iPod or Zen?

A fifth generation iPod with Rockbox installed is where it's at, in my opinion.

I've heard some of the iRiver products are very, very good as well. Some of them also have Rockbox builds made for them.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

For the record I have dropped my iPod multiple times, and it has yet to break. Also, installing Rockbox lowered the noise floor significantly. I can turn the volume almost all the way up without hearing any hiss at all, and there isn't any hiss whatsoever at normal listening volumes. Although batterly life is somewhat shortened with the iPod version of Rockbox, it has been lengthened with other builds for other players. We're (that is, the audiophile community) hoping that future builds will actually improve iPod battery life.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Mucknuggle

What is Rockbox?

It is a replacement OS for the iPod (And others). It has all sorts of nice features, like file-tree based browsing, a 5-band fully parametric equalizer, support for OGG, FLAC, Wavepack, and MPC files, a really nice crossfeed effect, fully skinnable with themes, and a lot more.

You also don't have to use iTunes anymore (yes!). Just create the directory on your iPod and drag the files there. That is the primary reason I installed Rockbox on my iPod. I have always hated iTunes and the ID3-tag based navigation system that the iPod uses. Now, I can organize my files exactly the way I want them. That, and the MPC support. (Most of my own music is encoded in MPC.)

The only real drawback is that battery life is a bit lower than it normally would be, but I haven't had any problems, and I am confident this will be fixed as new builds are released.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by RABicle

You want to indiviually move and keep your music
organised? Why?

Because I have a system. I have been using that system for nearly a decade. It works, and I like it, and I want to use the same system with my DAP. Everything is organized in folders just the way I like it, and I'd like to have the same organization on the go, thank you. I want to be in control, and not at the mercy of somebody else's system.

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What are we even talking about audio quality here? Remind me again, we are talking about listening to compressed digital audio, outside with shitty little headphones right?

Nope. We're talking about listening to un or barely compressed audio using $300 noise-isolating in-ear monitors. I don't know what kind of listening you do, if you can even really call it listening.

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I can't even tell the difference between a 128kbps AAC file or a vinyl record. A mate of mine who's pretty much the biggest music buff I know listens to everything as 80kbps mp3.

I bet he can't tell the difference because listening to music with the stock iPod earbuds all the time damaged his hearing beyond repair.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

My taste in music is supreme, ( ) with many different and varied genres represented on my iPod, but this thread isn't for discussing musical tastes.

Oh, and I'm not rich.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Tsk, tsk, remember the new GFF Mission Statement...

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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My argument is taht player X having a higher SNR (whatever that is) than player Y is pointless becuase we're all listening to music that has been digitised, compressed, played through a consumer electronic device with shoddy ear bud speakers in a noisy environment like a bus. Sound quality is meaningless.

But this argument is blatantly false, because this isn't true for everyone. Some of us go to the trouble of using lossless codecs for our music, and we even buy special devices like line out cables (to bypass most of the internal circuitry of the player) and headphone amplifiers (to drive high-impedence headphones) and high-end in-ear headphones. (For isolation and quality sound reproduction.) Some of these headphones can block as much as 40dB of outside noise. Perfect for listening on a bus. In fact, I used them for that very purpose when I went to Panama City with my church. We love music and want to have the best portable music listening experience possible.

By the way, SNR means "Signal-to-Noise Ratio", and it refers to the ratio of signal (your music) to the background noise generated by the device itself. Every electronic device, by its very nature, generates a certain amount of intrinsic noise. This is called its noise floor. The goal is to get the noise floor as low as possible, and the signal as high as possible, without clipping it.

FELIPE NO

The shuffle requires iTunes. That being said, it would be pointless to have a directory structure for your files when using a device where you can't actually select the song you want. You can set it to play music in suffle mode or in order, and you can go forward and back, but that's it. You couldn't just change directories and go to a different album.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

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I still have yet to see a single justification for how someone organizes music in folders that isn't possible with ID3 tag organization.

Because it simply isn't?

Here is how I like to organize my music:

My iPod's root directory is my top-level domain. And then everything is organized like this:

Mp3\Genre\Album Name\ (And Disc number, if applicable.) Everything is organized exactly like this, always. If a song is from a video game, it will always be under \Video Game Music\. If it is from an anime show, it will always be under \Anime\. All electronic music that isn't from an anime show or video game goes under \Techno\. I don't bother to divide that by sub-genre. Any kind of classical music (you know what I'm talking about) goes under \Classical\. I also do not divide this by sub-genre. \Rock\ is for rock, and \Pop\ is kind of a catchall folder for anything that doesn't fit in the other folders. Knowing this, and, of course, having all of the album names memorized, and what genre they belong to, I can find anything I want in seconds.

