iPod or MP3? It shouldn't be this hard...

[solomr2]

Well, after weeks of careful consideration I still can't decide if I should get an iPod for my HT setup or just a regular, good ole MP3 player.

The iPod seems to be everywhere now, with all sorts of gear and gadgets to go with it, from car accessories to HT docks. Even my new Pioneer Elite VSX-84TXSi receiver comes with an iPod dock.

My biggest concern is that iPod, to me, not only looks inferior on paper, but sounds inferior also. The bit rates through iTunes is limited, even on the highest setting, and they don't seem to support variable bit rate. Whenever I get a new CD I always rip it using the Windows media player on the highest setting with variable bit. Although this takes a fair bit of disk space, I have an external 160GB HDD just for this purpose. CD ripped in this format sound very nearly as good as the CD itself, or at least I can't tell the difference. But on iPod I can hear some clipping (or maybe it's just my imagination). Even the iTunes software seems overly bulky and less intuitive to use.

So, this is the dilema. If I buy an iPod I can find almost any kind of accessory or gadget I will ever need (and many I will never need). If I get something like the Sandisk Sensa or one of the other common mp3 devices, I fear I won't be able to interface it with my home theater gear and will regret getting it.

What are you guys doing?

 

[farscaper]

Sorry, but I got both. Pathetic, I know.
I bought a used Ipod cheap and bought a Palm handheld, for work .
The Palm is easily the better of the two, if your talking audio quality.
The headphones is the biggest issue. My opinion is that both players suck without the right headphones.

 

[jonnythan]

I have an iPod and it works beautifully. Best MP3 player on the market IMO.

Rip to MP3 using CDex or another LAME-based encoder. There's no need at all to use iTunes as your encoder.

 

[skizzerflake]

My opinion is that media players (I Pods and all their imitators) are great for portable music in noisy places but MP3 and any other lossy compressed format just doesn't satisfy when played through decent speakers in a reasonably quiet listening environment. Some codecs are worse than others but none are in any way comparable to non-lossy sound or real analog sound. The upshot is to select a player based on features.

All mp3 players have a mini-plug output that can be connected to a line-in on any receiver or preamp, so compatibility is a non-issue if you can live with using the player's controls. I'm currently using a Creative Zen player, mainly because I want to be able to record some FM programs and it has an FM receiver with a record capability, as well as a microphone that can record. I can plug it into any component in the house. Don't believe the Apple propaganda that they have the only cool gadgets. It's a great ad campaign but not good information.

 

[solomr2]

My opinion is that media players (I Pods and all their imitators) are great for portable music in noisy places but MP3 and any other lossy compressed format just doesn't satisfy when played through decent speakers in a reasonably quiet listening environment. Some codecs are worse than others but none are in any way comparable to non-lossy sound or real analog sound. The upshot is to select a player based on features.

All mp3 players have a mini-plug output that can be connected to a line-in on any receiver or preamp, so compatibility is a non-issue if you can live with using the player's controls. I'm currently using a Creative Zen player, mainly because I want to be able to record some FM programs and it has an FM receiver with a record capability, as well as a microphone that can record. I can plug it into any component in the house. Don't believe the Apple propaganda that they have the only cool gadgets. It's a great ad campaign but not good information.

Mini plug may be useful for sound only integration, but docking capability with full controls and display integration seems to be limited to iPod.

At the moment I have an iRiver mp3 device, which has FM and recording too, but has little capacity for large mp3 recordings. I only use it for listening to FM while I ride my bike.

I can also just plug my entire laptop into the receiver through a mini plug and get the v-bit sound out through my HT gear. But this is cumbersome.

What other devices besides iPod have good aftermarket support with accessories and gadgets?

 

[Seth=L]

Creative is suposed to be better quality than iPod in the SQ department.

 

[Geno]

I'm on the road and on planes most of the week,so I use MP3s quite a bit. I had both Archos and Creative players which sounded fine, but their user interfaces were really annoying and inconvenient. Being a contrarian, I usually avoid the biggest sellers, but in this case, I caved and bought the 30G Ipod. IMHO, no one else has a user interface that's as cool and easy to use. The sound quality is what you make it. I don't use iTunes downloads, since I have a large CD collection, so I just burn them at 256VBR. The sound quality is quite good through my Etymotic ER-4 earphones. As for after-market accessories, you sure can't argue that iPod is the 800-pound gorilla in that market, but I see quite a bit of stuff now for Zune and Creative. You can't ignore the fact that iPod has 80 - 90% of the market.

 

[Hi Ho]

I have a Creative Zen MicroPhoto and I love it. The sound quality is excellent when connected to my system or when using headphones. I just ordered a pair of Sennheiser CX300S IEM's to see how they work out for an upcoming plane trip to Arizona.

