[skagen]

I'm a minidisc user who has considered switching to IPOD. I'm tired of having to make recordings in real time, every time. I'd like to go digital, but the NetMD thing just seems wrong to me. I feel like if I buy one of those I'm just validating Sony's messup up copy-paranoia policies - while spending money on a product that's a pain in the butt.

Just for context, my portable usage is probably 50 % jogging, 25 % at gym and 25% to language lessons/music on the bus/train/plane. I listen to a lot of dance music with seamless mixes, so to me the concept of a 'track" is more about ability to navigating to a time point in a long sequence. I'm also kind of picky about sound quality: I want some kickin' bass, clear sharp highs and good soundstage. For that reason only use Sharp MD's and I avoid the thin weedy sound of Sony MD's.

I find MP3 to be kinda limp,thin and wimpy sounding despite all the stuff people claim abut various presets and what not. I've done high rate VBR's etc, it just ain't prodicing anything worthwhile for me.

Anyway the IPOD seems to be the best piece of portable hardware out there other than the minidisc. a couple of things have held me back from IPOD
- I don't want to pay $300-400 if I end up listening to MP3 or AAC
- IPOD seems to be be unable to play seamless tracks (eg DJ mixes) without audible breaks in sound. In minidisc you have track marks that are actually moveable, but no break in the sound itself.

Now I read on another thread sime stuff about IPOD playing WAV, AIFF and I think FLAC. WAV is obviously CD-quality track and supposedly the others are better, fuller sound than AAC/MP3.

So the core questons I have are basically:
1) Does anyone know if paying WAV or such large files on the IPOD gives you the ability to play tracks seamlessly?
2) What impact does that have on anti-shock, for mobile usage? 3) If I'm not obsessed with getting all 700 of my CD's on the unit and just want to have a few hours of high quality audio on it at a time, is the IPOD a worthwhile purchase?

 

[blessingx]

To start...

iPod doesn't support FLAC. The only portable that does (or any lossless compression) is the Rio Karma.

WAV/AIFF is gapless/seemless.

Not sure how buffer filling (with larger files) will affect your jogging use.

I love my iPod, but since HD players have different sounds (like MD), you should probably also look (if possible) at the Zen series, the Karma, and the iRivers.

I know you said you're not happy with MP3, however since you didn't say anything negative about ATRAC, have you tried testing AAC or Ogg?

Also you may want to read Stereophile's review.

 

[skagen]

I read that review from the other thread which is what prompted me to ask the questions. They discussed sound quality of IPOD with WAV - got that part.

But they didn't address the usability, anti-shock etc questions. Not surprising, its Sterophile mag, not Head-fi where we actually get into the everyday nitty gritty of how you actually use an item on a dally basis and is it worth it in the long run.

Physical size and sound quality were the reasons I settled on Minidisc, so I think IPOD is probably a big as I would consider for my kind of portable usage pattern.

Regarding sound formats regular ATRAC and LP2 are fine to my ears. I only use LP4 for the laguage lessons not for music.

I've eard good things about Ogg, but can't think of any portable hardware that uses Ogg - let alone to be of a small enough size for me. Same with FLAC and the Karma.

AAC seems to get no better reviews than MP3 - where high bitrate/quailty cound is concerned. So doesn't seem like any point in me messing with it. As far as I can tell it doesn't seem to gve gapless/seamless playback either.

So that's whyI'm evaluating the IPOD and looking for feedback with regard to whether its a viable oiption for high qualiry use - particulary reagrding anti-shock when playing WAV.

 

[blessingx]

Someone jump in here if I'm wrong...


Since you're happy with at least some lossy (ATRAC), I wouldn't write off AAC (or Ogg) before testing for yourself. In no way are the highest bitrates of LAME MP3, AAC, or Ogg universally regarded over the others. And I haven't seen any test comparing LAME -API, AAC (QT or Nero) at 320, or Ogg at >-q 7. This is as close as I've seen and the MP3 encoded is iTunes modified FhG, not LAME. You may find that sites info interesting though. But seriously there's LOTS of misinformation around about these formats.

AAC is generally considered 30% better than MP3 (even LAME) across most bitrate ranges, but LAME mid to high bitrate presets are extremely well tuned. AAC has gapless support, but like LAME, it's rarely supported and not on the iPod or QT/iTunes. Nero I believe does, and I'm betting it will be on the Apple side soon.

MP3 (with FhG) is likely still the best option for your language files. I use it for audiobooks (56/22). MP3Pro never took off, but WMA is another option for these lowbitrates.

The iHP-100/150 supports Ogg. The Karma supports Ogg.

I'm not sure how important all this is to you, so let me know if you want to get back to the original questions, but Hydrogen Audio is the site for lots of compression info.

 

[Squibbles]

I always thought LP2 == 192K MP3?

You really should give MP3 and AAC some more testing. Try ripping MP3 to 'ape' or 'aps'. Or if you're really a quality whore, rip it to 320CBR. As for AAC, I'm happy with 192.

Quote:

AAC has gapless support, but like LAME, it's rarely supported and not on the iPod or QT/iTunes.

