Time To Eat Crow

Well, I am man enough to admit when I am wrong. And folks, I was wrong about the iPod. Two key events in the past few weeks caused me to start copying my CD collection this weekend using the Apple lossless codec. Once that is finished, I’ll be purchasing a 60 GB iPod Photo.

What caused such a transformation? My parents purchased an iPod 1GB Shuffle for my oldest daughter (birthday present) and I was very impressed with the design. Sure, it feels like a memory stick with audio controls, but the little device looks nice. I visited my local Best Buy and re-examined the iPod (after my many month use of the Creative Zen XTRA) to find that I really liked how the device worked and felt compared to the Zen.

The second and final nail in my Zen XTRA’s coffin came when I discovered that the geniuses at Creative decided than the Zen would not work with any lossless codec except for WAV files. The sound quality, even at 320 Kb realaudio AAC, just isn’t up to my standards for compressed audio files. I can particularly tell the difference on any bass heavy tunes. I thought I would just re-record my CDs in lossless format, suffer with my Zen’s poor design, and life would be good. No such luck.

It’s off to Best Buy in a couple of weeks with my hat in hand to eat a big old plate of crow and join the iPod revolution. Very late, but late is better than never in this instance.

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5 thoughts on “Time To Eat Crow”

  1. Sweet Jesus, we have a convert! Welcome to the revolution. There is no turning back now.

    One suggestion – Best Buy sucks; get your iPod somewhere else.

  2. Hmm, I don’t know if using Apple Lossless is so great. It would probably hurt battery life because the cache would have to be cycled more often due to bigger files. I forget the details but when people use the Airport Express, which streams your iTunes music to your stereo, I think it streams the ALE files.

    Also, there may be one last refresh before the Holidays so they may put out an 80 gigger.

    I sold my Shuffle last week. Liked the size but the problem is that when I would load it up with new music, I missed the screen to learn the track names. So I just ended up using my iPod Mini instead. Plus the rumors talked about a Mini with a color screen using flash RAM. Well that is what the iPod Nano is.

    Not ready to buy the Nano yet. Would like more capacity so maybe a second generation Nano in a few months will do the trick.

  3. I’m more interested in the audio quality as opposed to battery life, so I’ll live with it. If Apple releases an 80 GB iPod, I’ll be very, very happy.

    Yea, I will shop a bit, but I think my picture is in Best Buy as world’s best customer or something liek that since I purchase so much from them. Of course, I haven’t had the same problems you’ve had Jonathan,

  4. I used to buy all kinds of junk at Best Buy when I was in ATL seven years ago. I have a nasty story about one of their interest free deals (8-9 years ago). Needless to say I stopped using them. I really needed an iPod 40GB before a trip to the UK last year, and Best Buy was the only store in town that had one in stock. I guess the rest of the story is pretty well documented. Maybe the management just sucks in the Columbus location …

    My wife really wants a Nano, and I really need something smaller for exercise – the photo is pretty big on an arm band when jogging.

  5. My wife has accumlated a gozillion Best Buy points while procuring office electronics (4 big screen TVs!?! How I love financial services companies). "My" iPod will be purchased next, so I need to make a decision on what model to grab. Recommendations will be appreciated.

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