[digitalmind]

Quote:

Originally Posted by noblsheep i've always hated ipods since i used a friend's 2nd gen for a month and another friend's shuffle for two. i've gone through a long list of mp3 players myself, including creative, cowon, and some totally unknown chinese companies. right now i'm using iaudio m5l, and i'm totally happy with it, soundwise and functionwise. could be better, i know,(no gapless, no good lineout, no toys to go with it) but the ipod just has too many kinks for me to like it. however, one of the problems for competitors is distribution. small companies can't afford having stores and customer service and accesories everywhere. or new products every few months.

What are the kinks? (Seriously interested)

I've stopped using mp3 players since July or so, but I allways loved my 1G Nano, and never really liked my Zen Touch 20gb that I had before it. The ease of use of the iPods is in a class apart, for me atleast.

 

[pds6]

Whenever a dap is brought to the attention of this forum, the overriding emphasis, if not the only subject is sound quality. More specifically, my bass is better than your bass.

I can solve most bass problems - line-out to an amp and use a pair of Shure IEM.

What I would love to see and what would get me interests in other daps is to read more about the software and music browsers.

I run iTunes on a Mac. That is why I own iPods. The software made me buy the hardware.

I got the money and I am willing to buy. Sell me!

 

[m_memmory]

Quote:

Originally Posted by timmins don't forget that apple is in bed with the biggest flash maufacturer in the world, samsung. A conpany that already has the technology for 64 GB cf cards. I't won't be long until we see 32 GIG flash players which is enough for over 90% of the population, including me.

If they do end up going for all flash players then I'm stuck with the player I've got now for ... well ever really. 32Gb is just not enough for the uses I want. My whole reason for having MP3 fiiles and a HDD dap is that I can take my entire music collection with me and I then can decide what I want to listen to when I'm out.

But if flash is what everyone wants then I guess I'm not in the market that Apple and everyone else is aiming for.

 

[m_memmory]

Quote:

Originally Posted by noblsheep i've always hated ipods since i used a friend's 2nd gen for a month and another friend's shuffle for two. i've gone through a long list of mp3 players myself, including creative, cowon, and some totally unknown chinese companies. right now i'm using iaudio m5l, and i'm totally happy with it, soundwise and functionwise. could be better, i know,(no gapless, no good lineout, no toys to go with it) but the ipod just has too many kinks for me to like it. however, one of the problems for competitors is distribution. small companies can't afford having stores and customer service and accesories everywhere. or new products every few months.

Yeah - the Cowon players (the M5 and X5) didn't have good decent line outs but I was able to find that the headphone amp out of the X5 was pretty decent and flat enough to amp without any probs.

As for gapless - have you tried rockbox? I know it works on the X5 and I thought they were working on a M5 translation (not sure how much of it's been done) but that supports gapless wonderfully

 

[w&q]

IMO, after a while* as the lossy formay won't sacrifice the people in terms of sound, people will tend to rip their songs in lossless formats or at least at higher kbits. this will create a huge demand of high capacity daps and the firms sooner or later will have to answer this demand. unfortunately we have to wait for the upcomin revolution.

* i dont exactly know how long this will take.

best regards

 

[wolfen68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by w&q IMO, after a while* as the lossy formay won't sacrifice the people in terms of sound, people will tend to rip their songs in lossless formats or at least at higher kbits. this will create a huge demand of high capacity daps and the firms sooner or later will have to answer this demand. unfortunately we have to wait for the upcomin revolution. * i dont exactly know how long this will take. best regards

I don't disagree with the concept...but in reality only a small minority of the public would fit in that category. Most people know nothing about bit rate and are completely happy with whatever the default setting is on their software (probably 128 cbr or equivalent).

 

[Baalzamon]

Another thing to consider is greater market saturation. Apple has managed to appeal to a large portion of consumers and from another peripheral maker/sellers point of view thats where the money is.

