Sound, format and a few (MP3) players...
As promise this post will deal with music on the go and, since the to go hand in hand, the formats I use to encode my music collection. The following chronicle will be cuasi-chronological.
The oldest MP3 player I own is a first generation iPod nano. 4 Gbs of music (give or take) that mostly fulfills the role of exercise sound machine. For this iPod I have a set of Sennheiser OMX70 sport headphones very resilient headphones. They have been able to withstand sweat for prolonged periods of time (2 hours) as well as rain. The 1G nano had the best form factor for these players IMHO. The only downside I have found in the (4) years I have own it is the 4 Gb capacity.
Of course this wasn't my first MP3 player, that honor goes to the Creative NOMAD. Back in the day (2003) I had a lot of good features: a media manager (Windows), external memory, ran on a single AAA battery and FM radio. The headphones were reasonably comfortable. But then, I "switch" to mac when I got a beautiful iMac G4 (the nomad died somewhen during the transition)
.
After playing with Mac OS X (I think I got 10.2) I decided to stick with iTunes for my music management. So next came my first iPod, an iPod 3G with 40 Gbs HD. For a few years this was more than enough to hold all of my music. During that time I sticked to the regular white Apple earbuds. I know this is the lowest possible quality but I was happy with them. When the 3G died I got the nano.
What the nano lacked (for me, at least) was space. I wanted my whole library in my pocket, so to speak. So, six months after buying the nano I got a 5G iPod with 80 Gbs HD (also called 5.5G or enhanced). I also started to track my running with the Nike+ system, making my nano a dedicated sports audio system. Most of the earphones mentioned in the previous post have been use with these two ipods.
The nano has run with me about 2068 miles, suffer one battery change but it still rocks!
When the iPhone came out I wanted one and on March 2008 I got my shining new iPhone (the so called 2G). I count this iPhone as part of my mp3 players because I use it frequently to listen/watch podcasts. And movies.
Lastly, out of curiosity for the new thing, I got an iPod shuffle 3G. I love the form factor for this thing and it is the best for going to the gym. It is also perfect for those days when you are not sure what list/album you want to listen to. Just shuffle and get some track that you might have forgotten and let it be rediscovered!
So, that's it. My music on the go is played on an iPod. Consequently, the format I use the most is MP3, followed by AAC and I keep a (very) few CD, super CDs and vinyl LPs in FLAC.
MP3 and AAC used to be no brainers: I encoded a few songs at different bitrates (say, 128, 168, 320) and played them blindly. I couldn't tell them apart. So, just to be on the safe side, I encoded most everything in 168 mp3. Later, I started experimenting with AAC but sticked to 320 kbps.
After getting a neat AMP from headroom.com and my Shure SE530 from Amazon I experimented again with the AAC 128, 320 and also with FLAC at 16bit/44.1kHz. I failed to notice any difference bewteen FLAC and AAC 320 but I think that 128 was lacking. So, most of this year I have been encoding my music in AAC 320. I keep a FLAC back up of my CDs but I don't play them in my iPods since the files are to big and, for the 5G, memory buffer is not enough.
I have to add that I did try the same comparison with another (non Apple) mp3 player, the Sansa Fuze. I was surprised to find that this player ($80, if you need to know) let me distinguish the FLAC from the AACs 8 out of 10 times. For the sake of clarity I was playing 10 songs in AAC (128 or 320) and FLAC. FLAC is clearly superior in the Fuze player. Sadly, you cannot use iTunes with it. Considering that my music library is about 14000 songs in size I don't think I'll be changing to another manager or Windows any time soon.
There are mods out there that are capable of improving the iPod 5G quality (the iMod, for one) but at the moment is too much of an investment for me. I'll stick to my 320 kbps AACs for a while
On a side note, I discovered that very few portable players can reproduce 24bit/96kHz FLAC tracks. One such player is the vaunted Hifiman but with a price tag of $800 and no Mac specific compatability is way out of reach (for a review/comparison check Headfonia). BTW, there ARE a few websites that sell 24bit/96kHz FLAC tracks in case you are interested here is one, HDtracks.
