Digital Audio Players

iPods are not limited to downloads from iTunes online.

That being said, I bought a Creative Labs Jukebox Zen Xtra 40GB
on sale since the new 60GB models are out now.

 

Ipods are the way to go, depeneding on how much music you think you need it will be the Nano or just the regular size. I wouldnt even bother with Itunes for your music, download a program like Limewire and you can get unlimited music for no $$$ and transfer that music onto your Ipod with just a double click.

If you want, you can send me a PM and I will tell you all the little things.

 

Go with an ipod. Apple is way ahead of everyone else in design and user interface.

 

I say Ipod i have 2 and could'nt live without them they have the best design,interface,batt life and i use and like itunes.

 

I"ve been an MP3 junkie since the Rio MP3 player came on the market many years ago. Nothing can touch the iPod for useability, and I feel it's well worth the premium Apple commands over the competition. I've played with many players, and they are all a joke compared to the iPod. Of course, YMMV.

I like iTunes as a music manager program. It's easy to use and works well. I don't use the iTunes music service as I prefer to have my music source remain uncompressed audio (ie. CD's). So I buy a CD, and immediately rip it and download it to my iPod. I don't like the idea of paying 2/3 the price of a CD for MP3's, which aren't as good a quality as a CD. Who knows - sometime in the future there may emerge a better "standard" for compressed audio, which I can always re-encode using the master CD's.

-steve

 

how do you transfer that music from limewire to ipod with a double click? I just bite and ordered an 60gig ipod video from apple. first one for me !!

 

Great choice if you are going to use limewire you use itunes for file mangment and drag and drop your mp3 from file to ipod. interface in itunes is very simple

 

I've been using WinMX. Is Limewire the same? Better? Significantly different ?

 

I've never used it sorry but limewire is pretty good i have no complaints

 

Its simple, First: Download the program "Limewire" Then....

1.Make Itunes your computers default audio player

2.After you have downloaded a song, open up the "shared" folder that is in the Limewire library

3. You will see all the music files as they are on the computer, just double click that song and it will open up into your Itunes. Plug in the USB adapter and its on your Ipod!

I have over 900+ songs on my Ipod Mini, and not one has been payed for. I guess you could say I am a pirate,but with Itunes charging $1 every song I wouldnt want to look back and say..."wow...I paid over $900 just to listen to music?!"

Limewires great, it doesnt generate two tons of pop-ups like Kazaa or Morpheus and its very simple to use.

 

The way one manipulates the iPod is far easier than other players. The scroll wheel and buttons are very intuitive. This is important when there is over 1000 songs to navigate. It's also well built and a very nice design. The competition (except for an upcoming Sony) is very flimsy and appears to be cheaply made in China. The iPod, I'm sure, is also cheaply made in China but you'd never know it.

I'll tell you right now, you do NOT want to have to push buttons to scroll through menus or through your song lists. The scroll wheel is the way to go. Creative have a scroll strip, but you have to lift your finger to keep scrolling, which is a bit of a pain.

There are other ways to download music to the iPod, like Ephpod, but iTunes is a decent enough piece of software that it shouldn't annoy most people into using something else.

While the iPod is under warranty, getting the thing repaired is easy. Call up tech support, or fill out the form on Apple's web site. They overnight a box to you, with a mailing label. Pack the iPod in the box and drop it off at DHL. You'll get it fixed or a new one in about 3 days.

I would go to an electronics store and look at a few including the iPod. You'll see the difference. Sound quality is about the same on all players. We are talking MP3's here, which will not sound as good as uncompressed 16bit audio. Most people use cheapie headphone or earplugs, so wouldn't pick up much difference in players as the headphones will be the limitation. I personally would also buy a nicer set of headphones or earbuds. I use Etymotic when I want to blot out external noise, and Grado Labs when the room is quiet. I also think Koss Port-a-pro's are very fine headphones for the money (less than $50), and I use these at work.

-steve

 

I think that anything you download from iTunes will only plan on an iPod, but an iPod will play songs you get from iTunes as well as other sources. I just downloaded two songs for my daughter the other day from iTunes and then she couldn't play them on her Rio mp3 player because they were *.m4a files instead of *.mp3 files. iTunes of course would play them just fine.

The only way to get them to play on her Rio would have been for me to download a program or two to convert them to the mp3 format. Instead, frankly, what I did was use another P2P program (WinMX) to download the same two tunes which loaded just fine onto her Rio. Either way, I paid for the songs, so as far as I'm concerned, they're perfectly legit.

 

If you don't mind me asking, how do your musical tastes run ? What kind of music were you looking for that you couldn't find on iTunes ?

 

You should separate iTunes the software from iTunes the music service. iTunes, the software will allow you to convert any CD into MP3, as well as download any MP3 to your iPod. You are free to use any other software to obtain your MP3's, and use iTunes to download them. If you have a CD collection to put into your player, then iTunes will do that just fine. If you have no music currently, then you'll have to find whatever source you feel comfortable with to obtain the music. You can use iTunes to maintain this collection of MP3's, and to download them to the iPod. Every player pretty much works this way nowadays.

-steve

 

Yeah - that's obscure alright! Do you already have this on CD, or can it be found on CD? If it isn't already in a digitized format like CD, then you won't find it online either. The source for MP3's is typically CD. If you have a collection of this stuff on vinyl, then you may need to convert it to CD or MP3 yourself.

-steve

 

Apple makes great products, but they are sure proud of them.
I have a recording studio full of Mac computers, and I did buy my son an iPod a few years back when they were the only game in town.
But when I went shopping for portable audio for myself, the Zen Xtra that I purchased was substantially lower priced than the iPod with the same size HD and similar features.
With the difference in price, I was able to buy a very nice set of earbuds.