[gort]

Here is the test you have all been waiting for. Well it took me about 24 hours anyway. I won't be listening to DSOTM for a long while after a whole day of nothing but that. AIFF's battery time was 7 hours and 30 minutes and AL's time was 6 hours. Pink Floyd's DSOTM was ripped to AIFF and AL and iPod was set to repeat all until low battery shutdown. iPod was fully charged before each test. Headphone used was Koss KSC50 (didn't want to tied up my Ety 4S

) and volume level was at 50% mark.

Is the 90 min battery hit worth it? YES! AL sounded identical to AIFF in my tests. For those of you filling your iPod with AIFF/WAV, convert your files to AL for 50% increase in space on your iPod.

EDIT: Look at post # 13 below

 

[Slimm]

You mean playing larger files gave you better battery life then playing smaller files?

I don't get it.

*scratches head, watches hair fall out*

 

[strohmie]

My guess is that the compression used for those files requires more decoding than simply playing the larger aiff or wav files. Hence the shorter battery life.

 

[gort]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slimm You mean playing larger files gave you better battery life then playing smaller files?

Yep. I can't explain it either but you're free to do conduct your own test if you like.

 

[Slimm]

Man, I'm impressed you got seven and a half hours battery life with AIFF files.

I'm actually doing an informal test myself. I'm closing in on the six hour mark, playing nothing but lossless. I've played 60 songs so far and have no time showing on the battery. I routinely have gotten between four and six hours in real use time whenever I played wave files on my iPod.

 

[gort]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slimm Man, I'm impressed you got seven and a half hours battery life with AIFF files. I'm actually doing an informal test myself. I'm closing in on the six hour mark, playing nothing but lossless. I've played 60 songs so far and have no time showing on the battery. I routinely have gotten between four and six hours in real use time whenever I played wave files on my iPod.

Me too. 7 1/2 hours stunned me. My iPod is about a year old and I been using it for about an hour a day. Mainly used as jukebox for my car. It was either car CD changer or iPod.

Make sure your battery testing is consistent for AIFF/WAV and loss-less. Don't use shuffle and stuff like that. Set it to play exact same songs and exact in order for both test to be fair. That's how I did it.

 

[Slimm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gort Me too. 7 1/2 hours stunned me. My iPod is about a year old and I been using it for about an hour a day. Mainly used as jukebox for my car. It was either car CD changer or iPod. Make sure your battery testing is consistent for AIFF/WAV and loss-less. Don't use shuffle and stuff like that. Set it to play exact same songs and exact in order for both test to be fair. That's how I did it.

Well, I'm not going that far. I just wanted to see how far I could stretch the battery with the lossless. I use the Belkin Battery pack quite often in my travels.

65 songs so far.

 

[Slimm]

Final tally: EXACTLY six hours, to the minute. 66 songs played in all. Volume at 3/4, feeding PX200's.

Edit. I had the alarm set to "Beep", so I would expect an extra 45 minutes to an hour of playtime with it completely off. We'll see tomorrow.

 

[raif]

I decided to not wait or test,(cause I'm impulsive) I have already converted my whole library. I am glad things worked out.

 

[divad6719]

Thanks for the interesting test results, would it be fair to say then that battery life using Apple lossless is comparable to battery life when using AAC at the higher bitrates (say 192+) ??

 

[gort]

Quote:

Originally Posted by divad6719 Thanks for the interesting test results, would it be fair to say then that battery life using Apple lossless is comparable to battery life when using AAC at the higher bitrates (say 192+) ??

ACC/MP3 will have the best battery life. AIFF/WAV coming in second and AL being the worst.

This is Apple's first attempt at loss-less decoding and I suspect they'll improve the decoder thus future improvement in battery life.

 

[austonia]

excellent post Gort. I'll pass this along to folks over at DAPreview. thanks again.

 

[gort]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gort 2x the music on your iPod.

CORRECTION: Is only 50% increase in music not 100%. Is different from song to song but my entire collection averaged out to 50%.

 

[lindrone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gort CORRECTION: Is only 50% increase in music not 100%. Is different from song to song but my entire collection averaged out to 50%.

Actually.. it would be more than 50%... in a very unscientific count (I forgot to count my music library size before conversion)... I used to fit about 330~350 songs on my Ipod... now I've got 520 w/ some room to spare.

You forgot to calculate in the new songs you'll be added into the library are also reduced in size now. It's not just the space you freed up after compression, but the songs that fits into that space now are also compressed.

 

[scottder]

Thanks for doing this test, I ripped a CD last night and put it on my brandy spanking new (ok 2 days old now) ipod. Will be listening at work, only have a 15 gig, but that's more than enough to get me through the day at work.

Scott