings, and a battery life of about 20 minutes!

[Mark]

As to the question of headphones, there are many great choices, Harry. What you go for will depend on what you need from your headphones. One thing is certain, however: bin the crappy earbuds that come with the iPod*. They're total *****! The iPod has a very good amp stage, so it can drive certain headphones which other DAPs can't. This means you have a pretty broad selection to choose from.




* In fact, ditch ANY earbuds that come bundled with DAPs. They are almost always guaranteed to do your chosen player no justice whatsoever.

[marvinbrown]

 

  First of all let me thank Harry for starting this post..as Mark already knows I too am thinking of buying an ipod or related device.  A lot of very useful information has been provided by the GMG members thank you all as well.  Harry if you would allow me I would like to add one further question regarding ipods as they relate to DVDs say of classical music concerts, ballets, operas, operettas   for example.  Is is easy to "rip" DVDs onto say the ipod video or related item, what software is needed? How many DVDs can be ripped? I was at an Apple Store a few days ago and the sales rep told me that it was illegal to rip DVDs and that the itunes software does not allow you to do that!  Is this true? What other options do we have?  

 Any information would be much appreciated.

 marvin  

[Mark]

Marvin, there's plenty of software out on the net that will rip DVDs for use on DAPs. In fact, many DAPs come bundled with everything you need (AFAIK). There are also programs available (not legal, however) that 'strip' DRM from DVD copies, making it possible to do with them what you please. But I think you'll find that whichever device you go for, there will be a fairly straightforward way to convert DVD files for use on the move.

[71 dB]

It is pretty clear that I will buy a I Pod with 80 gb space to record many of my cd's, so that I can listen to my music on travel.
Is the software easy to handle, the I Pod itself, when does it compress the files, if it reaches the 80 GB?
I plan to record the cd's on the I Pod. Tips?
What is the best quality small headphones I should use. The sales guy said Sennheiser, forgot the typ, very small, an bout 50 euros.

Apple forces you to use iTunes. Very confusing software! I have never understood much about it but I am able to load music to my iPod. 

128 kb/s gives you "acceptable" quality (outdoors you have lots of background noise so it won't be high end anyway). 196 kb/s starts to be good sound quality. 256 or 320 kb/s gives you practically "CD quality". All this is of course a matter of your ears, how golden your ears are.

128 kbits/s means about 1 Mbytes per minute => A 60 minutes CD takes 60 Mbytes.
320 kbits/s means about 2.5 Mbytes per minute => A 60 minutes CD takes 150 Mbytes.

So, depending on the quality and the average lenght of your CDs you can load 400-1500 CDs. Of course, you don't have to have all your CDs at one time. You can change the files in your iPod. 

Sennheiser PX-100 (or PX-200) is a good choice with your iPod.

[Harry]

Mark, you are a treasure! But I was right, this is a bumpy road, and blimey, I thought this was going to be easy! I will go for quality and not quantity. I am such a hero with software, and nervous I am already.
You are a treasure trove my friend and will do my best. If it does not work I will contact you.
Last question, how long does it take to get one cd on the I Pod?

[Harry]

Apple forces you to use iTunes. Very confusing software! I have never understood much about it but I am able to load music to my iPod. 

128 kb/s gives you "acceptable" quality (outdoors you have lots of background noise so it won't be high end anyway). 196 kb/s starts to be good sound quality. 256 or 320 kb/s gives you practically "CD quality". All this is of course a matter of your ears, how golden your ears are.

128 kbits/s means about 1 Mbytes per minute => A 60 minutes CD takes 60 Mbytes.
320 kbits/s means about 2.5 Mbytes per minute => A 60 minutes CD takes 150 Mbytes.

So, depending on the quality and the average lenght of your CDs you can load 400-1500 CDs. Of course, you don't have to have all your CDs at one time. You can change the files in your iPod. 

Sennheiser PX-100 (or PX-200) is a good choice with your iPod.

Thank you my friend, I will try them out, and decide which one is best. I have absolute hearing, so golden ears.