This kind of organization scheme simply isn't possible with the default iPod OS. But Rockbox makes it a reality.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I just prefer to nagivate my hierarchal directory structure. I've been doing it that exact way ever since I encoded my very first Mp3 file, and I don't plan on changing any time soon. I like to know exactly where everything is, what is in each folder, how they're named and labeled, etc. I like to be in full control of my files and my iPod is no exception. I'm really very anal about how my files are organized.

The biggest thing that bothered me was trying to organize multi-disc OSTs. With my system, I can just click on the album name and navigae to \Disc 1\, \Disc 2\, etc, but I couldn't find an easy way to do this with iTunes and the default iPod OS, so I ended up having to make each disc into its own album, which just cluttered up my list.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Maybe for you, but not for me. I've never had any problems with my system. It's fast, smooth, clean, and efficient, and I will never give it up. I don't even want to be bothered with tagging files. I've never done it, have never felt the need to do it, and wouldn't care at all if ID3 tags had never been invented.

To me, file-tree is more intuitive and people who are in control of their PCs will have no problems controlling what's where on them.

Besides, iTunes is the exact opposite of organized, regardless of how well your files are tagged. It puts all of the files in random directories like F00 or A03 and gives the files random names like A0204.mp3, and mixes files from different albums into single folders. You call that organized? I prefer inflexible and rigid; rigid like the internal structure of a diamond, because in the end, it's easier for me to remember where everything is located and how to find it.

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Whenever WinFS debuts, believe you and me they'll be trying to de-emphasize the folder as the basic unit of organization.

That will be the day I will have to start weaning myself off of my computer, hah!

I just had a thought. I wonder if one's preference for metadata-based or file-tree based organization is a result of that person's memory? I have a very good memory and I know where everything is on my computer. Navigating to any one file or directory isn't ever a problem, and never has been, which is why tagging files is a moot point for me. There's no need for me to, and it would only be a waste of time.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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You've never used iTunes, have you? iTunes easily handles disc numbers without having to change the album name, whereas Windows Media Player doesn't, and is a major frustration for me with my Zen Vision:M and game soundtracks.

I used iTunes for a long, long time before I installed Rockbox. I am aware of the "Disc Number X of X" entry, but I still couldn't find a way to organize an album into separate discs, like this:

Cardcaptor Sakura Complete Vocal Collection\
\Disc 1
\Disc 2
\Disc 3
\Disc 4

I tried everything and never could get it to work the way I wanted. I tried tagging my Chrono Trigger songs with Disc 1 of 3, 3 of 3, etc tags, but it didn't work. Perhaps I was doing something wrong. In any case, even if it had worked perfectly, I would still have installed Rockbox, because iTunes is clunky and messes up my organization.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Why? Because that's how I organize my albums. If there is more than one disc, I create a subdirectory for each disc, instead of lumping them all together in the same folder.

Like this:



I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by killmoms

Gah! Terrifying.

Lack of tagging aside, file-tree is not at all intuitive. It's completely learned. Think of how your brain works—the way it connects pieces of information together. The categories we create for things aren't concrete within our own heads. That's why we can make mix CDs, to continue using music as an example: we can see relationships between things that are fluid and flexible. The whole point of digital music is to get all our stuff OFF discrete discs and INTO one big playground where it's more accessible, flexible.

This is why metadata-focused filesystems (especially once these become networked, which will happen both with Leopard and whenever WinFS arrives) will be infinitely superior. We can use the folder as a rough form of organization, but true power will come with saved queries, especially once adding metadata to our files becomes semi-automated or just an automatic behavior. Network-searchable metadata indexes mean that our particular method of organization (which might not jive with someone else's) will be unimportant—we can still find stuff as we think of it.

As desktop/network filesystem search technology becomes more and more refined and technology progresses, I think we'll find that the searchable metadata world really is easier—because it more closely mimics how we think. The folder/file analogy came from the hierarchical organization systems of yesteryear. As we've moved forward, we've found that information which becomes not statically categorized but searchable and contextually linked to other similar information to be MUCH more useful! Think: the web. Think: wikis. And this is only scratching the surface.

Maybe how your brain works... I can't say I've ever thought this way in relation to my computer's files. I tend to think about things, well, more... sequentially? ABCDEFG man, not ABCG. There is a place for everything and everything has its place, that's what I always say. Not only is my computer organized as such, but so is my house, my workspace, my room, and everything around me.

