Inside the iPod, Past and Present

We mentioned the iPod Shuffle dissection a couple of days ago. Reader UtahSaint writes "Electronic Design have got a neat little article giving non-Apple employees an insight into the makings of the original iPod and the revisions made (on a technical level) with the 2nd and 3rd generation iPods. The third-generation iPod contains two power-management chips from Royal Philips Electronics, a TEA1211 and a PCF50605. The TEA1211 is a dc-dc converter that can switch automatically between step-down and step-up operation in response to changing input voltage. The PCF50605, a single-chip power-management unit (PMU), can adjust power-supply voltages to the lowest thresholds needed for functions in a particular power domain." And finally, sammykrupa writes "PC Mag has a great review of Apple's iPod Shuffle. It covers the quality of the audio output saying that it is has dead-flat frequency response, less harmonic distortion, and most notably, better bass response than its bigger siblings. The older iPods, especially the Mini, have been rightfully criticized for being somewhat deficient in bass, and although the bigger players have flat frequency response, they have trouble sustaining big bass notes."

Comments

Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

iPod Shuffe, no wireless. Less space than a regular iPod. Lame.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll? It's hilarious, it's a paraphrase of our illustrious Taco's first comment on the iPod...

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[spac3manspiff]

It is 200 dollars cheaper. Probably the cheapest, yet useful apple product.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Radius9]

By saying dead-flat frequency response, it means that the IPod is able to play all the audible frequencies at the same volume. Take for example, your typical after-market car stereo. It will tend to have way too much bass, which makes the music sound muddy. And that means it does not have a flat frequency response. With a flat frequency response, if you want it to sound bass heavy, you can adjust the EQ (i.e. turn up the bass), and make it sound that way. On something bass heavy, you have to turn it down just to make it sound normal. That's why it is desired, it means you can accurately play back the audio that was recorded.

Does it really matter?

[Simon (S2)]

The older iPods, especially the Mini, have been rightfully criticized for being somewhat deficient in bass, and although the bigger players have flat frequency response, they have trouble sustaining big bass notes.

The iPod is designed to take with you and hear music on the bus, or while jogging - with headphones. Does it really matter how good the bass is if you listen to it with headphones anyway? I think not.

Re:Does it really matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure it matters, I can just imagine some kid running past *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* Older jogger, "Damn kids!"

Re:Does it really matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get very good bass reproduction in high-end headphones for MUCH cheaper than you can in high-end stereos. Unless you're a rap fan, where it seems the point of bass is to vibrate your rib-cage, high-end headphones can reproduce a wide spectrum of frequencies very well.

Re:Does it really matter?

[Lisandro]

Actually, bass performance is one of the principal things i look for in portable devices when it comes to audio quality. In most music genres, if the bass "ooomph!" is lost the sound becomes lackluster, not to mention that good bass isolates you from outside sounds (for me, at least).

My Sony Minidisc does bass wonderfully, and even compensates a bit for it's limited maximum volume.

Re:Does it really matter?

[radish]

Good head/ear phones can do bass very well. SO if the player can't, then yes, it's a problem.

Re:Does it really matter?

[Lisandro]

Well, that's you. 99% of the i don't want EQ on my music, of any kind, not even a bass cut from a poor output DAC. Classical, metal, rock, and electronic music are all heavy on bass, and it's stuff i listen to most of the time. I don't want poor bass reproduction just like i don't want poor highs or mids.

By the way, if proper bass reproduction (not boombox-thumping bass like) makes you difficult to listen to the rest, your audio gear is poor. And not in the "it's not audiophile! get $1000 wires!" sense of poor.

Re:Does it really matter?

[wfberg]

Good head/ear phones can do bass very well. SO if the player can't, then yes, it's a problem.

Trouble is, the subway you're riding does an even better job at producing bass.

Re:Does it really matter?

[and by]

It's what you want if you're into accurate reproduction of sound. If the response (to input) curve is flat, it means that the output of the system is an accurate reproduction of the input. The curve is along a graph with decibels on the y-axis and frequency along the x-axis.

Re:Does it really matter?

[Ohreally_factor]

if you are listening to classical music on a system that includes a subwoofer, you bought the wrong system

Fuck you, you fucking tuba hater. I hope you get run over by someone carrying a Sousaphone.

