iPod 20Gb ipod or 30Gb Photo?

[student_trap]

Hey,

I am gonna buy a mac and ipod some time in the next couple of weeks and while im sorted on which mac to buy (12in powerbook), im unsure of which ipod to buy.

My music collection is pretty large (about 175 albums), and i want to have some space to grow. So will 20 gigs be enough?

Also, i am unsure at what bit rate i should record at, because i'm a bit of a music geek and like my tunes to sound as they should!!!! i question 128kbps because i found listening to mp3's ripped at this quality to be inferior to the CD they were ripped from. so what quality would be best for CD or almost CD quality, and so, which ipod would be best for me?

Thanks for any help you can give!

 

[apple2991]

My music collection is pretty large (about 175 albums), and i want to have some space to grow. So will 20 gigs be enough?

Assuming there are 12 songs on an average album, that is approximately 2100 songs you will have on your iPod. The 20 gig iPod can hold about 5000 of an average file size (3-5mb).

Also, i am unsure at what bit rate i should record at, because i'm a bit of a music geek and like my tunes to sound as they should!!!! i question 128kbps because i found listening to mp3's ripped at this quality to be inferior to the CD they were ripped from. so what quality would be best for CD or almost CD quality, and so, which ipod would be best for me?

Any encoding is *technically* going to be inferior to the CD from which it was ripped. Remember that you can rip at up to 320kbps mp3s which will have much better quality than the 128s. 192kbps mp3s should be fine--the human ear really can't discern much difference past that (except for many "audiophiles" who enjoy lying to themselves).

However, there are always WAV, Apple lossless, and AIFF. These files will be MUCH larger, however, and if you hope to fit your collection on anything at these file sizes, look into the 60gig Photo iPod.

 

[scem0]

I'd go for the iPod photo. It is only 50 bucks more, you get a color screen, more capability, and 10 extra GB. Plus, if you have connections to a college student (at pretty much any college) the price goes down to $319 with the edu. discount.

Good Luck,

scem0

 

[feakbeak]

I'd go for the 30 GB iPod photo. I bought my iPod when I had about 12 GB of music and now I'm starting to get up around 16 GB. The actual capacity of the 20 GB is actually like 18 and some change after you consider the 1000^3 to 1024^3 marketing crap. Besides if you are at all interested in the photo capabilities in the future you would already have it. The color screen is nice for the album art too. Plus, it's only $50 more - go for it!

As for encoding I agree with you 128 kbps MP3 is pretty bad when compared to CD. Whatever bitrate you decide to go with I would strongly recommend using AAC instead of MP3 - the quality difference is significant. If you need to play these songs through other programs other than iTunes or other music players than you are stuck with MP3 unfortunately. But both AAC and WMA are much better than MP3. It took a while, but converting my library was worth it for me. 128 AAC trounces 192 MP3 and even 320 MP3.

When it comes to bitrate, I'm going to have to disagree with apple2991. I think there are a lot of people who can discern between 192 and 320 kbps if they were to actively listen while using good equipment. I rip all my music in 128 kbps AAC and if I'm using the iPod pack-in phones or listening in my car via iTrip I wouldn't be able to tell the difference in quality. However, on my home stereo or when using my Grado SR-125's with my iPod I can tell the difference between 192 and 320. I've tried, my library used to be 192 kbps MP3 and I did some listening tests of AAC and MP3 at various bitrates before re-ripping my entire CD collection. I had to be actively listening with good equipment to notice, so I agree the difference is not huge. For me the file sizes didn't warrant using anything above 128 kbps, but it all depends on how you listen, what equipment you have and how much you value music quality. For most, I agree anything above 192 kbps is not necessary - but that's not say the difference is inaudible to the human ear.

 

[James Philp]

20GB iPod : $299: $14.94 per GB
30GB Photo: $349: $11.63 per GB
60GB Photo: $449: $7.48 per GB

Add in the color screen, photo abilities etc. there is no contest.
This kinda data makes you really think about going for the 60GB - "Value For Money" option ($0.03 Per songs opposed to 0.05 Per song (30GB) or 0.06 for 20GB.
From this kind of reasoning, the 60GB iPod has twice as "value" than the 20GB (+color, photo etc)

P.S. (512MB shuffle - $198 per Gig (but you could work that out in your head!)

 

[James Philp]

Any encoding is *technically* going to be inferior to the CD from which it was ripped. Remember that you can rip at up to 320kbps mp3s which will have much better quality than the 128s. 192kbps mp3s should be fine--the human ear really can't discern much difference past that (except for many "audiophiles" who enjoy lying to themselves).

However, there are always WAV, Apple lossless, and AIFF. These files will be MUCH larger, however, and if you hope to fit your collection on anything at these file sizes, look into the 60gig Photo iPod.

You missed out AAC, the iTunes default, which is BETTER than mp3.
mp3 @ 190KBps ~= AAC @ 128KBps (50% reduction in file size)
AAC at 128 is good for most things, If you are an audiophile (like me) you may wanna go higher. I own a pair of Grado SR80's and Shure E3cs to liten on, and AAC 128 sounds good on both of these. The only time when the codec breaks down (it seems to me) is when a track has been encoded elsewhere, by someone else. With iTunes encoding (make sure the "use error correction when importing from cd" is on) 128 is generally good.
For a real conservative job, go for 192AAC (or higher if you listen to a lot of classical)

 

[student_trap]

Thanks everyone for getting back to me. i Think that i will probably go for the photo, although maybe it would be best to get the powerbook first, rip all of my CD's and see how much space they take up!

As a final note, i have a fairly large collection of vintage vinyl and would like to listen to them on the move. Is there any way that you can record them to listen to on an ipod? And furthermore, if this is possible would the albums sound as they should do? (collectors will know what i mean)

Thankyou again

 

[pingin]

AAC is the way to go

I don't really have anything to add except to chime in with the other posters on AAC. There is no comparison between 128kbps AAC and 128kbps MP3. AAC even at 128kbps sounds great plus it will save you a lot of disk space. Unless you have a good reason for wanting to go with MP3, stick with AAC
Assuming you do this, then that should take you up to about 8 or 9 GB depending on the size of the album. As a rule of thumb, I found that an average album takes up 50Mb.
hope this helps,
pingin