[davebarnes]

1. Rip all your CDs to FLAC and archive the music, the lyrics, the album cover and the liner notes if you are really compulsive as some of us are. Be sure to backup--in a remote and safe place--all this music as you don't want to do the process again.
2. Borrow all your friends' CDs and rip them to FLAC. Return their CDs. Illegal? Maybe? Who cares?
3. Encode all the FLAC music to MP4 to put into iTunes. Add lyrics and cover art.
4. You now have 400 albums in your iTune library. That is 300 hours of music. You might even have more music. Say 1000+ albums.
5. Buy new music in only 3 formats:
a. CD - excellent quality. Make sure you get a great price. Consider the second-hand store. Rip to FLAC. See #1. Sell the CD back to the used-music store.
b. online, FLAC - excellent quality. Make sure you get a good (cheap) price. Archive and encode to MP4.
c. online, MP3, at least 256 kbps. Good quality. Make sure the price is right. Understand that this is not a long-term archival format.
6. Buy a large external disk and put all the FLAC and MP4 music on it and gift it to a good friend. They will be happy with lots of music and you will have created another remote backup.

[natmusak]

mrbach said:

It may be a sore spot for iTune store devotees, but if I plug my iPod into my car or home stereo and crank it, it sounds like crap. At 320, I am finding it almost perfect, but I still get the occasional squishy sounds at the high end.

I'm sorry this offends people and that they think I am wrong and that my opinion doesn't matter, but I hear what I hear. I have a very nice Panasonic system in my car and very good speakers. The same is true for my home setup. I like music a lot. I like it to sound great. Using buds on an iPhone is great, but I think buying downloaded music is rubbish and a waste. Still, there are people that buy wine in a box, so who am I to judge?
I'll stick to lossless, CD masters thank you very much. It IS the same price or better, plus you get notes, lyrics and the ability to crank it up.

Ever consider a decent amplifier or direct line in? o.0 The iPod doesn't have a great amp, at least not for what you want.

I mean, would you plug a portable CD player into your car's stereo via a cassette deck adapter? Just saying. ;)

[Wondercow]

davebarnes said:

1. Rip all your CDs to FLAC and archive the music, the lyrics, the album cover and the liner notes if you are really compulsive as some of us are. Be sure to backup--in a remote and safe place--all this music as you don't want to do the process again.
2. Borrow all your friends' CDs and rip them to FLAC. Return their CDs. Illegal? Maybe? Who cares?
3. Encode all the FLAC music to MP4 to put into iTunes. Add lyrics and cover art.
4. You now have 400 albums in your iTune library. That is 300 hours of music. You might even have more music. Say 1000+ albums.
5. Buy new music in only 3 formats:
a. CD - excellent quality. Make sure you get a great price. Consider the second-hand store. Rip to FLAC. See #1. Sell the CD back to the used-music store.
b. online, FLAC - excellent quality. Make sure you get a good (cheap) price. Archive and encode to MP4.
c. online, MP3, at least 256 kbps. Good quality. Make sure the price is right. Understand that this is not a long-term archival format.
6. Buy a large external disk and put all the FLAC and MP4 music on it and gift it to a good friend. They will be happy with lots of music and you will have created another remote backup.

Too bad society is in such a state of moral decay.

[theguyfromtatooine]

need quality sound? then BUY VINYL, not digital music bullshit.

[Chris Breen]

theguyfromtatooine said:

need quality sound? then BUY VINYL

Darned right. Digital got nothin' on the pops, clicks, skips, and 20-minutes-per-side of vinyl.

[XMattingly]

There is a visceral experience you get from buying something physical that can't, and will never be replaced by digital downloads. Media consumption is not the entire picture: part of the enjoyment of buying a new album is the smell of new plastic. Being able to thumb through a freshly printed insert with crisp pages, cool album art and (hopefully) and equally cool color print on the disc. It's a heightened experience, and the difference between a CD and a download is probably comparable to the difference between eating a meal in a nice restaurant and sitting at home with a Swanson's TV dinner.

But having said that, I think CD's are unquestionably on their way down (but not entirely out). There is room for a niche market, but overall it's a matter of lifestyle, and a matter of convenience. Before too long, downloads will become not only more convenient but also much more common.

[species5618]

MP3s and ACCs are the equivalent of FM broadcasts. I'd rather have an LP or a CD if I can find it, unless it's the only song on the album I like or the song itself is not a big deal to me. Otherwise, it's full-rez, full-fidelity for me.
There is no comparison to hearing a well-recorded LP or CD through a good amp and transparent speakers with a wide-open and detailed sound stage.
I agree with Barry: MP3s are fast food, and there's a place for that. I've downloaded my share of iTunes and others from band web sites. But if I really want the best possible sound, and often I do, I'll hunt down the record or CD.

[hurtle]

"This will be the first time that a previous generation of play-back technology will be replaced by a technology with lower audio quality."

