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Latest iPod Configuration -- Any New Hope?

I know there are several threads on the pieces of this question, but I hope this will be a convenient all in one place update for iPod users who really care about the sound.

I was an early adopter for iPod with great hopes for portable, audiophile sound. I know they are fine for convenience, working out blah blah blah, but that was not my main goal. Rather I wanted truly portable and truly high end sound for traveling. And even 20 or 30 uncompressed CDs would be wonderful and -- maybe Im weird - but more than enough for most plane flights!

In the end, I got frustrated and kept hitting dead ends even with the so called experts, so at this point, I have two iPods, several sets of headphones, some noise cancellation headphones, one of the original top of the line Headroom portable amps, circa 1996 with D Cell outboard battery pack, a 9V battery powered Grado headphone amp, and expensive custom earpieces gathering dust in my drawers.

I have tried the Apple lossless scheme and for me, it is unacceptable, not to mention the devious tricks which apparently limit the number of times the files can be copied.

Maybe some of you have cracked the code, but I have had nothing but problems trying to easily "tag" uncompressed files.

In addition, it seems WAV files drain the battery life and cause brief skips in the operation of the hard drive.

Taking my iPod for the first time for months today on my motorcycle, I was reminded that the Etymotics high end headphones DO NOT play well with the wimpy internal amp of the iPod.

I was so disappointed, that I thought I should somehow velcro the Grado amp into my bike jacket or something, but aside from the geeky complexity of this there is no line level out?!

You get the idea...

Dont get me wrong, its a great little gadget for casual listening.

But WHY isnt it so so so so so so much better?!?!?!?!?

Or have I missed something?

Thank you.
cwlondon
ejliu
109 posts
 
Here are some suggestions:
Rip all your music using EAC FLAC -> convert to WMA lossless -> Apple lossless. (Delete WMA lossless afterward)

This ensures perfect CD ripping and you can keep all the files in an open format and still use iPod. Need a lot of HD space though.

Get an iPod line out add-on. It's about $30. Basically hooks up to the bottom of the ipod connectors. Hook that up to a decent portable headphone. Then, pick up your favorite headphones. For example, Senn HD650 for quiet room and Eytmotic ER-4 for airplanes. Total price: $1500.

This headphone system should rival a regular audiophile stereo system under $10-20k easily.
glen's avatar
glen
714 posts
 
Hi Folks, I just got my I-pod a few days ago so I'm way behind on the tech talk. I started loading songs from CD to i-tunes, then over to the ipod. After i loaded about 40 cd's I erased them off I-tunes as not to bog down my comupter. The next time I up-loaded to my i-pod it erased the 40 cd's that I spent 2-days loading. What are you folks doing, leaving all your stuff on I tunes? I have about 600 cd's and that's a lot of memory(40 gig?)

Please advise

More dumb questions to follow,

Thanks!
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
Hi Glen,

Yeah, I went through exactly the same thing when I first got my iPod.

I leave all my music files on a 400GB LaCie Firewire drive. If you make any changes to your iTunes library like changing titles, artists, descriptions adding or deleting songs, unless you have "automatic update" turned off your iPod will be "updated" automatically when plugged in.

You should be able to turn automatic updating on or off in I think the "advanced settings" of your iTunes preferences. However, if you want to leave it set to automatic but still have the option of mounting the iPod in "manual update" mode look at this:

http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/id-2385.html

Apparantly, you just hold own Command+Option as the iPod is mounting and it will override the auto setting and mount the iPod without updating it. You can then do everything manually.

I think it's a good idea to keep all your ripped files on your hard drive. Definitely make sure it's a non-boot drive so any system problems won't cause you to lose your music files. The music files can also contribute to fragmentation of your start up drive, which is another reason to keep them separate.

Dean
fishpatrol
30 posts
 
Hi Glen, You need to turn off the iPod's auto-sync feature to do this. With your iPod plugged in, go to iTunes. On the lower right of the window you should see a small iPod-looking button. Click it to open up the iPod options panel. That's where you can turn off the auto-sync feature.

Here's why: By default, the iPod assumes that it should mirror whatever is in your iTunes Library. Say you buy a stack of CDs over the weekend. On Monday you import them all into iTunes. The next time you plug in your iPod, it would load all of those tracks. Say after listening to those tracks you realize that song 3 is the same song the tarantula ninjas sang when they beat up and torched your car, an event you do not wish to remember. Delete it from iTunes, and the next time you plug in your iPod it will be gone from there as well.

It's really a nice feature, if you have the HD space to keep your music library on your computer. Which is a good idea anyway. I've had two iPods in the last couple years, and maybe twice I've had an issue with it where the iPod needed to be restored (which deletes all of the files on the device). Having a backup saved me from reripping my entire collection, which counts in my book as a "Really Good Idea"(tm).
glen's avatar
glen
714 posts
 
Thanks for that info guy's, I did in fact figure out the manual OVERIDE thing last night. I've got it set to only upload the songs I have checked in my i-tunes library.

So how much was that 400 gig firewire drive Gunbei? I'm definetly interested in adding more memory to hold my whole collection especially since the I-pod is only 20 gig.

I like this thread especially the talk on how to improve the sound.
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