=)

Re:Does it really matter?

[alienw]

I'm not saying classical music doesn't have bass, I'm saying that a high-end sound system will not have a subwoofer. Subwoofers are a low-cost compromise between having large speakers with good bass and having small speakers with no bass. The bass a subwoofer produces is almost always muddy, boomy, and mismatched. It's OK if you are listening to hip-hop or movie explosions, it's not OK if you are listening to anything else.

Re:Does it really matter?

[Golias]

You might have missed it, but the iPod can play uncompressed music, and the reviews from the audiophile press for the docked iPod playing AIFF files have been downright giddy.

Re:Does it really matter?

[alienw]

See that biggest speaker at the base of your huge speaker tower? That's pretty much doing the job of a subwoofer.

Wrong. The subwoofer is doing the job of those two speakers. Which means that instead of stereo sound, you get mono sound, for one. I've yet to see a subwoofer system that has good bass imaging. It's got bass, but you can almost always tell that it's coming from the subwoofer and not the speakers. In my experience, the assumption that bass is non-directional does not hold at all for frequencies above about 50Hz. Basically, a subwoofer will ruin any stereo imaging your system had.

Audio design is more of an art-form than an engineering craft.

It's a combination of both. If you don't follow engineering practices, you will never end up with a good speaker. Of course, a properly engineered speaker is not guaranteed to sound good.

I've also heard multi-thousand-dollar towers which sound like shit

Price does not equal quality. In general, any speakers you can buy at Circuit City are not going to sound that great.

I've heard "bookshelf + subwoofer" systems that sound absolutely fantastic when reproducing classical music.

That would be because most classical music does not have a lot of bass. If you listen to music that does, you will probably find it rather muddy.

In classrooms of the future...

[OneOfAKind]

"Eek! How gross! I'm not disecting that iPod!"

Makings of the original iPod?

[Gob Blesh It]

The linked article is interesting from a technical standpoint, but it's also pretty dry--after the lead paragraph, the author doesn't really talk about the sweat and tears behind the scenes. Fortunately, the Times Magazine ran a story (reg-free link) a couple years ago about the human side of iPod, from conception to birth. Turns out the iPod didn't spring whole from the tip of Steve Jobs' magical wang. The article's worth a read if you're into this kind of thing.

Re:Makings of the original iPod?

[NutscrapeSucks]

Apple apparently cornered the market for the Toshiba disks for a while. But now there is, inevitably, an alternative. Hitachi now makes a disk that size

Buried in the article, there was this key fact. Owning all the tiny hard drives on the market for more than a year translated into a long-term perception advantage for Apple -- that iPod == Smallest == Sexiest now and forever.

Had they not had the foresight to monopolize the formfactor, the iPod would have been one of a half-dozen similar models on the market just as it was picking up and it might have been lost in the pack (especially because the early models were firewire only).

Sound Quality

[exquisito]

The point is that the old Ipod headphone preamps didnt't have enough juice to power most headphones properly. What is the hardest frequency to reproduce? The bass. So, even with headphones and the eq turned up, the bass didn't sound as full and punchy as it should have. This was probably the worst flaw sound quality wise. The AAC or MP3 encoding at 128K are virtually indistinguishable from CDs for most listeners, but most listeners can hear the lack of bass. Its like something is missing.

Hard on the batteries

[eclectro]

is a dc-dc converter that can switch automatically between step-down and step-up operation in response to changing input voltage.

Without examining the circuit myself, I could imagine that when the batteries fall below Vcc that the converter switches from step down to step-up to provide additional play time, until the batteries are completely drained.

Maybe someone can confirm/deny this.

Re:Hard on the batteries

[Lisandro]

That's it. In this way you use every bit of charge there's avaiable on your batteries. Which once they fall below the minimum voltage threshold might not be much, but still, it all counts.

huh?

[SuperBanana]

The older iPods, especially the Mini, have been rightfully criticized for being somewhat deficient in bass, and although the bigger players have flat frequency response, they have trouble sustaining big bass notes."

I had a 3rd gen, now I have a 4th gen. Both drove my Grado SR-60 headphones (think Radar from Mash) just fine. In fact- they do a noticeably better job driving them at low frequency than my Powerbook.

