ipod and dac?

Gunbei, you need to take into account how most people actually use their iPods. To get music into the iPod you need a computer that already has the ripped CDs. I use iTunes and the computer stored music is organized into various playlist (by artists, genre, favorite tunes, etc). When I want to transfer music to the iPod I typically select a group of playlists from the computer and wholesale replace those existing on the iPod. A month could go by before I alter the iPod again. Effectively I'm swapping 28Gb (the actual storage capacity of my 30Gb model) of data at a time. It takes 15-20 minutes for the entire process. So even though files may be written and rewritten over and over fragmentation just doesn't become a practical issue.

Thanks for sharing Onhwy61. I guess the next step is figuring out what kind of soundcard to get that has digital outs. Since I have a laptop, I'll have to find either a USB card or a pcmia card. In the limited research I've done, it seems USB cards suffer a little sonically.

Looking around the web, I've been seeing professional systems from Digidesign, tascam and others that are geared to digital multitrack recording with Pro Tools. They feature a/d, d/a converters and de-jitter devices, and come with plenty of analog and digital in/outs. Digidesign, in particular, has a unit that looks pretty good, and at about $450 on e-bay, comes with Pro Tools. Since I'm a musician, that would be a FUN accessory.

Any experience, thoughts on these recording-based systems as a way to get a digital stream out of my laptop?

D

Thanks guys for putting the proper perspective on everything. Like anything I guess, it all comes down to smart usage and good file management.

Onhwy61, using your scheme of mass copying and deleting, fragmentation should be quite minimal. And, if it does happen to occur, Stefh42's advice oughta clear things up.

One thing I will avoid though, is the practice of combining music files and high traffic data files on the same iPod. I see some people doing this, and this is an instance where fragmentation could easily rear its fractured head.

Thanks again!

The iPod is a wonderful device and using an external DAC is a great idea, but here are two other problems I have had with mine:

Even using a cable into my car stereo in a fairly noisy Porsche convertible, the difference between WAV files and LAME compressed MP-3 files were clearly audible to me.

The MP3 file sounds, well... COMPRESSED. Honking and fatiguing in the midrange, and lacking in dynamics.

Another thing I realized -- even with my car stereo -- was that the MP3 files create a vague, wandering image compared to the WAV files on my iPod.

So I would also rather have 20-40 CD quality WAV files than a zillion MP3s.

On the WAV files, however, I seem to get a "skip" on every song and I also have not been able to grab the tagging information from the web, so the files are not categorized like MP-3s which is one of the main reasons to use the iPod in the first place.

Or am I missing something?

So please do let us know when WAV files can be easily tagged, they dont skip, and an output on the iPOd will handle a high end D/A.

Nonetheless, a very cool toy.

Gunbei, File fragmentation should be the least of your worries on an iPod. The unit has a 20+ minute "skip protection" buffer, and even at 10MB/minute, reading uncompressed audio shouldn't be that much of a challenge for the on-board hard drive.
That said, I'll second StefH's comment that if it's an issue for you, you can always delete and re-sync your iPod.