Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Apple iPod reviewed by Stereophile

Just found a full review article for the Apple iPod in the latest issue of the Stereophile magazine. Here is the concluding remarks by John Atkinson, who did all the measurements:

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.

Indeed, iPod review in an unexpected place!

Do you have one yet, sushi? They're grrrrrrreaaat!

I have two. HAHAHA...

I bought the very original one at the local Apple Store the day it was released. My wife and 16-year-old use it now. I recently bought the brand new one, too. It doubles as a portable FireWire hard drive for me, shuttling large files between work and home.

So handy, those things. Did you use HHMI or personal funds for that "portable FireWire hard drive" ?

BWAHAHAHA... We are smart people, aren't we?

It's a shame that 61" plasma monitor is not portable. (Yes, it finally arrived last week.)

I'll have to take a picture of that beast and post it here soon.

They're definitely the best MP3 player out there but they carry a serious price premium because of that. Dell is actually readying a competitor that, while not nearly as attractive, will offer a rumored 15-20GB in the same size for $150. I'm REALLY hoping this causes Apple to face some price pressures but Apple doesn't tend to think in those terms.

What it really needs is Flac or Ape compatibility.

Flac or Ape? Whazzat, then?

Yeah, the iPod has been out for, what, 2 years now? I am curious as to why other manufacturers have been so slow to really catch up with them in terms of ergonomics and refinement. We all know that Apple was by no means the first one to come up with a HD-based portable player -- in fact, I owned the original Creative Nomad Jukebox player before I jumped on to the first iPod.

How about those Apple LCD montor. Breautiful! The PC version look all the same.

Formac monitors also are nice to look at.

Lossless compression formats.

http://flac.sourceforge.net/
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

They're attractive but the response time blows so they wouldn't work if you have any interest in gaming.

but monkeys aren't apes! (says the guy with a degree in Anthropology)

A pet peeve of my own, but I didn't name the audio format. The three letter extension to files encoded using Monkey's Audio is .ape.

Apple has the 20GB Windows Ipod refurb for $269 still in stock.

Here

Frank

Thanks Frank....that is SO tempting!

I almost pulled the plug on the 10 gig for $169 when they had them but decided against it. I don't have the need for another mobile MP3 player at this time.

Frank

I no longer have a portable MP3 player, so I am trying to justify getting another one.

For those of you that don't read Ars (hopefully few), Apple launched iTMS for Windows today along with iTunes for the PC. Some of how it treats the system is bizarre and they break away from Windows conventions in unnecessary ways, but iTunes has always been, in my opinion, the best at managing a large library. I look forward to playing with it more. For those of you using an iPod on Windows, it iTunes should provide a great way to sync.

The usual Ars discussion on the matter:
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=174096756&m=3850907095