Any problems with low frequency response probably have something to do with the fact that, despite the Steve Reality Distortion Field, you cannot get good low-frequency response in a tiny little earplug. You can put marketspeak on your website till the cows come home about Neodymium magnets make 'em better- they're still just tiny earplug speakers.

Re:huh?

[Lisandro]

Actually, there's a lot of earplug headphones that do a very fine work of reproducing bass. Of course, nowhere near a proper headphone set, but you can get a good bass kick from relatively cheap earplugs. I own a pair of el-cheapo TDK earplug spearkes that play metal, electronic and classical music just fine - all heavy-on-bass genres. I can't recall the model right now.

For some reason, a lot of portable devices have poor low frequency response. Most of the time is to save a few bucks in parts - i've seen a lot of onboard sound devices that are capacitor coupled to the output (there's a capacitor between the output and the speaker, which by itself or a few other components determine how low can the output go) with caps that cut the bass way above of what's desirable.

It kinda cements my desire to get an iPod Shuffle

[hattig]

I don't need a massive capacity player, I just want to get my top 100/200 songs ever and carry them with me for those times I'm out.

Not only is it diminuitive, great value (probably because of the lack of screen, but the 1GB Shuffle is £10 cheaper than a 512MB Sony, and £30 cheaper than a 1GB Creative in the UK). but it is actually pretty damn good.

Will this be the first Apple hardware I ever buy? Where will it end?!

Cringely on Mac Mini, iPod, and Apple's plans

[Embedded Geek]

Not directly involving the iPod, but this week's I Cringely has a discussion of how the new Mac Mini may be a move by Apple to get into the movie distribution business, trying to repeat with video the success they've had with the iPod for audio. He has some interesting speculation on synergy from Pixar (which Jobs also controls) and Sony ("...you don't get the head of Sony at your event just to sell camcorders"). Well worth a read.

Hidden iPod Shuffle features?

[Anonymous Coward]

With all of the iPod Shuffle discussion and disections, I am surprised to see that no one has commented on the extra lines in the USB connector.

If you look in the connector, there are five small lines between the main USB lines. (BTW, these are not included in the Shuffle's dock.) There is also NO USB logo's in any of the packaging or documentation.

It looks like Apple may have some secret features up their sleeves.

Re:Hidden iPod Shuffle features?

[jschrier]

Probably no secret features.

Standard USB specifies the existence of hosts (with Type-A connectors) (such as desktop computers) and peripherals (with Type-B connectors) (such as hard drives, cell phones, digital cameras, etc.) Hosts are not supposed to connect to each other, and neither are peripherals.

The USB-To-Go specification was created in order to allow pseudo-peripheral devices to connect to each other (e.g., you might connect your cell phone to camera so that the phone can send the data, even though both of these are peripherals to your Mac). By connecting the fifth pin of the type-B connector to ground, Vcc, or letting it float, you indicate to the other (type-B) device whether you want to act as the host, act as the peripheral, or whether you just behave like a standard USB device.

Coincidentally, most of the mini-B connectors sold these days are 5-pin, because legacy devices can just leave the fifth pin floating. From the manufacturer's point of view, there is no reason to have two types of interchangable items in stock. So my guess is that AAPL bought what was for sale on the market.

--js

I don't care what anyone says

[banky]

"Loud enough to cause hearing damange" is a *feature*.

on simplicity

[weiyuent]

"La perfection est atteinte non quand il ne reste rien à ajouter, mais quand il ne reste rien à enlever." (Perfection is achieved, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away).

-- Antoine St. Exupery (1900-1994)

Re:on simplicity

[LakeSolon]

What the hell... Did you just attribute to GWB a quote by Albert Einstein?

~Lake

Re:Overrated

[Anonymous Coward]

No, form factor is incredibly important. Or do you lug around a PC with Augidy 2 audio inside, and a large UPS, just to get more functionality?

Oddly enough, the iPod Shuffle is cheaper by a mile in the UK. The competitors have done simple $=£ translations, and Apple haven't. Unless you want to listen to idiotic radio shows on radio on your MP3 Player, or record yourself having a fap, the iPod Shuffle is the best value on the market. In the UK at least.