If you make X iPod add-on you can make a lot more money than making X-other guys add on ( case/car adapter etc ). The smaller makers of such items cant bank on something thats not proven yet. iPod moves product and makes money so to speak.

 

[Chef Medeski]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfen68 I've heard that the asian companies have taken a shift towards smaller, lower capacity players due to the regional demand in their own areas. I don't quite understand this, as my mentality is: If you can have all of your music with just the minor sacrifice of slightly larger device size...then why not? That sure beats shuffling 4 gigs of your 20 gig collection back and forth. I wish BETTER DAPs would come out....not just smaller ones, or portables with more crammed in multimedia features.

Umm... maybe because most people can fit their music collection in 4GB.

 

[craiglester]

I think it'll be interesting to see what happens in another couple of years or so, when most people who want an Ipod probably have one, and then many of those with them will start having the batteries needing replacement or the hard drives will start wearing out..
I wonder where we'll be with the competition then?
Will people replace their units with another ipod or go somewhere else?
If apple have only nano's or (probably quite expensive) video ipods available, will people look elsewhere?

 

[Fallingwater]

That has already happened. The ipods have been out for rather more than 2 years.

 

[m_memmory]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfen68 I've heard that the asian companies have taken a shift towards smaller, lower capacity players due to the regional demand in their own areas. I don't quite understand this, as my mentality is: If you can have all of your music with just the minor sacrifice of slightly larger device size...then why not? That sure beats shuffling 4 gigs of your 20 gig collection back and forth. I wish BETTER DAPs would come out....not just smaller ones, or portables with more crammed in multimedia features.

20 gig collection? If I could get my entire collection (as MP3) into 20 gig I'd be impressed! lol But then again I need 30-40 gig to get my collection (as it is currently) into a DAP as MP3 format.

 

[wolfen68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by m_memmory 20 gig collection? If I could get my entire collection (as MP3) into 20 gig I'd be impressed! lol But then again I need 30-40 gig to get my collection (as it is currently) into a DAP as MP3 format.

Yeah...I was just trying to pick a reasonable average. My collection is also substantially bigger than 20 gig. That's why my H140 is my friend

 

[noblsheep]

Quote:

Originally Posted by digitalmind What are the kinks? (Seriously interested) I've stopped using mp3 players since July or so, but I allways loved my 1G Nano, and never really liked my Zen Touch 20gb that I had before it. The ease of use of the iPods is in a class apart, for me atleast.

kinks of apple:
have to retag everything (i download most of my stuff)
battery
scratches and gets dirty
will have to get audiogear in white from now on
needs itunes to work on other peoples computers (and for some reason, my laptop hates itunes)
no use for color screen

iaudio:
plays flac, ogg
doesn't scratch AT ALL (i've tried)
needs no software on pc
organizes by folder so i don't have to worry about tags
no video (cheers)
long battery

Quote:

Originally Posted by m_memmory Yeah - the Cowon players (the M5 and X5) didn't have good decent line outs but I was able to find that the headphone amp out of the X5 was pretty decent and flat enough to amp without any probs. As for gapless - have you tried rockbox? I know it works on the X5 and I thought they were working on a M5 translation (not sure how much of it's been done) but that supports gapless wonderfully

didn't know that... how do i get it?

 

[craiglester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fallingwater That has already happened. The ipods have been out for rather more than 2 years.

but ipods weren't anywhere near as popular 2 years ago as they are now.. there's gonna be a LOT of worn out ipods in a couple of years. a heck of a lot

that's gonna be a big deal for apple.and any competitors

 

[wax4213]

I got my 4th gen iPod 2 years ago, and sure enough, the hdd has worn out, multiple times actually, but I got it replaced once and then once bought my friend's off of him and mixed and matched parts. It's true that iPods have already started failing, but it doesn't seem to be stopping people from buying them. They were pretty popular 2 years ago, wasn't that long ago even though it seems like it.