Actually no, Some of us realise that vinyl always sounded better than CD audio, but convenience has triumphed over sound quality. The same could be said for film cameras Vs digital cameras.

[species5618]

99% of people (assuming the number's really that high) buy the cheaper form because, without trying to sound snobby, they can't hear. They can't discern smooth sound from gritty; deep, tight bass from boomy; sweet highs from metallic highs. If it lacks the pops and cracks of a record, then it must be good!

But it's also the convenience. It's real quick and easy to just click the "buy" button as compared to running down to Bleecker Bob's or Tower or Amoeba and have to search through stacks of stuff, then go back home and rip the CD or digitize the LP, break it up into tracks, etc.

[species5618]

Chris Breen, with all due respect, your comment shouts of sonic ignorance. If the pops and the clicks are your only criteria for judging LPs then I have to say that you're really not qualified to comment on the subject. And I don't say that in a mean-spirited way.

I have downloaded. I have listened to plenty of CDs. And of course, I have records. On my iPod, through the low-fi headphones (where, because of logistics, I do most, but not all, of my listening), I can still hear the beauty of a well-recorded LP and how it contrasts with the supposed superior sound of my digital sources. I'll describe a couple of examples.

Blancmange's "Mange Tout" LP, old and worn as it is, but having gone through a Nitty Gritty record cleaner, sounds beautifully balanced across the spectrum and sharply detailed. I'll take the cracks and the pops. Nik Kershaw's "Radio Musicola" sounds INCREDIBLE. The sound is open and detailed and scrumptiously balanced. My CDs and iTunes tracks sound flat by comparison. Oh they're cleaner for sure. And digital, I believe, can provide stereo-separated bass better than vinyl can. So CDs certainly have some sonic advantages.

But to knock the LP shows that you really don't listen critically enough. Your comment is also at odds with the resurgence of the LP over the last 5-10 years. The CD may pass into oblivion before the LP does.

[XMattingly]

Quote

{size:10px} natmusak wrote: How do you know people aren't buying iPods in accordance to the size of their music libraries?
Seems more likely to me that many people have modest digital libraries and thus, buy iPods of slightly greater capacity to fit their entire collection; the iPod classic would be overkill for them. An iPod nano or iPod touch would provide more than enough space. {size}

People buy iPods for lots of reasons; many of which are entirely unrelated to the size of their iTunes library. There are plenty of folks who only have a few hundred songs in their library, but there are some real music nuts (and I know several) that have upwards of 20,000 songs in their collection. I would agree that the iPod Classic is overkill for most folks, though. Personally, I have my playlists set up in such a way as to keep music rotating when I sync to my Nano. Even w/ a 16gb drive, I still wind up with a few gigs of empty space... I probably sync 2 or 3 times a week.

Like Yoda said: size matters not.

[kirkmc]

XMattingly said:

People buy iPods for lots of reasons; many of which are entirely unrelated to the size of their iTunes library. There are plenty of folks who only have a few hundred songs in their library, but there are some real music nuts (and I know several) that have upwards of 20,000 songs in their collection. I would agree that the iPod Classic is overkill for most folks, though. Personally, I have my playlists set up in such a way as to keep music rotating when I sync to my Nano. Even w/ a 16gb drive, I still wind up with a few gigs of empty space... I probably sync 2 or 3 times a week.

FWIW, I have about 250 GB in my iTunes library - somewhere around 40,000 tracks - and I have a 160 GB classic as my "main" iPod, but use a nano for walking and excercising, and a shuffle for listening to audiobooks sometimes when outdoors. I even have a touch, which I recently "inhereted" from my son, who got an iPhone, but don't really use it for music.

I know a fair number of people with music libraries as big as or larger than mine. But we are a very small percentage of total iPod buyers, for sure.

Kirk

[XMattingly]

Quote

{size:10px} kirkmc wrote: FWIW, I have about 250 GB in my iTunes library - somewhere around 40,000 tracks {size}

That's certainly one of the largest collections I've heard of.

It's taken me several years to get north of 5000. Even now I have a "neglected tracks" playlist set up... I try to listen through older, rarely played tracks routinely, and if it's something I have no interest in listening to, it gets pulled out of the library and on to a backup drive for cold storage.

[Chris Breen]

species5618 said:

If the pops and the clicks are your only criteria for judging LPs then I have to say that you're really not qualified to comment on the subject.

I own over 1,200 LPs and love them dearly, but to suggest that the LP is without its faults and inconveniences is silly. Yes, there are the pops and clicks. There are also the skips. And the warping. And a medium, through physical contact, that wears out. Oh, and then there's the joy of interrupting the flow of symphonies and operas to flip the record over or pull the second or third disc from the sleeve.

I'm as keen on the sonic warmth of LPs as the next guy, but the snobbery that suggests that vinyl is the One True Way (and that there's no place for digital) is tiresome.