MP3 player
Posted by rkj
i want to hear your opinion here. i can't remember exactly what computer you have, but if you have a mac, your opinion about itunes may be different than the opinion of windows users. I have used itunes quite a bit (regrettably) on both windows and OS X, and it amazes me how much better the program performs on a mac, regardless of the specs of the computer running it. it only makes sense since it is a program made by apple, but still, by version 8 one would think there would be some equality. put simply if i had a mac, i wouldn't even start to think about finding another music management program for my computer. but, i have windows, and i reluctantly use itunes to sync and update my iphone, while another program handles the actual listening of music. i don't mind going into exact differences if someone cares to hear. 
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Agreed, discussions of this type have never gotten out of hand and nearly always prove educational. If Tyler does have a Mac: which is a superior machine to any Windows setup; he probably does hear much better sound than on something else. I don't know what the state of the art in sound cards for Windows machines is these days but there used to be some pretty awesome products that you could upgrade the system with. I once had a Turtle Beach card that played back incredible sound; through my hi-fi head phones and through a pretty decent pair of Koss speakers. My current computers just have the onboard sound chips and are adequate for the poor quality of most internet radio compressions. So, come on Tyler; let's hear about what you hear. Just like engineers; some digital, some analog; we all hear differently or there wouldn't be anything to discuss 
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its not so much the sound quality. i imagine they are the same between normal computers, whether they be PCs or Macs. I am referring to the actual stability and performance of the program, and how much RAM it uses to run, etc.
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Daniel, So this means you, like Dave use another program for your music, what it it please? On my larger laptop it cam with arcade, would that be considered a good program to use. I know I will get a music machine (MP3 like thing, I like the no hard drive angle) sometime soon and know it will see hard use (on the road with the motorcycle) camping and such. I see both of us sitting around the campfire with our helmets on listening to music, both plugged into the little splitter/intercom box I just bought
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haha, you could also get a cheap pair of portable speakers, then you wouldnt have to wear your helmets. My favorite lightweight (meaning: doesn't slow down your computer) music management program is called foobar2000. It has a really simple interface, which is also completely customizable, and it supports every audio format known to man. the only downside is that it cannot manage devices, so one cannot sync their ipod or other mp3 player with it, and i am not sure if one can rip or burn cds. my favorite robust, more graphically impressive music player is windows media player (whatever the latest version is). Even though it consumes more RAM during use, it looks prettier, you can rip and burn cds, and it supports hundreds of mp3 players for syncing music (not the ipod). the ipod is fairly easy to use, but frankly i find the process of getting music onto the device to be quite a hassle. it would be much easier if you got a music player that supported windows explorer drag and drop, meaning you can just open up its location in windows, and drag the music folders you have onto its location, and it will copy it for you. then, when you access the music from the mp3 player, everything is organized based on either the folder structure (Music\Beatles\White Album\etc...) or by the metadata, which is the hidden information within each mp3 file that contain the track title, artist, composer, genre, etc. edit: there is a program called songbird also that is very nice, that supports both ipods and non-ipods. it looks an awful lot like itunes, but since it is open-source, like firefox, it is easily customizable and has a lot of people developing things for it.
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Right Daniel, but on a motorbike you want to take the least amount of crap! speakers don't make the list baby. Thats why those little mp3 players looked so good, even if the quality is less good, some have radios that might be more important to us at times 
I think I'd want software that would allow me to take music off and on the player easily from the computer, is this even possible?, and are the radios in these players any good???, songbird might fit this bill, no? Thank You |
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Yes, the players you can drag and drop from can have the music taken off easily also. You can also get the music from more than one computer, which you can't do with an iPod.
