The iPod dramatically changed the way I manage and listen to my music collection
Written: Apr 21 '04
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
|
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Portability: |
|
|
| Battery Life: |
|
|
|
Pros: A stunning tool (along with iTunes) for managing and accessing a large music collection
Cons: a bit pricey, somewhat delicate, interface takes a bit of getting used to
The Bottom Line: For those with large collections and a desire to easily access music by artist, song title, playlist, genre, etc. anywhere you wish,you can't beat the iPod/iTunes combo
|
|
|
| mkelch's Full Review: Apple iPod 40 GB White MP3 Player |
The problem I wanted iPod to solve:
I have over 1500 vinyl LPs and over 1000 CD's. My favorite cuts from the vinyl have been ripped onto my Mac hard drive, and of course the CD's are already digital files.....so, I wanted a single device that would hold all of my music, that would be easily portable from one audio system to another, and that would allow me to NOT have to fiddle around with 200, 300 or 400 disc CD changers that wind up becoming "black holes" where CD's are difficult to locate and the machines themselves are viciously hard to program. I had played around with iTunes on my Mac and saw its amazing potential to manage a large collection. I knew I could use iTunes to store, catalog, arrange and access my music on the Mac.....but the iPod held the allure of being able to take that incredible functionality anywhere I wanted.
It was worth a shot....so I bought the big daddy version...40 GIG hard drive.
Out of the Box
Anyone who has Apple products of any kind knows they care a lot about the "out of the box" experience....and the iPod delivers. Packaged like jewelry, the cube-shaped box folds open in a unique design to reveal the iPod in all its white glory. Impressive.
The Accessories? Who needs em!
Remember, I'm evaluating the iPod as a way to manage a large music collection. It will always be used "plugged in" to an audio system....and I'll never be using the headphones nor the remote control. (The headphones don't sound great at any rate - there are many superior third-party options). The main accessory which I DO use is the dock, mainly because of it's LINE OUT jack which passes a straight line-level output from the iPod into my audio gear. Very sweet.
Loading the iPod
The iPod comes empty, of course, and must be loaded-up with content. I know, it can also be used as a portable hard drive for moving files around, a date book, an address book, etc. I don't care....I won't be using those features. My sole purpose is to load my entire iTunes music library into the iPod. You have to be of a certain age (50's perhaps?) to appreciate the miracle of watching one's entire music library travel down a Firewire cable into this device. It took about 5 minutes to load about 3,000 songs compressed in Apple's AAC encoding mode (using the highest quality compression).
Of course, once the iPod is loaded, you then have access to exactly the things you played around with on iTunes....custom playlists, browsing by artist, albums, genre, etc. Make any changes within iTunes? Those changes are automatically transferred to your iPod the next time you plug it into your Mac. This integration is not as tight for PC users, but it is amazing nonetheless. Frankly, it's worth buying a Mac just for this functionality.
Putting iPod to work
Once loaded, I took this little device downstairs into the family room (where the stereo is), dropped it into its dock (which is plugged into the stereo via the LINE OUT jack) and started playing music. I took my 100 and 200 disc CD changers down the basement to retirement. I will never hunt for a CD or a song again.
Sound Quality
Some purists may try to load the iPod with the original AIFF music files (which are huge and will fill up your iPod quickly.) I ripped my music files into iTunes using AAC encoding at it's "best" compression rate, and the sound is very, very fine to me....and I'm fussy.
Another reason to use AAC and not AIFF.....the iPod conserves battery power by filling up its memory buffer and then shutting down the hard drive for a bit until the buffer needs refilling. The iPod is actually playing the music from the buffer, not directly from the hard drive. If you're using those huge AIFF files, the buffer will fill up quickly and flush quickly too, needing more refilling, thus the hard drive will spin more, and the battery will become depleted sooner.
Your music...ALL of it....anywhere:
We go to Florida every year, and it was always a chore to decide, amongst all our music, which discs to take with us, which music to burn onto CD's for the car trip, etc.
iTunes and the iPod changed all that. It took 5 minutes to build a couple of special playlists for the vacation inside iTunes, then simply plug the iPod into the Mac and watch everything update. Throw the iPod into the luggage (along with my Mick Fleetwood Cambridge Soundworks Model Twelve portable sound system), and voila!. Some nice customized music, plus of course, the ability to access ANY of our music, in ANY way we wish. We could even build playlists directly on the iPod, without iTunes!
The user interface:
Much has been said about the brilliant touch-wheel that allows such intuitive access to thousands of songs. All I can add is that it works pretty much as advertised. The display is clear and bright, the backlighting superb and adjustable (along with many other settings such as equalization, etc.) The HOLD switch prevents accidental activation of the controls. The included case is functional if a bit pedestrian-looking. There are many third-party suppliers.
Some warnings:
-the unit is somewhat delicate. Don't drop it. Don't bang it. Remember, there's an itty bitty hard drive inside!
-the battery strength indicator is sometimes inaccurate.
-occasionally the controls can be slow to respond (but they DO respond)
-the back is chrome-plated and scratches easily.
Compared to the remarkable functionality of this device, these seem minor issues indeed.
And the old Vinyl LPS and CDS?
They are in storage. I'll never need to use them. They're all inside both iTunes and the iPod. When I buy a new CD, I rip it into iTunes and then it goes into storage too, never to be seen again.
Final word
For anyone with a large music collection and the desire to manage that collection plus make it portable, the combination of iTunes plus the iPod provide a groundbreaking solution that just did not exist before. It is hard to exaggerate how it changes and simplifies things...it's that dramatic. Having your entire collection available and so easily accessible from a device the size of a deck of cards is, frankly, a stunning convenience. Some say the iPod is too pricey, yet only 5 years ago this functionality was simply unavailable at ANY price.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 399
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
mkelch
|
|
Member: M Kelch
Location: Ontario Canada
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
In multimedia production biz for 25 years with major corporation.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.