Maerj wrote:awallaceunc wrote:Well, my CD player recently broke. I usually use iTunes or my iPod, though, or listen to the radio (which I hate, but still listen to- go figure).
Lately, I've been listening to a lot of Maroon 5, Ben Kweller, Jason Mraz, Amy Grant, Frank Sinatra, and Mariah Carey. I almost always have a random song playing, though. On the AG Fan Club, we have sort of a tradition of posting what's playing right now in small letters at the bottom of your post (as will be demonstrated at the bottom of this post). Perhaps everyone would like to do that here?
Eleanor Rigby - Aretha Franklin
-Aaron
Can you tell us more about the iPod? Are they worth it? Can you just rip MP3's of CDs that you already own, then download them to the player? They seem pretty expensive, but are they worth it?
Yes, they are totally worth it. To use iPod, you need a program called iTunes. It's better on Macs, but they finally made it available for Windows, too.
If you aren't familiar with iTunes, it's free software made by Apple that imports music (whether it be CD you are ripping, a media file you imported or downloaded, what have you) and converts files like .wma to .mp3. It is also a music library, you can make playlists and all that good stuff and play all your music through the program. It's got an equalizer and all those sorts of things, and of course, it also burns CDs for you. (Some other cool features include auto-generated playlists and all sorts of automatic sorting that you can choose). It's infinitely superior to Windows Media Player.
There's also the Apple iTunes Music Store. You've probably heard of this. It lets you buy music at $0.99/track right out of your iTunes browser. It's a whole store, and they just added a massive Disney section. The songs you buy are in Apple Lossless form, which is apparently one step up from .mp3 (not too sure about the details of that).
So then the iPod comes into play. You just open up iTunes and plug iPod into your computer (through iLink/Firwire or USB). Your iPod pops up in iTunes just like it was another playlist. You can expand it and create playlists-within-playlists. Then, to add a song to it, you just drag it from iTunes to your iPod. It copies over in a matter of seconds. You can also set it to automatically import all new songs and playlists everytime you plug it up to your computer. Anything you've ripped, imported, downloaded, or bought can be copied over onto the iPod. (Sometimes a file won't work, and I haven't yet figured out why, but that's only happened once or twice).
Once the songs are on the iPod, surfing is easy. The playlists are set up just like iTunes is, and scrolling and maneuvering is fairly easy. It also lets you browse by artist, album, etc. The audio quality is grade-A, and some great mini-ear plugs are included.
I picked up one of those $10 cassette player converters at Best Buy. I just plug it into my iPod and put the tape in the cassette player in my car, and the audio sounds great. I don't even use my car's CD player anymore. Just don't get too distracted by your iPod while you're driving, lol. (Also, make sure you put your iPod's audio level on half-way, and then adjust audio on your car). You have thousands of songs at your fingertips, on the go. The only frustrating part is deciding what to play. (There are also converters for your car that use FM radio instead of the cassette player. I bought one and it didn't work well at all- very staticy- so I had to take it back and get the cassette player adapter). They have more expensive adapters that also charge your iPod while you go, or you can buy the iPod adapter seperately.
They are extremely portable. I just slip it in my pocket and go. A word of warning, though. I had to learn the hard-way that without the $30+ slip-cover, they scratch VERY easily, so don't put it in your pocket along with your car keys.
Another great thing about the iPod is that it's a harddrive. You can store ANYTHING on it (for example, if you get a 15 gig iPod, which is what I have, you can store 15 gigs of computer files on it, regardless of whether it's music). It sure beats a zip disk.
You can get iPods in all sorts of sizes. Mine holds 3,700 songs (appx, based on average song length and size). If you want audiobooks on there, that number will of course go down some. It's very easy to add & delete to your iPod, so just load up what you want for the time. The battery life is 8.5 hours when fully charged. I don't know if that increases with the bigger models or not.
Is 3,700 songs enough? All in all, I'd say yes. I have a ton of music, so of course not all of it fits. But when am I ever going to listen to 3700 songs in one setting, anyways? I can't even remember what all is on there now. You might want more songs on there just in case you ever get the whim to listen, but then, you'll pay more money, too. That's certainly more than you'll get out of a regular MP3 player or a Discman. And iPod's don't skip when you're mowing the grass or on bumpy road or jogging, and think of all the CDs you won't have to lug around, and how much easier it is to get to a song with a full menu screen.
Hopefully that answered your question. Sorry for the long reply. If you want to know any more, just ask.
-Aaron
I listened to t.A.T.u. - 200 km/h In The Wrong Lane before that. 
I have a normal mp3 player, but I don't really use it anymore, it uses too much batteries. I mean I have to put in new batteries EVERY DAY! It's kinda a waste of money when I could be buying Disney DVD's 
I put my mp3's on CD, so I like CD's again 
Like I said before - most of those I don't even listen to anymore, and some of my more recent stuff has been burned into custom discs. 34 of those 55 turned out to be soundtracks, too. I had 4 CDs that weren't even on the database - so I killed some time submitting them. ~_^