I chose the Creative player because I didn't want to be tied to Itunes. I am a Napster subscriber and it doesn't work with the Ipod. Nearly all of the music services use WMA which the Ipod does not support. I still buy CD's mostly but if there are just a couple songs I want from an album It's much cheaper and quicker just to download them. The user interface is similar to the Ipod except that the touch sensetive pad is straight up and down instead of a circle. It works great though. The other really nice thing is that the battery is easily replacable, like a cell phone battery. The back pops off and you swap out the battery. You can't do that with an Ipod.

I bought my dad a Zen Vplus for Christmas and it is a really nice little player to. I bought it for him because of it's ability to do line-in recordings at 160KB/s. He likes to record his band practices using a mini mixer and large condenser mics. I must say that the recording capabilities are very impressive. I recorded one of their shows straight from the sound board recently and I can't believe that recording came from a device the size of a cell phone battery. Both players have an OLED screen which is really nice as well. It uses very little power and is very bright and easy to read. They can do total black too.

 

[skizzerflake]

Creative is suposed to be better quality than iPod in the SQ department.

The sound quality is heavily related to the headset. I was not too impressed with the cheap earbuds that came with the CZ but with some decent headphones the sound is as good as MP3 can be. There's no way I would use any mp3 player for "serious" listening but for walking around and noisy environments, it's pretty good. It's a great thing to have on light rail rides to work.

 

[skizzerflake]

Mini plug may be useful for sound only integration, but docking capability with full controls and display integration seems to be limited to iPod.....
What other devices besides iPod have good aftermarket support with accessories and gadgets?

I have not seen any devices that have the integration that Ipods have for other units. I guess that Ipods outselling the others at least 10 to 1 has something to say about that. When I plug in my CZ, I am generally listening to a ripped CD, recorded FM program or a playlist, so I don't really need controls integrated in the other gadget. I just use the controls on the player. The biggest single feature I like about the CZ is its ability to record FM programs. I don't know about other players, but Ipods don't have this.

 

[Pwner_2130]

For me, iPods just don't cut it. as far as listening to my tunes at home, I have my ps3 (with thousands of 320kbps mp3s on it) hooked up to my Sony STR-dg 800 through an optical line, and my PC connected to the Sony amp as well. the two sound great

 

[flyv65]

I've got a 30gb Creative Zen and an 80gb iPod...after living with both, I gave the CZ to my wife. Sound quality is what you make of it, based on recorded format and earphones, and in my opinion, there is no appreciable difference on a plane, train, or bus between either one of the decks using decent earphones (I have Shure e3c earphones); the Apple lossless format is possibly as good as the CD it's burned from when passed to the prepro through the docking station, and the iPod isn't hindered by the most counter-intuitive user interface to ever have come down the pike.

Bryan...no contest: get the iPod...

 

[mr-ben]

My biggest concern is that iPod, to me, not only looks inferior on paper, but sounds inferior also. The bit rates through iTunes is limited, even on the highest setting, and they don't seem to support variable bit rate.

What are you guys doing?

I personally don't have a portable player. I do listen to a lot of music at work though. I ripped all my CDs to an external drive in the FLAC format, and I listen through headphones on my laptop.

My understanding of the iPod is that it's pretty decent hardware, and perhaps what you are describing as "clipping" is the MP3 compression. I don't know what bit rates iTunes supports as far as ripping your own CDs in the MP3 format, but the iPod supports Apple's lossless format, which you may like much better. Try it out if you have a friend who will let you. Apple seems to be moving towards providing some music in a higher quality format, but this may be at the mercy of the studios: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html Even if you don't like the iTunes interface, I imagine it's better than most of the others available and will probably get better with time.

 

[joebob]

Get the ipod. Replace the firmware with Rockbox (free). Then, you can play any file format you want on it. Good times.

 

[solomr2]

Get the ipod. Replace the firmware with Rockbox (free). Then, you can play any file format you want on it. Good times.

Do you have any links to Rockbox and how to do this?

 

[joebob]

Do you have any links to Rockbox and how to do this?

It's all here, my friend.

http://www.rockbox.org/

Most of these players have very annoying interfaces because they cater to people who have trouble booting up their computers. Please post the outcome when you decide what to get.

 

[jonnythan]

I do not like Rockbox. The interface is ugly, the battery life is worse, and it doesn't support the 80GB iPod or the 2nd generation iPod Nano.

 

[Sounds Good]

i have a zune and i love it...

for one i dont like using itunes i really like WMP and like someone else said, everytime i get a cd i rip it to my PC using WMP. i rip it to windows media audio pro at 192kbps a whole cd is about 10 -30mb less than if i used mp3 and the quailty is suposed to be ALOT better..

with the zune i use the home theater dock and it comes with a remote, and when you turn on the video option on the zune it will display the zune screen on what ever you have it hooked to... it works out nicley... i highly recommend it....