Re:quality of the audio output

[FlipmodePlaya]

I've been listening to iPod fanboys rant about their players' 'superior sound quality' for years. I always replied that the player doesn't really affect the quality of the sound, it's all about the headphones/speakers and recording/compression. Was I wrong? If it's just playing a digital file (which will never wear like a record, and will always be read identically), could one player actually output noticeably different sound than another?

My guess is that even if it could, it wouldn't be by very much. Certainly not enough to influence your purchasing decision, eh?

You hear what you want to hear

[youbiquitous]

I mostly use my 4G iPod connected to a Soundcraft mixing desk, which is connected to a set of Tannoy midfield studio monitors, each of which is powered by a separate beefy power amplifier running in bridged mono mode.

I've compared an .aiff file played back through my computer's rackmounted audio interface (made by MOTU, for those who care, and also connected to the Soundcraft desk) and the same track played back from the iPod. I don't hear a significant difference in bass response. The people who complain about bass must be using 'phones with impedance that doesn't agree with the iPod's headphone jack.

It's not true, u dont need a test, its just not...

[NeedleSurfer]

Dead flat!? I dont believe it, the Telefunken at SNB (a mastering studio in montreal) is the flatest piece of equipment you might come accross and this baby isn't perfect flat, it cost 85000$ originally and required over 50000$ modification to achieve such audio performance.

Dead-flat? I really doubt it, then again PC mag made the call, not Audio-Media, Post or Mix...

Computer mags and websites should sincerly refrain from judging audio... because when they do, a million techno morons go down the street speading bullshit like they know what they talk about, they just repeat lies and since no one even them knows what they are talking about and those geeks have techno credits in other peoples mind, other people start spreading the same bullshit but with the telephone game kicking in (story gets modified each time it is told...), sentences changed to "my friend who studied programming told me that the audio performance of...".

What does this mean?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

although the bigger players have flat frequency response, they have trouble sustaining big bass notes

If the response is flat then by definition it can play back bass notes. This reads more like audiophile verbal diarrhea than something with semantic value.

Re:What does this mean?

[mako1138]

I laughed at that sentence. I was reading audioXpress this morning too, so I've had enough audiophile crap for one day. "The smaller size and lack of screen of the iPod Shuffle dampen vibrations from local electrical fields, enabling full, rich bass. The soundstage was elevated and the individual instruments were amazingly crisp."

two questions

[commodoresloat]

1. Where do you work that you need to use an iPod at work?
2. Are they hiring?

The real huh!

[Humorously_Inept]

The terminology surrounding the sound quality is quite confusing. Namely, suggesting that it is flat but has better bass response or that it is flat but has trouble "sustaining" big bass notes hardly makes sense.

Flat is flat. Either the old players are not flat and deficient in the low frequency spectrum, or the new player is not flat and has some kind of boost. The fact is that when most people hear flat they think, "Where's the bass?"

The article says nothing of the test data, equipment or methodology used to determine just how flat the frequency response is and "critical listening" on some mystery monitors hardly counts as valid.

I suspect that your headphone assertion is correct.

Re:The real huh!

[Woody77]

Yes, and no.

Because frequency response is measured with a purely resistive dummy load. Speakers tend to have wildly varying impedances depending on the frequency, and if the impedance goes low enough, then the driver which has a flat frequency response at high impedances now can no longer push enough current to keep the frequency response flat.

Numerous high-end headphones will try to pull more current than a lot of consumer equipment can push, which is why there are headphone amps (well, that and to add some cross-mixing to help the ears out a bit).

Re:The real huh!

[afidel]

You are correct, the origional iPod was flat or neutral in its frequency response. In fact it got rave reviews from audiophiles for exactly this feature. Unfortunatly most people are used to compressed, bass pumped, overproduced pop and new rock which is made to sound "good" on car stereo's and other cheap systems. If you have good cans and appreciate good music you should love the origional iPod. Of course if you have high resistence headphones the iPod might not be the best pick since it's not terribly high powered.

Re:quality of the audio output

[Hank Reardon]

...it's all about the headphones/speakers and recording/compression...

You forgot one crucial piece in the first part of that: the amplifier stages.

