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February 10, 2008 - 10:15am
#1
The Real Threat of iPods
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You give me hope...
Rock on!
thanks!
On the notion of rocking on, I like to perform little musical-psychology tests on people to gauge their reaction to music in strange situations. Last night, I put on Metallica's "...And Justice For All" to see how long that would last. Surprisingly, it lasted far longer than any Lil' John song or Petey Pablo song about rump-shaking and asses clapping. I will forever pride myself on getting people to listen to it for about 4 minutes, until someone realized what was actually going on.
Has it occured to you that just maybe your guests just did not like the music you had on your Ipod?
All you have done by using the LP is to force your tastes on them as even with the LP someone did want to change the music too but could not because you would not let them touch the TT.
For the most part at the party, it was not my iPod being used to change the songs. Once I put the LP on, people did not stop dancing, and it actually allowed people to dance for an an entire song. Plus, the dancers would clap when a song was over. A ceremonial tribute instead of some sort of diced and sliced musical masturbation session where if someone can hear 2 minutes of their favorite ass-factory song and then stop dancing about 2 measures into it, it makes them content enough to change it. But then the truth is they weren't happy b/c the songs were being changed. There was always an issue with the song on, whether or not the song was bad. The problem wasn't that people didn't like the music. It was that, once someone felt that they wanted to play a different song (approx. 1-2 minutes into the previous one) they changed it. I only selected the music for the first 30 minutes and the last hour of the party (metallica, roberto roena). I wasn't putting my tastes on anyone until the end. Remember, I went to the roof and as people put on their own stuff. Everyone was carrying their own little music library on them.
On top of that, from the roof, which is right above my apartment, I could both see in and listen in on what was going on, and it was still the same deal of people continuously changing songs and half dancing. I would've loved to put on my Commodores record and just have people boogie, but the musical ADD condition makes people want to change songs. This post is more about how the iPod causes this unnatural need to change the song right when you feel like it, instead of really letting the music sink in--hence why people danced for such short periods of time. The iPod causes a lack of musical absorption as prevented by the instant gratification which it provides.
Changing perfectly good songs after only a minute or two of "listening?"
Are you sure they weren't just a bunch of audiophiles demo-ing the system?
It's HIS party- you provide the space, music, drinks--- you get to choose the music. You'll never please everyone, but a sure way to please NOBODY is let everyone try and jump in and choose their favorites. Never give the power of DJ to the crowd- take requests maybe, but don't hand over the stereo!
This reminds me of a friend that is an Emmy award wining sound engineer.
He sets up a system for his kids' parties whereby they can plug in their iPods. The maximum volume is set and can't be changed (the connection cable goes under the door into his studio's locked door.
The guests plug in their iPods and party. With good amplification and speakers, an iPod can sound pretty good - even with low bit rate eMPty3s. The kids love it, get interested in better sound and have a blast.
I'm just jealous that you have parties where people dig music, and dance!
I like my neighborhood, and the people, but the parties (compared to yours) suck!!!
Party on, dude!
Bill, you are right. Despite my gripes, the party was legendary. Everyone had a good time, and a classmate of mine even confessed to me today that we gave him his first hangover. Now that is a success.
God, a first hangover.
So, it was you?!?
Way to turn it loose, Stephen!
You go!
Yup, I remember my first hangover, my 8th grade homeroom teacher talked so LOUD!
(Not true. Actually, I was still drunk and didn't get the hangover until the next day. He still talked too loud, though.)
Here is the real threat convenience as opposed to fidelity.
Very well stated and you managed to put the entire problem into a 10 word statement. Maybe Apple could use a new slogan for the next generation of iPods:
Convenience Over Fidelity
What I truly don't understand, now that there are iPods with 160GB hard drives, is the iPod's lack of support for the FLAC format. FLAC support, along with a digital output option, would go a long way in making the iPod a higher fidelity device.
FLAC has been slow to catch on in some quarters. It wasn't until last year or two that FLAC files were added as a native format to many professional audio applications, such as mastering software. This surprises me as these programs often recognize literally thirty or so formats.
Perhaps Apple is again working to keep their products separate from the mainstream.
What lossless formats do iPods recognize?
AIFF, ALC, WAV. At least. I might be forgetting one other, but it's not FLAC.
Only ALC as a compressed lossless format?
Yes - to the best of my remembrance. I'll check my iTunes later to confirm.
Thanks.
I don't have an iPod nor have I played with iTunes.
Both must be compellingly easy and appealing to use to have achieved such market penetration.
Yes - I like the iPod/iTunes very much, and clearly so do millions of others.
It's enabled me to enjoy music in places that I didn't get to before. We've had portable music before (e.g., handheld transistor radios, Walkman) and this is another iteration, a good one. In the same way the transistor radio didn't sound as good as the 300 lb. Fisher console, it's about taking the music with you, not nec. about ultimate quality. But the quality is doggone good, and it's nice to not bring a gaggle of CD's along, just put iPod in pocket.
Confirmed - iTunes does AIFF, WAV, & Apple Lossless.
And compressed it does AAC and MP3 - in those, you can select your bitrate, with many choices ranging from 16 kbps to 320 kbps.
I prefer my MP3s at 16 kbps and played through Campbells soup cans connected to 12 gauge kite string.
Old School!
Those kite strings are worth every penny of the $4,000 being charged for them. After all, the inordinate amount of r&d that went into developing kite strings and production costs plus the overhead of running a business justify the price being charged for them.
The iPod and iTunes support Apple Lossless files and while that is good I'd like to have native support for flac (and ape while we're at it) as well.
Why do I desire flac support when there is already a lossless format supported by the iPod? Because flac is much more widely supported than ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) and because you don't need iTunes (I personally can't stand iTunes or it's completely lame, as in totally dumbed down, user interface) to rip a CD to flac. In fact, you can use Exact Audio Copy along with FLAC to get bit prefect copies - not something that you can do with iTunes.
But the single most important reason for preferring flac over alac is that there is no provision within the flac format for DRM (digital rights management), not so with alac or even Windows Media Audio lossless (wma lossless) and DRM is the anti-Christ of digital audio. (I know that statement is a bit "out there" but I don't believe that it does justice to just how bad DRM actually is.)
+1
Ipod will play .flac. You have to install Rockbox--which also gives you other goodies such as equalizers and such. I must say that with my Ipod 5.5. gen that has a Wolfson DAC, using a line out dock to a portable amp driving my Grado cans..it aint to shabby when you're on the road.