Hi Eric,
I would be surprised if anybody actually used an ipod for video and
the ability to deafen oneself on headphones was widely practised
decades before the ipod on student stereo rigs the world over.
I have done a fair bit of sound quality evaluation of portables and
codecs because music is a passion of mine (way more so than
photography) and I travel the world a lot so my listening
opportunities are often only on planes. There are plenty of
shortcomings with portables, particularly the demand for smaller and
smaller players with more and more battery life. The headphone amps
suffer - the first ipod is the best in this area. MP3 is pretty crap
but its shortcomings are apparently inaudible to 90% at 192kbs. Ugh.
Lossless is good in my domestic situation but probably a waste of
disc space in the poor environment of an aircraft, MP4 a good
compromise. I still haven't fixed on a final spec, I will test the
same music with 4 different rip specs on my flight to China next
week. Good sound isolating phones with moulded earpieces are a big
gain - but dearer than the ipod. One of the best features of the ipod
is that it can play back a useful range of codecs.
I would not dream of wandering the streets or sitting on a bus or
train with an ipod but I use it on most flights. It has been a big
improvement on the portable CDs and tape walkmen that preceded it. In
the current security climate I would not even be able to take my
music with me if it was not for the ipod!
Frank
On 17 Sep, 2006, at 17:22, Eric Goldstein wrote:
Frank Dernie wrote:obviously our priorities differ! I travel all over the world for my work (about 60 flights a year) and am a music lover. The ipod is absolutely the best thing that has happened to my travelling in 30 years! I pre-ordered the original as soon as it was announced and it is still going strong. The walkman was a great breakthrough but the ipod does it so small. I also now have a larger capacity one too. It has been a delight to own a piece of microprocessor controlled domestic equipment with an intelligent intuitive user interface. None of the Japanese mass market have managed it, be it programming a VCR or changing the settings on a digicam! My daughter bought a Sony mp3 player in a burst of "anti hype" - nicely made unit - not as good in any other way.
Frank
The flip side of the iPod (audio or video) is a gross dumbing down of fidelity, mixes that only sound decent on headphones, visual content that only looks good on the small screen, and an epidemic of substantial hearing loss... these are not trivial downsides...
Eric Goldstein --- Rollei List
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