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I definitely agree with the access to the iPod being annoying. However, since I hardly ever add or remove songs from mine, it doesn't really bother me. The last time I did, though, I could swear that I just plugged the iPod into a USB port on the computer, and dragged and dropped files from it. Maybe not, it has been a while. My opinion of the iPod is the same as many other Apple products: looks great, stylish, a good product that tends to be fairly robust and easy to use, however you have to play within the strict rules that they impose. I would like it a whole lot more if I could just do something very simple, like change the battery, without needing an instructional video and several prayers hoping I don't break it! I have used iTunes for years on various PCs, desktops and laptops, and have never had a problem with it. However, I've also never looked at other applications, so I have nothing to compare it against. But it's never crashed, noticeably slowed down my system, or bothered me in any way at all. Typically I use it for just listening to music through my headphones while I'm at work, and I really like the Genius function. I just select a song I'm in the mood for that day, hit the Genius button, and it generates a playlist of "similar" songs from my library. For me, that's all I would ask it to do. I'm sure there are other programs out there that are as good or better, but I really can't complain about iTunes, it's been fantastic for how I use it. I also have used it to rip all my CDs, burn some, and I've purchased a very small number of songs from the Store. Cab 
1990 325i(s) 2004 325XiT |
To add music to your ipod, you must tell it to sync with certain playlists, which you have to create. At least that is how mine works if I don't want it to take a random sampling from my whole library until the player fills up. Maybe iTunes plays better with XP compared to Vista?
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Like I said, it's been a long time since I actually moved songs on or off the iPod itself. That mostly sits at home in the dock, and I just plug headphones into my laptop at work and run iTunes. But I don't remember it being that difficult. You want iTunes to not automatically sync with the iPod, so you don't wipe it out every time you connect it, but as I recall, once I connected the iPod to the computer and opened iTunes, I could drag and drop songs/playlists/etc from my music library to/from the iPod, within iTunes. But maybe I'm remembering wrong. Anyway, I guess I just don't see the great evil of iTunes, it's worked great for me, and I use it just about every day as a player. Maybe if I did more, like regularly download podcasts or purchase music, or sync with my iPod regularly, I'd be frustrated. I dunno. Cab
1990 325i(s) 2004 325XiT |
no disadvantages. mp3 sound quality is fine for everything unless trying to get some kind of reference quality sound from high quality speakers.
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You aren't remembering wrong. Of course, to each his own, but iTunes certainly isn't "difficult" by any standards. I personally have a library of 30gigs or so, and an iPod that can hold 8gigs. I use Smart Playlists to manage most of the stuff on my iPod, and it works brilliantly. Most people don't take advantage of smart playlists, so here's how it works. iTunes allows for playlists that have conditions. For example, you can create a playlist that will hold all songs played in the last 5 days, and then iTunes will auto-populate the playlist with all music matching that criteria. I have a number of SmartPlaylists that reside on my iPod: 1. All Music rated 4 and 5 stars 2. All music rated 4 and 5 stars, but limited that to 50 songs that were played the least recently. (I love this playlist btw) 3. All music added to my computer in the last week 4. All music added to my computer in the last month And in addition, I have other manual playlists that I pop on and off. However the genius here is that I don't manage my iPod, the Smart Playlists do it for me. You can image that I buy a new CD, and load it onto my computer. Guess what? It gets added automatically. I find an old song that I realize I really like. Rate it 4 or 5 stars and it also gets added. Podcasts are no different. They auto download to your computer like any podcast, but they can also be added to you iPod automatically using a smart playlist. Over the summer I had large spans of time that I was capable of listening to something and paying attention to it, so I have a number of NPR shows loaded up. In addition, since I use an Apple computer (Yes, I am part of at least two elitist groups  ) iTunes is capable of managing all the media on my iPod, not just music. And it can do so using the same smart playlists. I don't know how well this concept gets integrated on the windows side. But, to each his own :-)
Oh yeah, and it's not true that you can have your iPod only synced to one computer at a time, and it'll wipe it if you plug it into another computer. If you want the auto-magic sync abilities, than yes, it has to associate it's self so it knows what is knew, and what isn't (but that is a duh, right?). However you can use an iPod across multiple computers if you want to manage the music manually within iTunes. |
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