The crappiest set of speakers and headphones will sound much better through a decent preamp and amplifier than the most expensive speakers and headphones will sound through a $19.99, underpowered clearance special.

If, in fact, all media players have identical, real-world response, then you'd be correct. This is seldom the case, though. A lot of manufacturers skimp on the preamp and amplifier stages in audio equipment to save a few bucks because, after all, digital is digital.

Re:quality of the audio output

[BlitzPig_Sal]

There can most certainly be sound quality differences amongst various players. The DAC (digital to analog converter) and the amplifier itself both contribute greatly to how well the output sounds.

Most every portable player anymore uses an integrated chip to perform the MP3 playback and amplification and many players from different brands will use the same chips. The implementation of the circuitry however can still make a significant difference.

But for the really discerning audiophiles, the only way to get decent sound from a portable player is to use an external headphone amp that utilises higher quality components and generally operates at higher supply voltages which helps provide more generous amplifier headroom. There really is a difference and you can hear it readily with better quality headphones.

Good point

[Pan T. Hose]

Obvious Logic: If they don't intend for you to pull it apart, then why do they have all that printing on the inside?

You mean the printed circuit boards? Good point.

Does anyone really care what "we prefer"?

[LoadStar]

From the review of the shuffle:

Still, overall we prefer a player with a navigation window. When we use random play on our personal digital audio player, we often find that it stimulates a musical mood; we'll then switch to a specific playlist or group of albums.

Are we supposed to CARE how you use random play? How you use random play is a personal decision, and should NOT factor into the review or the score you give the product. You might play it that way - others might not.

The review should have been, not on the way they would prefer to use the device, but how well the device works within the parameters it was designed for. That is, it was designed as a small-form random-play digital music player, and it does very well within those parameters.

This would be like reviewing a Kia and mentioning "We tend to drive luxury vehicles like a BMW, and wished that this car was a luxury car instead of an econobox," and scoring it down simply because it wasn't a BMW.

Re:Does anyone really care what "we prefer"?

[i41Overlord]

I think the problem is that other small, low cost players from other manufacturers do include a small screen.

So it woul dbe like comparing the Kia to another econobox that does have features that the Kia is missing.

Re:PC Competition for the Mac mini?

[puetzk]

You can probably come close, but beating it is going to be pretty hard. To match the size is going to take a mini-itx motherboard ($175 or so for an M10000), a 2.5" harddrive ($75 or so for 40G), optical drive ($100 or so for a dvd/cdrw), ram ($40 for 256M). I've now spent $390, still needing a case/PSU (and still larger, albiet only slightly). This is going to be *well* short of the Mac mini in performance, (especially at graphics - unichrome is nowhere near a radeon 9200 mobility), and you still don't get OSX.

If your wife wants a cute little Mac, let her have it :-)

Hacking the iPod Shuffle.

[PopeAlien]

Possible secret features:

solder resistor between lines 2 & 3 - Shuffle grows full color OLED touch-screen!

open Shuffle and cover circuit board with cream cheese, insert in USB slot - $500 USD springs from CD drive!

stick bent paperclip in headphone jack - Steve Jobs comes to your home and cleans your car!

..now thats insanely great!

Re:Related story

[slAckEr Of dOOm]

They obviously expect you to do some pretty strange stuff with it:

In the small print at the bottom of Apple's iPod shuffle page:
#2. Do not eat iPod shuffle.

It's now off the site, but still exists in Google cache: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:z3uW4DuVNvoJ: www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/+ipod+shuffle&hl=en

Re:iVent

[commodoresloat]

Nah, don't return it. Instead, bitch about it on slashdot. I'm sure that will fix the problem.

Re:WRONG

[nuggetman]

I thought it was:

1st gen: Buttons around wheel, mechanical wheel
2nd gen: Buttons around wheel, touch wheel
3rd gen: Separate touch buttons under screen, touch wheel
4th gen: Click wheel

Apple has done it...

