What's on your I-Pod/MP3 player? (1 Viewer)

[LarryDavenport]

I just ordered a 20GB Gateway Jukebox (DMP-X20 20GB Jukebox Player) and it says it holds 5000-8000 songs (depending on format).

This is my first foray into MP3 players and I was wondering how other users of sililiar products use them. I have 2500 CDS so obviously I can't store my entire collection (nor would I want to).

 

[cwhite]

I have a 20gig iPod and it has about 2200 songs on it. It could hold more if I used greater data compression. I use it in my car and work everyday.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

My new 20GB Karma (have been meaning to post review here, haven't had time yet) has 2,270 songs on it, and it has 5GB remaining. Most of my stuff is alt-preset MP3. I'll have to delete some non-favorite acts before too long to make room.

 

[LarryDavenport]

Is it pretty close to CD-quality sound or am I expecting too much?

 

[Michael St. Clair]

In my opinion, over Koss KSC-35 headphones, MP3 alt-preset is very close to CD quality. Good enough for me.

 

[LarryDavenport]

I was also hoping you guys would share examples of playlists.

 

[ChrisP]

You want a list of all 6500 songs?

I've got about 35 GB on my 40BG iPod, with a wide variety from my cd collection .
582 Artists, 505 albums (plus a bunch of single tracks)
Everything from A Perfect Circle, Alison Krauss, Allman Brothers and Aphex Twin to Wu Tang Clan, XTC and Zero 7.

Now my big problem is having to decide what to listen to.

 

[Dave Johnson]

i lump my playlists into major categories, i.e., classical 1 & 2 (2 is for multiple track pieces - turn off shuffle play), jazz, blues, books, kids (barney, veggie tales), holiday, wife (amy grant, etc.), and the rest goes under "dave" (rock, indie, etc.)

occasionally i'll make a smaller mix such as:

mellon collie and the infinite sadness (smashing pumpkins)
between the bars (elliott smith)
stravinsky (the forms)
let it fall (sean watkins)
angeles (elliot smith)
the king of carrott flowers pt.1 (neutral milk hotel)
redemption song (bob marley)
seek up (dave matthews)
the tower that ate people (peter gabriel - live)
two-headed boy pt.2 (neutral milk hotel)
turn of the century (yes)
can-utility and the coastliners (genesis)
summa v.1991 for strings (arvo part)
more than this (peter gabriel)

 

[LarryDavenport]

Thanks Dave. Those are suggestions I can use.

 

[Angelo.M]

Michael: so, you finally bit the bullet and got the Karma! Awaiting your review.

I have 2 iPods, a Mini (4 GB) and a G3 (15 GB). Everything is encoded as .mp3 using CDex/Lame's -alt preset standard (VBR).

A sampling of albums on my G3:

• The Band : The Band and Music from Big Pink
• Dylan : Blood on the Tracks, Blonde on Blonde and Bringing it all Back Home
• Springsteen : Nebraska, The Rising and Greetings from Asbury Park
• Beatles : White Album, Abbey Road, Let it Be and Revolver
• Led Zep : II and IV
• Billy Bragg/Wilco : Mermaid Avenue
• Ryan Adams : Gold and Demolition
• Radiohead : OK Computer and The Bends and a few tracks from Kid A and Amnesiac
• The Smiths : The Queen is Dead
• U2 : The Unforgettable Fire, War and B-sides
• Mark Knopfler : Sailing to Philadelphia and The Ragpicker's Dream
• Miles Davis : Live at the Plugged Nickel (Highlights), Kind of Blue, Birth of the Cool
• Dave Brubeck : Take Five
• Yo-Yo Ma : Bach Cello Concertos
• White Stripes : Elephant
• VU : VU and Nico, White Light/White Heat
• Chemical Brothers : Dig Your Own Hole (for running)
• Beth Orton : Central Reservation, Trailer Park
• REM : Life's Rich Pageant, Automatic for the People and Fables of the Reconstruction
• Peter Gabriel : So and a few tracks from Us
• The Who : Who's Next
• Talking Heads : Stop Making Sense, Little Creatures and Remain in Light
• Rush : Hold Your Fire, Power Windows, Moving Pictures, Signals

There's also stuff by Earth, Wind and Fire, Parliament/Funkadelic, Prince, Johnny Cash, Beethoven, Pavarotti, Keith Jarrett, Liz Story, not to mention the "Guilty Pleasure '80s" folder, including the Cult, Depeche Mode, Tesla, the Cure, INXS and other stuff. All kinds of stuff here.

 

[LarryDavenport]

Roughly, how many minutes will a 20GB drive hold in CD-quality sound?

 

[Garrett Lundy]

I have a 10gig iPod that has my entire (small) collection on it.

1132 songs. (3.2 days of straight music) encoded in Apples proprietary AAC format, and it takes up 4.5 GIGs. (The entire radio broadcast of Orson Welles War Of The Worlds probably is taking a good chunk of space :p) )

In a car or on headphones I am unable to tell the difference between MP3/AAC and a CD. Only when I have my full home system with real speakers and no road noise is the difference noticable. And even then it isn't great.

