We just bought an iPod, and by extension have just started using iTunes. We love it, and were thinking that since we are moving to a small Manhattan apartment soon, it might be a good idea to just transfer all of our CDs to iTunes and solely use our computer (which is brand new and has a great sound system, subwoofer, etc.) as our stereo.
We could rid ourselves of the clutter of CDs, and still choose which songs to put on the iPod while having everything else (we have a lot more than 5000 songs) on our computer. We could still do shuffle, or choose to listen to an entire CD just like we could before anyway.
Just wondering: has anyone here ever done this? Are there any drawbacks we can’t think of? Or was it as great as it sounds?
If you listen to music while working on your computer, some CPU-intensive tasks will interfere with music playback, and vice versa. It may be better if you hooked up your iPod to the speakers.
What scr4 said - iTunes is a lovely program, but it’s definitely a bit more CPU-intensive than one might like. It only really becomes a factor though if you’re doing other things at the same time that take up almost all of your computer’s capacity.
Also, there is some small difference in sound quality between a 128kbps encoding (the default iTunes encoding quality, “near-CD”) and CD quality that you may or may not be able to pick up on a good stereo system, depending on a lot of things. It’s nothing major, but I pick it up sometimes when I’ve been listening to all my music on my computer for a while and then put a CD in for one reason or another. For everyday use, though, it’s nowhere near enough to make up for the ridiculous convenience factor.
If your computer sound system is as good as you describe, I say go for it
Using a computer as a jukebox is a great idea–having potentially thousands of CD’s “on-hand” to choose to play, coupled with being able to easily make and use playlists means you often end up listening to a lot of music you normally wouldn’t.
The problem with using a computer program as your only jukebox is that it may (in some cases) install DRM onto any songs that you buy over it (on iTunes music service) or convert/rip with it (off your own CD’s). If the terms of use changes later on, they may change the player software, it will update automatically when you get online, and before you know about it you may not be able to play songs you have already paid for. (recall the Divx disk player fiasco ) So if you are wise, you will not buy files through a DRM-enabled music service, or generate them with a DRM-enabled program (such as iTunes or Windows Media Player).
I don’t know anything about iTunes, but part of what makes a music file sound good is the bit-rate. For normal MP3’s, 192 Kb/sec sounds good to my ears, and 128 Kb/sec sounds lousy. If the bit-rate is too low, the cymbals sound warbly and garbled.
Also note that there really are no “great” PC audiophile speakers. Even the best ones are made to be compact, and so sound somewhat lacking in tonal balance. I have the Klipsch 2.1’s (200 watts, $150), they are the nicest-sounding ones I’ve heard and they shake the walls for gaming, but the sound overall is not right: in particular, they don’t have enough regular bass. The high and midrange frequencies sound about right, but the lower frequencies are lacking and the very-low are overemphasized. You can EQ the sound right for one song, but then the next song comes on, from a different album and band, and then that song doesn’t sound right, so you need to mess with the EQ again. Or ignore it. In short, with PC speakers the whole entire frequency range just doesn’t balance right overall. If you want truly great sound, your best bet is still to run your PC’s sound to a regular amp and hear it through regular home-stereo speakers.
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[audiophile snob]Your computer does not have a great sound system.[/audiophile snob]
But seriously, using a dedicated sound system will give you much better sound quality. On the other hand, if you’re okay with the quality you get from your computer speakers, go for it.
I forgot to mention, but it’s pretty important so I should, w.r.t. quality… how large is your collection, and what’s the capacity on your iPod? The iPod advertised song capacity is for 128kbps recordings, but it’s obviously possible/easy to encode with iTunes or any other program at 192 (or higher), which, as DougC says, definitely sounds much better for most stuff. However, if you have a largeish music collection and a smallish iPod, this will give you issues.
I don’t suggest using Itunes’ built in mp3 encoder to rip your Cds. If you have a mac install the lame mp3 itunes plug in. If you’re on PC i’d suggest Exact Audio Copy(EAC) + lame mp3 plug in to rip CD’s. Lame mp3 Sounds alot better to my ears.
If you’re going to use Itunes to rip then I suggest ripping in mp3 format and not AAC. While AAC is supposed to be superior to mp3 it isn’t compatible with most mp3 players. This way you won’t be restricted to an IPOD for your next mp3 player.
Itunes has an incredibly annoying habit of cutting off the names of songs(at the 36th character I believe) when the ID3 tags aren’t properly filled out. This isn’t a concern with you use a program to rip a CD, but if you already have mp3s on your computer then it gets real annoying real quick.
Itunes’ self organizing system works great, but you can’t dictate what the system looks like. It’s always Itunes/Artist/album/song.
Get a remote control. RF perferably(works through walls) or IR(line of sight).
To a power user like me, Itunes is restricting vs winamp. Winamp is modular and has many useful plugins. Itunes does not. You can do almost nothing to itunes, or with itunes other then it’s built in functionality(which I admit is fairly comprehensive). For example it’s impossible to map hotkeys. It’s impossible to make a search without moving the damn mouse. etc…
I’ve heard that winamp 5 + a few plugins gives you compatibility with the ipod. It’ll do everything Itunes does except smart playlists. (it’ll also let you take data OFF the ipod…)
Thanks for the responses so far; we seem to be cut pretty much down the middle. To clarify a few things: I’m definitely not an audiophile; although I can definitely tell the difference between 56 and 128 bit-rates, I can’t tell much difference between 128 and 192. Having said that though, I already have LAME, and can rip at up to 320. So I suppose I could do that.
