ipod or iriver.Which do you prefer?
Apr 4, 2004 at 11:06 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 29

capa_robert_san

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Hello, everyone!!!
I own ipod 20gb and I use 192~256 AAC files from CDs. And sound great!!!
Recently my friend is talking about iriver and he`s saying "you can forget about ipod, irivers are better!!".I am not audio freak or anything.But I am very happy with my ipod and I think ipod looks
1000 times sexier than iriver!!!
What is your view???
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Apr 4, 2004 at 5:38 PM Post #2 of 29
i wouldnt change my opinion completely because of something someone said with no facts. try swapping your player with his and find out which is better for you.

btw, i vote iriver.
 
Apr 4, 2004 at 7:13 PM Post #4 of 29
I don't think you can forget about either. Depends on that sound you prefer, what accessories you need supported, what file formats you want to use, what input/outputs you need, what transfer process you want, etc. At some point it seems kinda silly to say one is superior to another... at least without specific qualifiers.
 
Apr 4, 2004 at 7:24 PM Post #5 of 29
I vote for iRiver, reasons?

Opt/Line in/out, recording, FM, battery, easy drag and drop (serve as external hdd).

There is a thread that talk about this too, iPod vs iRiver. You might want to check on that...
 
Apr 4, 2004 at 7:35 PM Post #6 of 29
As a player, I prefer the iPod. It wins hands down. Better sound quality (quality, not about being able to toggle 'super dum-b-ass' mode), and better music loading (drag and drop gets old REALLY fast with a large music collection).


As a geek toy, the iHP wins. The only thing it's missing is probably a cappucino steamer.


I've more or less decided to keep both because the iHP is the only HDD player I can plug the ATH-D1000 phone into. Although it's loaded with features it's counterintuitive, ergonomically deficient, sonically soft / relatively unresolved (the difference is small but significant if you're using quality phones) and last but not least looks like **** (so glad it comes with the case!).
 
Apr 5, 2004 at 11:08 AM Post #7 of 29
Hehe to juxtapose with what bangraman said, i find that iTunes is a laughable program, and the fact that you have to use a program to load music on annoys me
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He is right in saying it IS a geek toy and the Ipod is MUCH easier to use (though its a pain if you cant see it)

I can't see any real point in changing if you own either player, i mean, apart from their niggles, they are both awesome pieces of equipment...
 
Apr 5, 2004 at 11:29 AM Post #8 of 29
It depends on how you load your music, and how much music you have. If all the music you have fits into the iHP's drive then it's not really an issue. If you swap MP3's with friends all the time, then an iHP is handier. Similarly if you listen to low-bitrate MP3 files most of the time then the iRiver's EQ makes it possible to make those more bearable.


My collection mainly in ~256K VBR passed the point of the iPod or the iHP quite a long time ago. iTunes helps me manage the collection (and to load it on the player) much better than anything else out there... and that includes Media Center for now.
 
Apr 5, 2004 at 11:45 AM Post #9 of 29
Yeah, mymp3's are the same kind of bitrate as yours, ive just got mine all in folders though, kinda used to it that way
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Plus i got winamp playlist on shuffle... so yeah - each to their own ey?
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Apr 5, 2004 at 11:53 AM Post #10 of 29
Oh, I have all my music organised into folders too.That's why it's a bit of a nightmare trying to drag and drop to the iHP... you try looking for what you want out of nearly 1,000 folders!
 
Apr 5, 2004 at 3:57 PM Post #12 of 29
Bangraman, I'm a bit confused about this:

Quote:

That's why it's a bit of a nightmare trying to drag and drop to the iHP... you try looking for what you want out of nearly 1,000 folders!


How can you NOT find what you're looking for if your folders are labeled ? Please explain. Also, I think it depends on how a person has been maintaining their directory. For instance, either way, if you're going to dump a whole directory on to the IHP, or if you're going to dump selective folders, it's not a hassle. Let's say you've got 1000 folders, all you have to do is drag and drop them all at once...Or if you're like me, and have about a couple hundred folders per directory (several partitions), it's the same thing, only you have to do it more than once.

Not a biggie as far as I can see. Then there's the other scenario. You've just ripped a CD or 10, the freshly encoded music is sitting in the directory you told your ripper/encoder to put it in (in its respective folders of course) and now all you do is either go to that directory, and drag em' on over to the IHP, or use Media Center to sync....Not sure what the hassle is all about ?

As far as the sound thing goes, that's cool...your opinion. I've listened to the iPod too, and prefer the IHP's sound personally. I wouldn't mind either though if it was a choice.
 
