Calling all audiophiles

[Cort Haus]

You don't need a hundred grand system to hear the difference. I have an EMU1212 card and a pair of Blue Sky monitors and 128K sounds thin.

[Zoid]

Is that dowloaded Mp3´s or own rips?

[DanS]

I can hear the difference with my $1k system. For some music, the loss is more than acceptable. For some jazz, it probably isn't acceptable.

In any event, FakeBoris brings up a good point. You can compress lossless in some formats. At 15 albums per DVD, that would really cut down on the mass involved.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by MRT144


while true, buying a 300+ gigabyte drive isnt a cheap proposition

Define "cheap".

[MRT144]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk


Define "cheap".

umm free ripping vs buying a new drive?

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Interesting input. Now, a couple more questions:

1) Am I right in assuming that, in mp3 format, the conversion is something like 1 minute of music = 1 mb? So 500 cds, containing probably 50 minutes of music each (on average), would take up approximately 25 gigs?

2) Ditch the stereo...and buy what? I probably should have mentioned that we mostly listen to music in our living room, while the computer is in the study (and moving a computer to the living room would be verboten). Plus, we entertain, sometimes professionally (the whole diplomat thing) so whatever is playing music has to be attractive, or at least unobtrusive. Are there such options?

3) The wife is not terribly techno-savvy, and I suspect would resist having her favorites in the CD collection converted to mp3s. She understands cd players, and they're good enough for her. Is there some kind of hybrid cd+mp3 thing out there? Aside from a pc, that is?

In response to #2:

On the high end, there are "media" pcs that are designed to blend in with home entertainment setups -- they look for all the world like a high-end receiver.

On the low end, buy a headphone jack - to - AV patch cable ($10 in most places), pick a free pair of input jack on your system, and plug it in. When you need music, load your mp3 player with the playlist of your choice, plug it into the system using that dangling headphone jack, and let rip.

[The Mad Monk]

DVD blanks are free?

[MRT144]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
DVD blanks are free?

stop pretending to be dumb

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Sikander


Oops, rereading this it seems you must be talking about a broadband type product rather than the local FM thing that my neice uses on her Ipod. Feel free to ignore the original message below.

http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/

Worth a look. If you don't want to pay Apple's price, you can probably find something else that does the same thing.

My advice would be to buy a Mac Mini, and then buy one of these

http://www.123macmini.com/news/story/326.html

You can hook the Mini up to your TV and use Front Row to access all your music. You can rip to Apple Lossless which should give you good quality audio and then cable or Airport Express to your amplifier line in.

http://www.apple.com/macmini/frontrow.html

Oh... and the kicker is that you can also access any iTunes music on any other computer on your local network without any set up at all by means of Bonjour sharing.

If your TV allows you to switch between inputs, then you just switch to the mini when you want to play music and use the Apple remote to play it.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by MRT144


while true, buying a 300+ gigabyte drive isnt a cheap proposition

$100 usd.

Try to keep up.

[Jon Miller]

yeah, I was amazed at how cheap it has gotten

of course, I don't really need the space right now

JM

[Zoid]

Originally posted by DanS
I can hear the difference with my $1k system. For some music, the loss is more than acceptable. For some jazz, it probably isn't acceptable.

In any event, FakeBoris brings up a good point. You can compress lossless in some formats. At 15 albums per DVD, that would really cut down on the mass involved.

My point is that Mp3´s isn´t something you sit down and listen to in a concentrated fashion, but more when you´re doing other things like sitting in front of the computer, doing the dishes or drink beer with your friends. And looking at Rufus situation, ie a less than perfect setup and a life "on the road" I´d say Mp3´s would suit him quite good. 128k is a good balance between performance loss and size, but 192k even better of course. Then there´s other forms of compression, but Mp3 is a standard that works with every conceivable form of playback equipment.

[SlowwHand]

New hdd are down to about 50 cents a gb, if you shop around.

[MRT144]

Originally posted by notyoueither


$100 usd.

Try to keep up.

cheaper than free ripping?

[SlowwHand]

How do you manage to rip free? Get from the library?