The oldest MP3 player I own is a first generation iPod nano. 4 Gbs of music (give or take) that mostly fulfills the role of exercise sound machine. For this iPod I have a set of Sennheiser OMX70 sport headphones very resilient headphones. They have been able to withstand sweat for prolonged periods of time (2 hours) as well as rain. The 1G nano had the best form factor for these players IMHO. The only downside I have found in the (4) years I have own it is the 4 Gb capacity.
Of course this wasn't my first MP3 player, that honor goes to the Creative NOMAD. Back in the day (2003) I had a lot of good features: a media manager (Windows), external memory, ran on a single AAA battery and FM radio. The headphones were reasonably comfortable. But then, I "switch" to mac when I got a beautiful iMac G4 (the nomad died somewhen during the transition)
.
After playing with Mac OS X (I think I got 10.2) I decided to stick with iTunes for my music management. So next came my first iPod, an iPod 3G with 40 Gbs HD. For a few years this was more than enough to hold all of my music. During that time I sticked to the regular white Apple earbuds. I know this is the lowest possible quality but I was happy with them. When the 3G died I got the nano.
What the nano lacked (for me, at least) was space. I wanted my whole library in my pocket, so to speak. So, six months after buying the nano I got a 5G iPod with 80 Gbs HD (also called 5.5G or enhanced). I also started to track my running with the Nike+ system, making my nano a dedicated sports audio system. Most of the earphones mentioned in the previous post have been use with these two ipods.
The nano has run with me about 2068 miles, suffer one battery change but it still rocks!
When the iPhone came out I wanted one and on March 2008 I got my shining new iPhone (the so called 2G). I count this iPhone as part of my mp3 players because I use it frequently to listen/watch podcasts. And movies.
Lastly, out of curiosity for the new thing, I got an iPod shuffle 3G. I love the form factor for this thing and it is the best for going to the gym. It is also perfect for those days when you are not sure what list/album you want to listen to. Just shuffle and get some track that you might have forgotten and let it be rediscovered!
So, that's it. My music on the go is played on an iPod. Consequently, the format I use the most is MP3, followed by AAC and I keep a (very) few CD, super CDs and vinyl LPs in FLAC.
MP3 and AAC used to be no brainers: I encoded a few songs at different bitrates (say, 128, 168, 320) and played them blindly. I couldn't tell them apart. So, just to be on the safe side, I encoded most everything in 168 mp3. Later, I started experimenting with AAC but sticked to 320 kbps.
After getting a neat AMP from headroom.com and my Shure SE530 from Amazon I experimented again with the AAC 128, 320 and also with FLAC at 16bit/44.1kHz. I failed to notice any difference bewteen FLAC and AAC 320 but I think that 128 was lacking. So, most of this year I have been encoding my music in AAC 320. I keep a FLAC back up of my CDs but I don't play them in my iPods since the files are to big and, for the 5G, memory buffer is not enough.
I have to add that I did try the same comparison with another (non Apple) mp3 player, the Sansa Fuze. I was surprised to find that this player ($80, if you need to know) let me distinguish the FLAC from the AACs 8 out of 10 times. For the sake of clarity I was playing 10 songs in AAC (128 or 320) and FLAC. FLAC is clearly superior in the Fuze player. Sadly, you cannot use iTunes with it. Considering that my music library is about 14000 songs in size I don't think I'll be changing to another manager or Windows any time soon.
There are mods out there that are capable of improving the iPod 5G quality (the iMod, for one) but at the moment is too much of an investment for me. I'll stick to my 320 kbps AACs for a while
On a side note, I discovered that very few portable players can reproduce 24bit/96kHz FLAC tracks. One such player is the vaunted Hifiman but with a price tag of $800 and no Mac specific compatability is way out of reach (for a review/comparison check Headfonia). BTW, there ARE a few websites that sell 24bit/96kHz FLAC tracks in case you are interested here is one, HDtracks.
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