[Moustache N Tits]

I really have got to say, I love my iPod Shuffle. Although I played with the idea of selling it on eBay for a quick buck, the $10 was worth it to me to have something this chic. I never expected it that small or light, and it's so simple. I never looked at the screen of my iTunes, and in my car I put it on shuffle and never manually change the song. It works well for me but what's amazing is how popular the thing has been. Just like their big brothers they are getting scooped up left and right. You have to admire a company that can take a 4 year old player, put it in a nice case and have it back ordered for 4 weeks. Now if they would just release a product to compete with Microsoft's Media Center.

Linux incompatible ... so far.

[munner]

Apparently the Shuffle may not be immediately compatible with linux tools already available. Gnupod apparently has trouble copying music to the shuffle.

According to the author of foo_pod for FooBar2000, there's the usual iTunesDB database, but also a new one, called iTunesSD. They haven't been able to completely reverse-engineer this one yet. It turns out it isn't sufficient to simply write to the iTunesDB database -- songs won't play.

Searches on Google show nothing about the iTunesSD database.

Re:It's not true, u dont need a test, its just not

[Chris Johnson]

I'm a mastering engineer and hang out on mastering web boards, and the iPod came up in conversation.
FWIW, a tech heavyweight (trying to remember if it was Bruno Putzeys?) said they'd measured the iPod and got a perfect 10K tone out of the bugger with virtually unmeasurable sidebands.
NOT easy. That outperforms a heck of a lot of high-quality CD players, never mind mp3 portables. iPods apparently have very good tech if you know how to measure them. Jitter is what that 10K tone test measures, and it performed very, very well, I'm told.

Re:It kinda cements my desire to get an iPod Shuff

[CMRichar]

don't do it, it's like a drug addiction...you start with the ipod, and it's great...you get a great buzz, and dont feel any harm...next you decide to see what the OSX experience is all about, so you grab a Mac Mini (with additional RAM, of course)... next thing you know, you're living in a shabby flat in the cheapest part of town with no utilities (save electricity and internet) to help pay for your dual g5 tower of doom. it's a slippery slope.

Re:WRONG

[waynelorentz]

Nope, look at the various images at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod 1st : 4 buttons under screen and wheel below that, 2nd : 4 curved buttons around the wheel, 3rd : 4 buttons under screen and wheel below that, 4th : 4 spots on wheel that act like buttons.

I know it's heresy to say it in Slashdot, but Wikipedia is wrong (again). The picture is mislabeled. However, the text is correct when it says, "The 1G iPod featured four buttons - Menu, Play/Pause, Back, and Forward - arranged around the circumference of the scroll wheel."

A Suggestion

[TefuleHundenDoc]

Grado Labs SR60 and SR80. Both modles can be foundd sub 100 dollars and are some of the finest listening on the planet IMHO.

Low bass on purpose

[digitalgimpus]

Could it be it was done because Apple engineers are sick of hearing someone with rediculus bass driving down the road when they are trying to sleep?

Maybe they did it so they don't have to hear:

thud, thud thud..

every time someone with an iPod comes walking.

If I were a car manufacturer... that would be my motivation for better soundproofing. To stop people from being so annoying.

(it's always sounds like the same damn song too doesn't it?)

Re:Flat frequency response in consumer audio

[ukleafer]

I do not buy that missing out on low and high end thing either

Look at the chart, it's all there - that's how our ears work. We aren't good at hearing lo and hi frequencies, so if we listen to material with a flat response, we perceive the 1kHz-4kHz range as being "louder".

because then we should be going to live performances with EQ-adjustable ears, which we don't.

At live performances, we have engineers whose job it is to equalise the performance material both according to the properties of the venue, and the frequency range of the music itself. Live sound is a very different case to portable audio and the two aren't really comparable.

Besides, most music does happen within that 1kHz-4kHz range

I'm sorry, but that's completely wrong. Vocals fall into that range, as do the fundamentals and initial harmonics of a few instruments, but since that range is relatively small (the best of us can hear everything between 20Hz and 22kHz, as well as the fact that frequencies outside our audible range can combine with those that are within range and have a very audible effect), there is more than enough material falling outside that range for us to palm it off as "accompaniment". Think about your average band setup - vocals, guitar, bass guitar, drums. The guitar will spend some time in the lo freq ranges, the bass will be there 100% of the time, and the kick drum likewise. Above 4kHz we've got the rest of the guitar work, and most of the drum kit. Try setting up a graphic EQ in the music player of your choice, attenuate everything outside 1k-4k and see how it sounds. Now come back and tell me that most music "happens within that range" it's simply not true.