Thus, the 20-Gig model should hold 12 straight days of music.

To get a sample playlist look for "VH1's Top 100 One-Hit Wonders" on Google, I have re-created the show on my iPod and have even added a few more 1 Hit wonders since then, and is at 136 titles.

 

[Thomas Newton]

CD-quality sound would take 10 MB per minute, 750 MB per full-length (75-minute) CD album, for WAV or AIFF format. A 20 GB HD would hold about 26 full-length CDs' worth of WAV/AIFF files (2,000 minutes' worth).

The latest QuickTime/iTunes/iPod software is supposed to have an option for lossless compression. That gives you maybe 2:1 over AIFF.

 

[LarryDavenport]

So you are saying I'll get 32 hours of music while another guy told me I'd get 10 days worth. That's a mighty big discrepency. My G4 at work has 665 songs (2.2 days) and only takes up 3GB of space. Is the Mac compression format that much better than PC?

BTW I got the Gateway player because I had a gift certificate.

 

[Brian L]

A friend and I seem to be getting about 60% of the original size with lossless, although that will surely vary with content.

FTR, my iPod has 1534 songs, 166 albums, and used 16.2 gig out of 40 (well really, you don't get the full 40; I think it was about 37 available out of the box). All at 320K AAC, although there is one CD I ripped using the new lossless compression, just for yucks.

Pretty much all genres but country and classical, mostly rock, hard rock, metal, alternative rock, grunge rock....oh crap, lets just call it ROCK.

FWIW, iPod is the coolest piece of technology I have purchased. Ever.

BGL

 

[Brian L]

Its not the format (AAC vs. MP3) but the bit rate (128K, vs. 192K, vs. 320K, etc.).

Every user needs to make there own judgement, weighing size vs. sound quality. I have a lot of space, and I am fussy about SQ, so I rip as 320K AAC. I am sure 320K MP3 would sound as good, and I may not be able to tell if I ripped at lower rates, but I just don't feel the need to reduce file size just yet.

At the rate I am going, I will run out of CDs I want ripped before I run out of space on my iPod.

BGL

 

[Pamela]

I have a 30GB iPod loaded with 2600 songs, ripped at 192 AAC. That's about 14GB.

My collection is eclectic, with a lot of AAA music, some 70s stuff, a little R&B, and some songs I just would never admit to owning! My iPod is named, "The PoogiePod." I have playlists, like RadioPoogie, which is 7 hours of my favorite music. There aren't any radio stations I like to listen to in L.A., so this is my substitute. I listen to this in the car ( I had a head unit installed in my car that has an RCA jack on the front for easy connectivity) and at home on my stereo. I have a playlist of upbeat music, and an exercise playlist, which is a lot of dance music. And there's even a mellow playlist.

I also make playlists for my favorite TV shows (that have great music featured on them). For example, I have an "Ed" playlist, featuring songs by Yo La Tengo, Ron Sexsmith, Marshall Crenshaw, The Juliana Theory, Aimee Mann, etc.—all songs that appeared on episodes of the show. These are fun playlists to make.

Beware! This can be addictive. Have fun with your new toy, and let us know how you like it.

 

[Angelo.M]

As Brian wrote, it's not a Mac/PC issue, it's a compression rate issue. Everyone is searching for the most economical bitrate at which .mp3/.aac/.wma/.ogg (whatever) becomes "transparent;" that is, indistinguishable from CD. Some, of course, argue that no compression format achieves this, and that something is always lost.

Nevertheless, I find variable bit rate .mp3 to be the best compromise between size and quality, and that's why I rip and encode using CDex/Lame's -alt preset standard, which produces variable bit rate files that, to my ear, sound as good as 320 kbps constant bit rate .mp3 files and which take up less space.

The best way to approach this is to experiment with tracks that you are familiar with, and see what you can live with.

 

[GlennH]

Larry, did you buy that player on closeout? Cause I just read a news post at dapreview.com today that Gateway has pulled the plug on this product. Meaning no future firmware updates, I would guess? There's also a review of the player there.

As for me, still no MP3 player. But I'm interested and have been researching. What I'd like is something like the hard-drive Rio Karma, but with FM/voice recording features like the iRiver flash players. All at under $250.

 

[Michael Pineo]

I have the Dell 20 GB Digital Jukebox. At 192K I have around 2000 songs loaded so far and about 5.6 GB of space left. I mostly listen to it in the car, or doing yard work and I can't hear any difference between the MP3s and the original CDs (although I imagine I would in a more controlled listening environment).

Apart from a playlist for each album, I have a playlist for each artist/group, a couple of driving playlists (mostly heavier more aggressive music like Pantera, Disturbed, etc.), a 'mellow mix' for when I am in more of a Bread/Jewel/Carpenters/Enya mood, and a playlist of all instrumentals.

I have to agree that these little jukeboxes are some of the coolest technology I have invested in. I haven't listened to this much music since I was a teenager

MikeP