To answer kiros’s questions: Our CD collection is pretty big, I guess. Probably around 600 CDs, and most of them are musical theatre and therefore twice as long (or longer) than a normal CD. But, am I correct in saying that the only thing limiting the number of songs you can put on iTunes is the size of your hard drive? The iPod we bought has a limit of 5,000 songs, or 20GB, but iTunes itself, as far as I know, is limitless unless you run out of space on your computer, which ain’t gonna happen.
I think I was trying to take into the consideration the whole small-apartment-in-Manhattan thing too… I’m not trying to blast anyone out of their homes here, and we don’t usually listen to the type of music that one tends to blast out anyway. So I think the computer’s sound system, as long as the bit-rate is acceptable, should be okay. But I don’t want to do it if it’s going to affect other programs I’ll be running at the same time, either.
Unless you do video editing, video encoding, or play intensive games then Itunes won’t suck up enough CPU power to affect anything(of course winamp WILL use less).
Itunes is indeed limitless.
Rough calculation you’ll need about 42 gigs to fit 600 cd’s.
Aye, iTunes is limitless… just with a collection that large, you’ll need to make sure you have that storage space available, and the amount of space you need goes up and up as you increase the encoding quality. You’re looking at probably 50% more size (approx 1.5 MB per minute of audio vs. approx 1 MB/minute) in moving from 128 to 192 kbps, for instance. Just have to make sure you set aside that extra 80 gig hard drive for media
Harmonix is correct in saying that the applications iTunes will interfere with are limited. Gaming is my problem - when I get my system going near full capacity, iTunes tends to get a little squeezed where WinAmp generally doesn’t. It’s not a problem for anything that isn’t extremely system intensive.
I don’t know about iTunes specifically, but the digital jukebox is definitely the way to go. I don’t think I’ve listened to a CD for a couple years now. Even when I buy a CD, I don’t listen to it… I listen to the OGGs. I think I have about 4 days of music on my laptop… which is a small collection. I don’t download great bunches of infringing MP3s, though, so that might affect my collection size.
I use WinDAC for ripping and OggDropXpD for encoding. WinAmp for playback. Ogg may limit your choices on portability, but its popularity is increasing steadily. Better/smaller files than MP3 in any event.
I suppose once I upgrade to a newer laptop in a couple of years, I’ll go buy an RCA boondoggle and hook this one up to a stereo.
DougC, WinAmp can be setup to auto-load a preset custom equalization for each track.
I agree. I much prefer Winamp5 to clunky old iTunes. Global hotkeys and the “J” and “Q” keys make it worth it. I also use the iPod plug-in, which is far more flexible than iTunes.
I dumped my CD collection a few years ago. I plug a laptop into a receiver in the lounge, which is the same sound system as our TV/DVD player. Never had a problem with CPU usage.
I don’t have an iPod, but I’ve ripped all my CD’s to iTunes, which I play through my regular stereo - a fairly small little modular Panasonic with a chunky amp and speakers. I’ve also got my record player, Xbox and DVD hooked up there, and I’m absurdly proud of my jury-rigged home entertainment system.
I store all my albums as separate playlists {as well as themed playlists like PUNK, MELLOW and RAWK} so I can call them up whenever I want to listen to “Who’s Next”, but where it really wins is as a jukebox, or as I prefer to think of it, my own private radio station: I’ve got about 7 days worth of music there, so set it to “shuffle” and I get all my songs on continuous play with no ads or DJ banter. The great thing is all the half-forgotten groovy songs off albums you haven’t played in years that keep popping up unexpectedly.
It’s a good plan, although I still keep hard copies of all my CD’s - unlikely, but if your hard drive ever goes west you don’t want to be replacing your entire music collection. I wouldn’t use the computer speakers, either: even the best of them are just too tinny for a decent sound, even in a small apartment. If you haven’t already got one, I’d suggest getting a semi-decent stereo mini system with a reasonable amp and speakers and just plugging the audio output in there.
I really like the winamp fadein/out, but what gets me is the inconsistent normalisation, unlike iTunes. iTunes is a real resource hog, and it doesn’t have hotkeys, but at least the normalisation is good, and the ratings/smart playlist seems to be better than winamp.
Yeah, I learned that one the hard way back in university, and everyone has a story of someone who left their entire Master’s thesis on a laptop in the car, and then had it nicked. Inconvenience aside, it would cost me a fortune to replace my entire CD collection, if I could even find half of it in stores. KEEP THE CD’S - out’em in storage if space is a problem.
Most of the responses here seem to be from people who are using the PC version of iTunes. Right? I have a PowerBook, with about 6 days worth of music on it. I recently got the Apple Airport Express wireless thingy, which lets me play music through my stereo wirelessly. There’s a standard audio-out jack on the Airport, which plugs into my amp. It’s great, constant music and no wires.
