>Portable music – Apple iPodshuffle

>I’ve been evaluating devices that allow me to carry my music around with me. I’ve been using the iPod for a couple of years now. I’ve listened to other people’s MP3 devices (crap). But, I have to write this, the Apple iPodshuffle is far better than anything I’ve heard! It’s amazing in this day and age, that somewhere (either in algorithms or electronics) there can be such a substantial difference in sound quality. What have they done? I don’t know, but, for example, listening to some Clapton tracks today on the iShuffle, I could even hear a conversation in the back during the recording! I have the same data on my iPod, but on that one it cannot be heard. Same thing if I take the original CD and play it in any of the Hi-Fi systems around the house – you can’t hear it. Most amazing though was, that when I was out walking my dog (as usual…), the iShuffle picked a track from my Final Year Project in 1975 (Radiata Mortificata, third movement). It sounded EXACTLY the way I remember it from mixing the master – reel-to-reel, tape 30 years ago. Apple! – you’re on to something good here 😉

[Steve Jobs, if you read this, we’re open for consultancy! I’d love to do a hack that contributes to Apple’s mission]

4 Comments

- Keith
- Posted 2005/02/17 at 21:17
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>I’ve been blown away by mine too. It has so little harmonic distortion, I can’t believe my ears. And the bass response is incredible compared to the HD based iPods.I’m wondering if it has something got to do with the headphones. Ever since I switched from my 2G iPod headphones to a pair of sennheisers the sound quality has dramatically increased. But I find myself being really surprised with the quality of these new white earbuds that come with the shuffle. I listen to a lot of Podcasts, the major problem with these is there extreme low bitrate compression. But since using the shuffle, it copes with the compression artefacts much better than my ipod does (Even with the sennheisers!!) It seems to filter a lot of that Hi-Freq jingle you get on a shitty bitrate.Also it still follows the same on-disk organisation as it’s bigger brothers! This means you can still access the ipod_control folder from the terminal and download your songs back to your mac should you need to. I was extremely impressed with this one!
- Lui
- Posted 2005/02/18 at 17:28
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>Just got one…Already in love with it!My Nick Drake cds sound fantastic on it…you can hear fingers being moved on guitar strings!I also like how you can easily partition it in separate sections for data and music. I kept 200MB for data storage and filled the rest with music…
- John Pearson
- Posted 2005/03/15 at 12:17
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>You may be interested in this analysis of the sonic capabilities of various music players, including the shuffle. It seems fairly impressive…http://home.comcast.net/~machrone/playertest/playertest.htmJP
- brian
- Posted 2005/03/30 at 09:57
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>The ad itself makes me want one, this added piece of information might make it a future purchase.

Mikael Fernstrom