Apr 5, 2004 at 4:53 PM Post #13 of 29
Let's say you have 1000 folders by artist. You're looking to throw on some random selections but also some specific artist's albums (not an unusual situation).


The way to do it on the iRiver is to scroll through the icon / list view to find the artist, double-click in the folder, find the album and drag it over to the iRiver drive. Then repeat for each other artist's album you wanted to find. Let's say you forgot either the artist or the album name... more hunting. Say you wanted to make sure that the album you chose was the one because you forgot what it was called... so you play it. That involves going into the ambul folder itself, then running winamp or whatever to play the track. The other way to do it is by identifying the tracks you want in Winamp then clicking into your folder heirachy. To select randomly, what you do is to lasoo / control-click the folders and copy them over to the iRiver. You exceed the storage capacity during the copy so you walk out with what you've got. With the iRiver, there's no way to tell what you've played so the next time you just go for pot luck again.


The above doesn't sound too onerous, but the it has caused me numerous minor grief. If you don't own an iPod to compare, this will seem to be one of those minor irritations you work around, like any high-tech product.


In iTunes, I click on the Artist or Album sorting, and it happens immediately. I slide down to lasso the album I want, drag it to the iPod within iTunes itself. If I need to check that the music I selected is really the one I want, that can be done of course within iTunes. Random playlist? The smart playlist takes about 5 seconds to create and I just leave it to populate. Because iTunes / iPod keeps track of music you've heard, you can say don't copy things I've listened to recently.


If your music collection fits on the iHP or if you don't own much music, the drag & drop feature works fine. If it doesn't, then to me at least it's extremely frustrating way to load. Media Center takes away a LOT of that frustration but as a music manager it still lags behind iTunes in speed and usability. And as a tool for loading music onto a player, there is absolutely no doubt that iTunes is better than Explorer.


I know that a lot of these product choices are made on 'what-ifs' by someone who selects one product over another. Having both for an extended period enables you to actually experience the real pros and cons of each product.


With my product designer / audiophile / style guru (you'd be surprised at the kind of people I write for
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) hat on, I'm suitably impressed by the iPod as a music player. With my geek / gearhead hat on, I'm suitably impressed by the iRiver as a multifunction audio storage unit. That's really the core difference in my view.
 
Apr 5, 2004 at 5:15 PM Post #14 of 29
Ah, I see...so it's really a matter of having more music than space to store it all in right? Maybe not. Because if it's just a matter of finding certain songs from certain albums, all you'd have to do is create a playlist. But if it's the former, then I gotcha. Now this is a totally different story. Because at first I was just going to say, why bother with all the things you mentioned and just create a playlist for those odds and ends you want to play from different albums. (And finding those selections with MC is as easy as it is with iTunes)

But now that I know where the issue is, yes, you've got a huge point. If I was to rip my entire CD collection, there would be no way for me to store them on my PC, let alone my IHP, so I can see how having the integrated smartlist capability would prevail here....I'm going to take this issue up with the Media Center devs and see what they have to say about this. The limiting factor however, may be the lack of playlist functionality on the IHP.

Thanks for pointing this out...it's definetely something to be concerned about. I have never thought of such a thing because I've yet to fill my IHP. The only other solution would be to upgrade to the 140, but even a 40 gig can be filled easily.

I've a question for you though. Let's say that your drive is full up, and you want to transfer songs over, ones that you haven't heard in a while whatever....how does iTunes choose which songs or folders to trade off with ? I wonder if we're talking about the same thing now though. Did you mean to imply tht according to the logic of the smart playlist, iTunes will dump certain songs (like ones that are either played all the time, or ones that are not played at all) in order to replace them with the ones of your current choosing ?

If so, it's an interesting way of doing things.
 
Apr 5, 2004 at 5:24 PM Post #15 of 29
If you download iTunes, it's not difficult to figure out. The "played" and "ratings" counters are synced between the iPod and the PC, as well as when the track was played. The Smart Playlist allows you to add time-based and counter-based as well as incomplete specifications such as "Genre containsAlt". You can nest multiple rules and you can limit the list to a set number of songs, gigabytes or duration, and also limit the selection by when played, random, etc. Multiple Smart Playlists can of course be synced. It's very flexible and more importantly it's very easy to use.


Both players have some immensely annoying faults, but as something to load and play music from a large library in an easy to use and flexible manner the iPod does definitely show it's superiority over the iRiver. The real strength is in the operating system and in the integration between hardware and software.
 

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