No need for iTunes now on Windows

[Agathon]

Stereophile endorsed the ipod. You do know Stereophile magazine, don't you? It can't be bad if those guys liked it (although they have snobbish ideas about formats).

Case closed.

http://www.stereophile.com/budgetcomponents/934/

[Zopperoni]

Stereophile never compared the iPod to any other player.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher

Every single review that compares the two also concludes that the Zen sounds better.

Look: I know you think you're some audiophile, but you're a moron when it comes to anything digital.

MP3 Players are purely digital device, up to the headphone jack. At that point, it's outside of the scope of the player and in the realm of the headphone.

Inside the player, since it is a purely digital system, we can use purely digital metrics such as the Signal-to-Noise ratio to identify how "pure" the sound is. It can be accurately and repeatedly measured for digital devices, and the results are always within the margin of error.

SNR is the predominant quality indicator for a purely digital device.

What about the DAC?

You total ****ing moron. Some techie....

Anyway, for those that care about this sort of thing

http://www.stereophile.com/budgetcomponents/934/index5.html

The iPod's measured behavior is better than many CD players—ironic, considering that most of the time it will be used to play MP3 and AAC files, which will not immediately benefit from such good performance. But if you're willing to trade off maximum playing time against the ability to play uncompressed AIFF or WAV files, the iPod will do an excellent job of decoding them. Excellent, cost-effective audio engineering from an unexpected source.—John Atkinson

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Zopperoni
Stereophile never compared the iPod to any other player.

So? They actually bothered to review it and were reasonably impressed. If audio geeks like them think the ipod is OK, it works for me. Stereophile isn't known as a tolerant magazine.

The fact remains that I have nowhere said that the ipod has superior audio quality to the Zen. I simply don't know, since I haven't listened to both. And I wouldn't be prepared to say until I had.

What I am disputing is Asher's moronic idea that SNR is the sole determinant of audio quality. Given his assertion that everything up to the headphone jack is digital (which surprisingly includes the digital to analogue converter and the resulting analogue signal fed to the output device) I think his level of audio knowledge has been exposed.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Audiogeeks aren't normal though, are they? They don't like music, they like to rub their crotches on the matt-black casing of their Nautilus speakers.

Now I love music. This means that my hearing is so fundamentally buggered by decades of rock'n'roll that I'm incapable of telling the difference between the sound qualities on most products. In fact I'm push to tell the difference between CD and tape.

In short, that's why I have sex occasionally, and buy vinyl (not only to wear).

Thank you.

[Saint Marcus]

WMA is still the best audio codec out there.

Still it isn't nearly as popular as MP3. I hardly know anyone who actually uses WMA instead of MP3. And on all FXP-boards and P2P-networks MP3 collections VASTLY outnumber WMA collections. WMA might be better than MP3, it isn't nearly as popular, or universally supported (as iPod and other players clearly show). MP3 is still the only real and universal standard for music files.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
Audiogeeks aren't normal though, are they? They don't like music, they like to rub their crotches on the matt-black casing of their Nautilus speakers.

I once had a few hours with a pair of Nautilus. Weird looking but nice sound. Not as good as Electrostatic speakers though.

[BustaMike]

Agathon, please explain again why this interface is uglier than your stupid mac one. Not that I even ever use the media library anyway. I'm much more inclined to just right click on the folder I want and choose play.

[Agathon]

If you need to ask.....

[Q Classic]

mp3? wma?

oh, you mean ogg? gotcha.

[Q Classic]

and there's no accounting for taste. i personally don't enjoy itunes' candyland interface, but then again, it's not like i enjoy window's fisherprice look, either.

[Q Classic]

my winamp and xmms both have well over 6500 files to deal with, and they handle it admirably.

as far as sound quality...

if it's good enough to drown out the noise of really loud and revolting amorous relations coming from the dorm room right next door, while not having any staticking at either end of the spectrum, it's good enough for me.

[Q Classic]

and why i don't wan't an ipod.

everybody has them now.

where's the snob appeal, huh? tell me!

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
What I am disputing is Asher's moronic idea that SNR is the sole determinant of audio quality.

I've never said that. I've said SNR is the predominant metric for digital audio quality.

Once again, the philosopher stumbles with a basic argument.

Given his assertion that everything up to the headphone jack is digital (which surprisingly includes the digital to analogue converter and the resulting analogue signal fed to the output device) I think his level of audio knowledge has been exposed.

Actually, you'll find I said:

MP3 Players are purely digital device, up to the headphone jack.

"Up To" != "Up Through".

By the way, DACs are digital circuits, Einstein. I've programmed a driver for one and designed a rudimentary DAC last year, so I think I'm at least somewhat qualified to talk about how it works...

The analogue part is fed to the headphone jack, which I've already said is not digital. But apparently, your reading comprehension skills are not up to snuff.

(Actually, the Zen has dual headphone jacks: digital and analog, though I personally still use the analog jack)

[Asher]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
Still it isn't nearly as popular as MP3. I hardly know anyone who actually uses WMA instead of MP3. And on all FXP-boards and P2P-networks MP3 collections VASTLY outnumber WMA collections. WMA might be better than MP3, it isn't nearly as popular, or universally supported (as iPod and other players clearly show). MP3 is still the only real and universal standard for music files.

What does popularity with users matter? Who can't play WMA files these days?

I think every single portable music player EXCEPT the iPod supports WMA. Even modern DVD players support WMA and MP3 for music playback.

And seeing as how Windows Media was chosen for HD-DVD, I think it'll get even more popular.