Uhh.. What? LAME is widely supported, and AAC is supported on the iPod/iTunes. Run-On Sentences?

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally posted by Squibbles Uhh.. What? LAME is widely supported, and AAC is supported on the iPod/iTunes. Run-On Sentences?

Sorry. AAC's gapless is rarely supported so it's said to be non-gapless. MP3's gapless (though LAME tag) is rarely supported so the MP3 format is said to be non-gapless. In either case iTunes or the iPod will not play the potentially gapless files gapless.

 

[ProFingerSk8er]

ipod is great with wav files, great sound that's surely to impress people.
but what i am thinking about is ipod's battery life, ipod claims 8 hours with 128 ACC (i think that's right)... playing wav would cut down the great amount battery life just like any HDD players.
can anyone give the exact hour of how long an ipod can play wavs?

seeing that you are a minidisc user, you might be a little unconfertable with most HDD players's battery life with .WAV files

 

[blessingx]

Can't, but Apples advisory of best battery life was 9 megs and under per track. For average rock/pop tune that would be ~224 kbps.

I'd be curious if WAV/AIFF's drain as quickly as some fear.

 

[ProFingerSk8er]

i would guess it does (just an guess based on what i know, if im wrong please correct me)..

.wav are usually 10X bigger in file size compare to mp3, ogg, acc at 128-160kbps...
bigger file size would require player to load the files into it'z buffer more. each time it has to load, HDD spins/reads, writes data to buffer and some other stuffs i dont kno

im sure you already kno this, but thinking of how much a player does to load it's buffer makes me think it would drain a lot more power..

so if someone can give an acutal number on how many hours a player can play .wavs would be great

 

[blessingx]

Well at least one Head-Fier said he didn't notice a big drain difference when switching from MP3 to WAV, so I'm still curious (as the iPod has a decent buffer, though buffers take power also). I haven't heard of an official test though.

Skagen, is this information valuable for you or have we headed too far off course? Just yell at us. No need to be polite if so.

 

[skagen]

I did a lot of messing around wth mp3. For me minidisc at SP and LP blew it away in terms of depth and sound quality. Maybe LP2 is same *size* as 192K mp3 or something, but to my ears persoanlly LP2 was far better sound. Plus, gapless playback is non-negotiable - I must have it. So mp3 is really not on the table for me at all. Not any point discussing it.

Ogg with Rio is the only other lossy format that I'll look at other than the IPOD.

So interms of narrowing down, that's where I am:
Hardware - IPOD / Rio / IHP120 Minidisc (must be IPOD size or smaller)
Format - WAV/AIFF/Ogg (must be gapless)

I think people go unnecesarily nuts over battery life of MD's. I've never used my MD for more than 3 hours in a day so I'm not gonna die over battery life. I'd trade sound quality for that in a heartbeat.

 

[IpaqMan]

Since you jog a lot, you have to consider that anything with a magnetic read head floating close to a spinning disk is at risk. Many have jogged successfully with hard drive players but the shocks may have a cumulative effect. I have an IBM 1GB microdrive that has been losing sectors infrequently in a PDA storage application.

The minidisc uses a laser read head "high" above the media surface, so during music playback, there is little risk to the read head or media surface. You probably need something just as robust.

According to Rio, the new Nitrus is fairly robust. It is smaller than a MD player and holds up to 25 hours worth of MP3s. You can find them for about $200 online. With a 1.5gb drive, the Nitrus has room to hold a lot of high bitrate MP3s. I owned the Rio Nitrus for a couple of weeks but I eventually chose the Iriver IHP-120.

 

[Watchdog]

I own both MD and an iPod.

For jogging I use MD only, I just get nervous that the jarring will damage the iPod.

Battery life on the iPod sucks, so I'd recommend against wave or AIFF files while on the go since your battery life will be very short this way. If you're in the dock, hooked up to a wallwart then sure it would be good.

If you want a portable to play wave files, get something with a better battery.

 

[jrain]

I have a 2002 10G ipod
and it has the interesting feature
of pausing playback of 16bit linear aif files
every 2'20 or so.
This is, i presume, to load another buffer of data
and is a byproduct of battery life issues

Its not as if there is some deeper techical reason
the ipod couldnt play long files seamlessly.
I remember reading that apple
recommended 9Meg as a optimum max size for mp3 files
so im suffering from this "otimization"
it kind of llimits the utility of the ipod as a hany playback
device in concert situations.

...or is this just something wrong with my ipod ?
any other experiences or predictions
is .wav file playback the same?
joel ryan

 

[chadbang]

You're absolutely right, Joel. I have a 20 gig 2002 model. I put a long Grateful Dead track (10 min plus) on the iPod as an AIFF file. Approximately every 2:20 (within a couple secs) the sound cuts out. It must be the buffer reloading! I wonder why the stereophile reviewer didn't mention this! He must have been using a 2003 model (I forget). Well, I guess that's the last AIFF I use on the iPod. I only put it on the iPod as an AIFF because I downloaded the Dead song (Terrapin Station Live. Nice!) as a Shorten file and I was trying to be true to the credo of "Don't Compress". But from now on I'll stick to MP3. Like you said, Joel, I bet it's the buffer.