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It really just has to do with whether you're capable of storing that hierarchy in your head. If you are, that's great. Not everyone is, and even if they are, some would rather not, like me. Why should I have to set up and remember a structure? Why waste that capacity when I can just search for things, or set up saved queries to group similar files? I think that the static file hierarchy is one of those "old guard-isms," something that "technologically literate" people hold onto and (intentionally or no) lord over those who can't or don't want to be bothered.

I've never bothered to remember a hierarchy. It just happens. If I install a program into a certain directory, I never forget where it is. If I put a certain album into a certain part of the structure, I will always remember where it is. (Because anime music always goes in the anime folder, and the same for other genres and their folders, and of course, I would never forget the album name either.) Once the initial structure is set up, you know that everything from that point on will always follow that structure. You only have to memorize it once.

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And in 10 years, I'm sure we'll look back on the file/folder-only system of computer navigation as similarly antiquated and silly. "Why did we ever do it that way?" we'll ask ourselves. And the long-haired tech geeks will go "I LIKED IT BETTER THAT WAY!" and the more normal among us will just keep using what will be, I believe, a better, easier, and more efficient system.

Hehe, maybe you'll look back on it as silly, but I will still be using it as long as it is allowed. Hopefully, searching for files using metadata will be optional, and people like me can completely disregard it. Then everyone is happy and we can all be friends.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Yeah. I hope nobody took my inane ramblings personally, heh.

FELIPE NO

You can organize them by Album, or by Genre, or by Artist name (or whatever), but you can't organize them in precisely the way I mentioned, (In a hierarchal directory structure with sub-directories for genres, albums, and discs) to my knowledge. Did you see the image of my folder structure? Tell me how, using the default iPod OS, and iTunes, to organize my songs, exactly like that, so that, when navigating using the default iPod OS, I will be able to browse through them in exactly that way. (Just as if I were going through my hard drive in Windows.)

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Add a disc number to the Id4 tags and the iPod will sort the stuff by Disc/Track #s.

I tried that, it didn't work. I tested it with my Chrono Trigger album. All of the disc numbers were properly entered, (as well as all of the rest of the information) but it still only sorted all of the songs under "Chrono Trigger OST". What I wanted, was when I clicked on "Albums" in the main menu, and then selected a multi-disc album, was for it to go to a sub-screen with each of the discs listed separately. Then I could pick the disc I wanted to listen to. But I couldn't find a way to do that.

But, even if I could now, it doesn't matter. All of that is in the past, and I'll never have to worry about it again.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

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There isn't.

Oh, I know you can't. But Mucknuggle said I could, so...

Also, no album exists in more than one genre folder. And navigating is no problem. Let's say I'm in the second level directory, this is what I see

\Anime\
\Classical\
\Comedy\
\Pop\
\Rock\
\Techno\
\Video Game Music\

I can just go to Anime and then to Azumanga Daioh OST. Or if I canted to play some Jet'sN'Guns, I just press back twice, and go to Video Game Music, and then to Jet's'N'Guns. See, simple.

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I've always used ascending numbers for the tracks on second and third discs (eg. 14-28 on the second disc, 29-46 on the third, etc.) This always help keep things in order. Now doing this can't really be automated, so you'd have to work at it.

I actually used to do this for some multi-disc albums, but it was such a pain in the ass that I quit.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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I don't see what's different about using the Genre menu item. It's the same on an iPod. If I browse to it, I can just hit back up to Genre, to go Game, and get to a Game OST. Simple. AND I get other options, like to browse the full list of artists, without picking a genre first.

True. Except for the fact that I actually have to go to the trouble of filling out all of the tags. Besides, there are other reasons I installed Rockbox. The primary reason being Musepack, OGG, and FLAC support.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

No, it's still portable. The amp is barely bigger than the iPod itself (it actually weighs less), and I can fit both of them in my pocket. The IEMs themselves are very diminutive as well, easily shoved in a pocket.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Initially, I did add the disc number to the Album name. So when I clicked on "Albums" I would see something like:

Cardcaptor Sakura Complete Vocal Collection Disc 1
Cardcaptor Sakura Complete Vocal Collection Disc 2
Cardcaptor Sakura Complete Vocal Collection Disc 3
Cardcaptor Sakura Complete Vocal Collection Disc 4

But when I did this for multiple albums, it started making the list a lot longer than I really wanted it to be. What I wanted was a sub-directory under "Cardaptor Sakura Complete Vocal Collection" that just had "Disc 1, Disc 2, etc.

Now I have that.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?