opinion sound quality ipod/cd's

haemphyst wrote: Not to mention what compression artifacts do to bass frequencies.

Well hell, I'll ask it-- What do compression artifacts do to bass frequencies?

They get "furry". What used to be nice, fast, attacks become loose, flabby, lose articulation. Mid-bass transients go out the window, too. SO MANY bad things happen when compressing music like that... A fantastic example: The Wallflowers, Bringing Down the Horse. Play a WAV file or a lossless version of track one - One Headlight. This is one track that will beat the shiite out of your midbass drivers, I guarantee it. Play it LOUD. GREAT transient track, with a ridiculously fast and deep kick drum. You should feel this one, it's not a "listen to" track - a DRIVING song. Now compress it... What the hell, go to 128K. Listen again. You'll hear the difference, pretty much immediately.It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

I know Microsoft makes billions...yet they can't even make a simple Zune software that works and is user friendly. I can't even change the details for the songs like the artists or song titles...I have to use another program for that. I know on iTunes it's easy to do everything.

aznboi3644 wrote: I know on iTunes it's easy to do everything.

Except what YOU want to do. It's easy to "everything" as long as it fits Steve Jobs' idea of "fair use". It's a POS. Use other software. Free, secure, stable, manipulable... Any or all of the above... There are other answers to iTunes.It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

haemphyst wrote: What used to be nice, fast.....become loose, flabby

Story of my life........

sedate wrote: I can't hear the difference between mp3's @ 128kbps and a CD. 192kbps and a CD are sonically indistinguishable formats. No stereo - installed a CAR of all places - could possibly articulate these differences . . .

Not everybody can hear the difference, and more power to you. You won't have to spend money upgrading your audio systems in your car, home, office, etc because of it. Good for you. Some people however, and I'm guessing the vast majority of the long time users of this forum, can absolutely hear the difference. Quit spreading your opinion as fact. 128 vs CD is easy, 192 vs CD starts to blur the line, but it's still there. Not always as easy to detect, but it's kind of like wine tasting. Some people can taste what kind of wood the wine was stored in, while others just enjoy whites or reds. As for the iPod, absolutely go for a lossless, first generation rip. That is, rip straight from your CDs instead of converting whatever you might have already. If you start with an mp3 and then convert it to AAC, it will still sound like junk. "Garbage in, garbage out". And stay away from iTunes, it's best advice any iPod user could have. -JustinMalcom: "This is the captain. We have a...little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode."

Jayne: "We're gonna explode? I don't wanna explode.

Well, for those of you that absolutely need to use something with a piece of fruit on it, try RockBox. Solid program. Encode at 320 or better yet FLAC, or straight WAV. I will stick to MTP players.... they all use Windows Media for an interface, don't care what computer they are connected to, and moving files on and off is a breeze. The one I happen to have (Creative Zen) supports whatever you can play in WMP, and Audible book format, and .MP4 (oddly enough). It is awful nice that Apple has convinced the masses that their product is the best..... marketing is a powerful thing........Wherever I go, that is where I end up......

I use my iPod and iTunes everything ripped in Apple Lossless and it sounds more than fine.  But hey, do whatever floats yer boat.Support the12volt.com

I hate Itunes and have been looking for a replacement so I will try your suggestions guys. One question though, when I swithc programs do I have to reformat my Ipod and reload all the music or can I keep whats on there? I mean I guess for best sound I would want to dump it anyways. Also do these programs allow me to load video as well as audio or only audio. Thanksdouble-secret reverse-osmosis speaker-cone-induced high-level interference distortion, Its a killer