Music does sounds livelier and closer to the source without EQ

A very broad and naiive statement, and again one that is completely untrue. Do you think when you listen to your favourite album that no EQ has gone into the production of it all? By the time sounds hit the recording medium, they'll have gone through at least two EQ processors, and that's before mastering. At the user end, true, most people see a GEQ and twiggle around with the sliders and then realise "Hey, I've cocked it all up", but if you use it properly and actively pick out frequency ranges in the material you're listening to and adjust accordingly (minor adjustments, nothing ridiculous), you can very effectively tune your setup to your own personal tastes, making tracks sound a lot livelier.

"Sync with iTunes" is all the functionality I need

[mrchaotica]

See, that's the thing -- I want a Shuffle because for me, it actually has more useful functionality than any other player. Here are my priorities in choosing a music player, in order of importance:

1. Syncs with iTunes
2. Cost
3. Battery life
4. Ogg (Vorbis and FLAC) support)
5. Usability (easy access to "shuffle play" function)
6. Expandable storage (SD or CF)
7. Does NOT support Windows Media
8. Extra features like voice recording, radio, etc.
9. Low size/weight

As you can see, only iPods satisfy priority 1, and the Shuffle satisfies priorities 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9 better than just about anything else as well. The only other player that comes close to competing, for me, is the Frontier Labs NexIA -- it uses CF cards and has zero internal storage, so it satisfies priorities ~2, 3, ~5, 6, 7(?), 8, and ~9 (the ~ means that it's okay, but not as good as the Shuffle). It's not quite good enough, though, since it doesn't sync with iTunes.

Now, if the NexIA supported Ogg that would be enough to beat the Shuffle, but I've emailed the company about it and the strongest answer I've managed to get is "maybe eventually." Contrast this with the strong possibility that Tiger's iTunes will support it (which means the iPod should as well), and there's no longer any doubt -- the Shuffle is the clear winner.

It's kind of sad, really, because I'd like to have removable storage, but being able to use the thing is more important.

My mini sounds pretty great

[sjonke]

Since when is PCMag an audiophile magazine? I'm no audiophile either, but the last thing I would have thought about my mini is that it had poor bass response. If anything, when listening with my headphones (admittedly inexpensive, but well rated Koss phones) there might be a bit too much bass, but I blame that on the headphones, not the mini.

In any case, mostly I listen, not via headphones, but via line-out hooked up to the car stereo. My car stereo isn't great and the car listening environment is inherently sucky, but it doesn't suck with the iPod any more than with CD. And that's my glowing review of the iPod mini.

Re:Look ma, I'm a consultant!

[mveloso]

That's silly, really, since Apple's the one that designed the UI. Synaptics had nothing to do with it. I'm sure one major problem of Apple's was beating the "simplicity" concept into the Synaptics engineer's heads.

Mini + iTunes = Apple's HD TiVo

[mveloso]

One thing Cringely forgot is that people love to download past episodes of TV shows and watch them again. I do that all the time with BitTorrent.

I'm sure there'd be a subset of people willing to buy the current season of 24, Lost, Housewives, or American Idol and play it on their TV anytime - and burn it to disc.

HD Movies? Who cares. Today's TV shows? Sure! At a dollar an episode, why the heck not? It comes out to be cheaper than the DVD. Fans'll buy the DVD anyway, because of the extras.

Who knows whether this'll happen or not. But the box is just sitting there, waiting to be plugged into your TV.

Power management

[line.at.infinity]

One thing I liked about the iPod mini over my Rio Volt MP3 CD player is - besides the fact that it fits in a pocket - power management. Amazingly, the Volt would crash if you plugged in the DC power cord, so you'd have to restart the player. When I plug in the DC power cord into my iPod, on the other hand, the power indicator icon changes, and that's all -- the audio still plays smoothly, no crashing involved. The iPod just works.

Re:It kinda cements my desire to get an iPod Shuff

[lsmeg]

Once you have a taste of good hardware/software intigration..you can't go back.

Didn't you read Apple's site on the iPod? It said specifically, "Do not eat iPod Shuffle."