Digital Audio Player
July 3rd, 2005
I’ve finally taken the plunge and ordered a digital music player. Sharp-minded readers will recall that I’m not a fan of the iPod and so for some time I’ve been looking out for an alternative. And for anyone who needs reminding, my beef with Apple’s player is that it inserts short gaps between tracks. This isn’t a problem if you’re enjoying the latest from Side Guitar Fretwank* because there are gaps between the tracks anyway and a little extra goes unnoticed. But should you have matured beyond angst-ridden-teen and are listening to some proper music, an audible break in an otherwise seamless mix of wholesome house is very, very bad. Why, Apple, why?! Shortly after discovering this whilst listening to Lara’s iPod I realised that I wasn’t going to be joining the white ear-bud brigade anytime soon (not that I would anyway though, those earphones are awful).
Some Googling over the weekend lead me first to lots of people with the same issue and then to the exact site I had been looking for: A site which not only articulated the problem in exacting detail (complete with imaged waveforms illustrating the problem) but also provided a solution: The iPod wasn’t the only machine on test, there was another which passed with flying codecs. It played back not only mp3’s but also the open source Ogg Vorbis files I’m considering for my rip archive. Decision made, one is now en-route.
Rio Karma, come to me.
Check out the article – I found the increasingly exasperated tone with Apple particularly amusing. If you don’t have time to read the whole piece, at least check the future proof your music section down at the bottom (this is for the specific benefit of some of my friends – you know who you are):
"If you buy music from the iTunes store you’d better be really, really sure that for the rest of your life you’re only going to buy Apple music players because it looks likely right now that nothing else will play them"
And as far as nail head hitting goes, how about this:
"If you care about album playback then don’t make the same mistake I did and definitely don’t rely on the fact that Apple may one day improve their firmware because they don’t seem to care. Still, the iPod does look pretty cool so if that’s all you’re worried about then go for it!"
My Karma’s coming from Amazon for £130 – not bad for a 20Gb player and thanks to the generosity of my former colleagues at Bernard Hodes, quite a bit less than that out of my pocket. Although I promptly blew well over the saving on a pair of Shure E3C’s after this review of high fidelity in-ear headphones.
The Karma might look a bit dated and I confess to a slight sting to my pride at it’s less than stellar looks (a colour screen would have been nice), but quite simply it does the job. And everybody who has a Karma seems to love it.
Right, time to slot in that spare 80Gb disc I’ve had hanging around. Now then, mp3, Ogg or FLAC? And how can I share an archive with Lara’s iPod?
*Post script: Side Guitar Fretwank was a derogatory generic indie band name used by the NME, once, in 1993. Even as a naive student I recognised the usefulness of such a label and the phrase entered our lexicon. Now I immediately dismiss any derivative indie nonsense that happens to be on TV as Side Guitar Fretwank. If it helps at all, think of Keane as the Side Guitar Fretwank archtype. Or Coldplay.