Tube amps and iPods

Wow, Biomimetic, great rage against the machine. If your "point was more about disposable culture, gadgets, and badly made products", I'm not sure you made your point. If you just don't like the iPod, that's cool. If you just don't like today's music, that's cool too. But the battle you purport to be fighting was lost long before you or I were even born.

As for me, I've never "rented" an MP3 in my life, but I have about 200 hours of music ripped from my own CD collection. My wife, on the other hand, loves buying both individual tracks and whole albums from iTunes, and has discovered lots of great music while only risking $.99. I think both of our paradigms are valid.

And by the way, I have plenty of "technical skill", and yet still choose to listen to music on my iPod. Amazing, huh?

:-)

David

And I know for a fact that Heidegger had an iPod, one of the black ones, but he used it mostly to listen to Kant's podcasts, through a tube amp.

Tvad,

The ipod amp in question is designed for offices and small rooms and sounds quite good for what it is - a cool way to dock your ipod and get the benefit of tubes in the playback chain. The system I heard them with had them hooked up with a pair of NHT's.

Look at it as a gateway drug for fledgeling audiophiles.

Instead of thinking along the lines of tubes making something the Ipod isn't, you think of the value of using tubes as keeping the Ipod as close to what it is.

I have an XM receiver that has a built in FM transmitter. I set it to broadcast to a certain frequency and then I dial that frequency on my FM tuners. I enjoy my 10b the most. Compressed music with some harmonics is better than none. Do I prefer a live broadcast on NPR from the Disney Hall? Of course.

I don't believe that big music companies are the only way. I do believe it's difficult to find indy music on iTunes. If you're saying you're stealing music, I think that's a crummy thing to do. Unless you know, it's Pink Floyd or Metallica or something. Then go for it. I do like current bands: The Hold Steady, the Thermals, Mono, lots of stuff. If they can play their instruments and dress themselves, all the better. IPods sound like crap, even at their best by comparison to analogue. This is why the Nagra is still king in pro recording, and it's in the editing where you get ProTools. This is why people still get vinyl rigs. There is a perception that tubes and vinyl require more technical skill to set up. This is basically a myth that's built up by people who worry and fiddle on weekends. If you can change a lightbulb you can use tubes. If you buy reasonably ok speakers, Paradigm-ish on up say, it will probably be alright with your tube amp. Gadgetry and the evils of consumer culture aside, it's very easy to screw up an iPod (DC battery to AC) if things aren't well thought out at the pre/amp input. I've seen three or four toasted ones from this. I would worry about it more than say, are my speakers sensitive enough or what height is my tone arm at?